Hearing this from your own child is incredibly painful. Is there anything you can do about it? We figure it out together with our expert Pavel Taruntaev, a child psychologist of the Interesting Kindergarten network.
Children and parents are about love. Should be about love. But in these relationships, sometimes there is so much hatred that it becomes even scary. After all, this is your most dear person whom you love simply because he is. And he hits the most painful. Here are two typical stories – different, but equally terrible for moms.
“At the age of three, she hated her father. Now she is five years old, she hates me, explaining that I scold her and beat her. He speaks to me in an extremely capricious, aggressive tone. Calls bad words that she learned in kindergarten. Trying to wean her from bad vocabulary, I punish. For example, I say: I will hear this word again – you will go to another room. I tried to apologize for the mistreatment if I offended her. She confessed her love. All to no avail: cries and says that he will not forgive. He tries his best to prick me, offend me. What to do? Ignore? Be stricter? Pamper? Wait until it passes by itself? “
“When I was 17, I met my future husband, he was 10 years older than me. He turned out to be a drunken alcoholic. I tried to re-educate him, gave birth to a son. The husband ran away. In general, she herself is to blame, but that is why it is not easier. There was no moral or financial help from anyone. I went to work in another city. Mom could drink and forget about her grandson. As soon as this happened, I returned and did not let her go to my son again. She took the child with her. We lived in a rented room. He went to the garden. Even then, he began to have hysterics, if something did not work out or did not go as he wanted. He was quite small, and instead of helping him, I was angry with him, scolded, he shouted and stamped his feet. I couldn’t hold back and beat him.
Then I found a good job, I was not there from morning until late at night. He was with nannies and girlfriends. He became aggressive, learned to lie at the age of four. I understand he was looking for my attention, he is a very open boy, but his laughter was heard less and less. I love him very much, but I scolded and forbade him a lot. Again, she raised her hand, and also insulted.
And then it dawned on me what I was doing with my son. He is in 4th grade, grades are above average, he does not respect me. That’s right, but for what? We fight every day.
My son now hates me and says that it’s my fault, he is 10 years old, and we didn’t cope with hysterics. When he says no, he screams and stomps his feet. He doesn’t behave like that with his aunt and grandmother. I am very ashamed in front of him and sorry that I cripple his life. “
“I am a bad mother” – this is the diagnosis both of these women make to themselves. But maybe this is not entirely true and something else can be fixed? To understand this, you must first understand why we hear such words.
Most often, “I hate” sounds in the heat of an argument. Often because we ourselves do not know how to talk to our own children. We habitually stand on the leading level: the parent is the king, he can punish and reward, order and demand. And we completely forget that the child must be treated as an equal – after all, he is a separate person with his own feelings and needs.
A child often talks about hatred because he does not know how to express his feelings towards an adult otherwise and uses those phrases that he heard somewhere and is somewhat similar in meaning. For “I hate you” can hide a variety of genuine feelings of a child: grief, anger, annoyance, resentment and even sadness. Therefore, do not close yourself off from him when you hear offensive words. Talk to your baby about his feelings, find out what he is really experiencing. “You’re so angry. What made you angry? You still wanted to play and that’s why you are angry with me that it’s time to go home? “
With such conversations, we help him not only to more accurately define his feelings, but also to express them concretely. As a rule, when a child says something like that, the reason lies precisely in this – in the wrong wording. In addition, up to 5-6 years old (or even older), children do not invest in such offensive phrases that deep meaning and meaning as we adults do.
A child can also behave in a similar way due to excessive pressure, excessive demands on him. Resentment, anger and bitterness accumulate in him, from time to time expressed in protest reactions, unpleasant words, open aggression, etc. In this case, you need to think about whether it is worth revising the system of upbringing in the family? Has education not turned into suppression?
In my practice, there was a case when a boy, when his mother was forbidden to watch another cartoon, said that he would jump out of the window to “hurt my mother as much as she hurts him.” Resentment accumulated in him for a long time and resulted in a phrase (heard, by the way, from my grandmother) on a seemingly trifling occasion. And, naturally, the six-year-old boy did not have genuine suicidal tendencies, but there was a strong desire to “take revenge”.
A child who is brought up in a family where parents are not fully confident in themselves and their decisions can also say “I hate you”. There are no such concepts as acceptable behavior, respect, respect for other people’s boundaries, parental authority. The child feels that he can behave this way, he is allowed to. By the way, with the help of such tricks, the child can try (often quite successfully) to manipulate the parents, forcing them to somehow prove their love.
The reason may be a weak emotional connection with the child – then at least with “bad”, “evil” phrases and negative behavior in general, he tries to attract the attention of his parents. He may greatly lack parental warmth and care.
If you have heard such a phrase from your child, in no case answer rudely or aggressively: “I will ask you to talk to your mother like that!” Such behavior will not help either you or the child in any way, and it is easy to spoil an already unpleasant situation a little.
1. We help the child through conversation to understand his own feelings and correctly and adequately express them: “You are upset that I accidentally broke your house. I’ll fix everything now. ”
2. We avoid reciprocal aggression and manipulations like: “Since you do not love me, then I will leave you forever.” We remain calm and understand the situation, rather than attacking in response.
3. We do not allow the child to manipulate us with such phrases. You should not allow your child to do something that you just forbade because he “will not love you.” Explain the reason for the ban and discuss the child’s feelings.
4. You should definitely think about whether it is worth changing something in your relationship with your child. Maybe he is under too much pressure or we do not appreciate his small and big successes? Or, on the contrary, the child is allowed too much, maybe the boundaries of the relationship are too blurred?
As practice shows (fortunately or unfortunately), often, no matter how parents treat their children, they love them. But etching love methodically, drop by drop, every day is easy. And the result is disastrous.