What to do when your son tell you he hates you.

My son sometimes snaps and start telling me or my wife that he hate me
or her.

It usually happens when he does not follow our orders, such as take a
bath or get out of the bathroom because it is time to sleep, or he
wants something we are not willing to give him, such as toy.

We usually try to talk to him, negotiate about other activities that
he will not do if he persist on his behavior, warn him minutes ahead
that we will be moving to other activities, etc.

However, this is very difficult and frustrating. Moreover when we are
respectful of his decisions and tastes. We try to give him this he
loves and spend time with him. We also try to give him moral values
such as be nice with people, respect other people and your family, and
so on.

We usually ask to stop saying this kind of things calm down and
breath. Sometimes it works, sometime it does not. At most we ask him
to go to his room and wait until he is calm and talk to him again. In
addition, we punish him not watching TV for few days and become very
cold when we talk to him. He usually respond fine to this kind of
treatment. But I hate to do this. I would like to have a nice
conversation and fluent relationship with my son.

Suggestion are more than welcome!.

On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 02:39:41 -0000, A father willing to talk! wrote:

My son sometimes snaps and start telling me or my wife that he hate me
or her.

It usually happens when he does not follow our orders, such as take a
bath or get out of the bathroom because it is time to sleep, or he
wants something we are not willing to give him, such as toy.

We usually try to talk to him, negotiate about other activities that
he will not do if he persist on his behavior, warn him minutes ahead
that we will be moving to other activities, etc.

I think that's where your problem is. You need to not give it so much
attention. If DS did this, I'd send him to his room. He could not come
out until he appologizes and speaks to me in a more appropriate manner.

We usually ask to stop saying this kind of things calm down and
breath. Sometimes it works, sometime it does not. At most we ask him
to go to his room and wait until he is calm and talk to him again. In
addition, we punish him not watching TV for few days and become very
cold when we talk to him.

I don't think you need to go to that extent with the punishments. If you
immediately ignore him (i.e., don't talk to him or otherwise interact with
him in any way), that should have the desired effect, but it may take a
while. That's why I'd send DS to his room, it's easier to ignore him
there. That means you must ignore him immediately, not reason and plead
with him and ask him to stop.

A father willing to talk! wrote:
My son sometimes snaps and start telling me or my wife that he hate me
or her.

snip

We usually ask to stop saying this kind of things calm down and
breath. Sometimes it works, sometime it does not. At most we ask him
to go to his room and wait until he is calm and talk to him again. In
addition, we punish him not watching TV for few days and become very
cold when we talk to him. He usually respond fine to this kind of
treatment. But I hate to do this. I would like to have a nice
conversation and fluent relationship with my son.

Suggestion are more than welcome!.

You are putting way too much emphasis on this. This
isn't about you. You're a grown up. You can deal with the
fact that your son occasionally loses his temper and says things
he shouldn't say (and doesn't really mean). You can't react
to this emotionally and feel hurt because he does this. Yes,
what he's doing isn't nice, but he's a *kid* and you're an
adult. You need to let it roll off your back. Calmly send him
to his room or whatever until he calms down and is willing to
engage in civil discourse, but going on with days of punishment
isn't going to get you anywhere. You're taking an unfortunate
comment uttered in a heated moment and treating it as though
it were a rational, willful, planned attack on you. In fact,
if the conversation has gotten to the point where he's going
to start lashing out like that, it should have been shut down
well before that, with *both* of you disengaging and having
some time to cool down. You were well past the point of having
a useful conversation by that point, so really all you were
doing is trying to control him and keep pushing until he
knuckled under. Kids pretty much never react well to that.
Keep *your* cool, disengage before it gets to this
point, don't take it personally, and don't dish out long term
punishments for situations where he's lost his temper after
an interaction has been pushed further than it should have
been in the first place. Take action when things *start*
going downhill. Make a measured, calm decision about
consequences when necessary, and implement them for the
original infraction. Then, don't keep dishing out increasing
punishments and letting things spiral downward. It's *your*
ego that wants to see him submit to you, and you're pushing
him into a situation where he'd just as soon cut off his
nose to spite his face. A kid with a temper *really*
needs to see you remain calm and measured in the face of
his provocations. It's very destructive for him to see
that he can get you dancing to *his* tune, with your blood
pressure skyrocketing, as he gets more and more defiant.
Also, I'm not sure what you mean by saying you
"become very cold when we talk to him." Do you mean that you
use a calm, authoritative voice when telling him he needs
to go to his room until he calms down? Or do you mean that
you use that icy, withering tone of voice and distance yourself
from him for some period of time as part of his punishment?
If the latter, I don't think that's a good tactic. Anger
and frustration and distancing on his part need to be met
with calm and stability and love on your part, or you
can quickly spiral into a very dysfunctional relationship.
Withholding warmth and affection for transgressions doesn't
lead to respect. It just chips away at the foundation of
your relationship.
I think we all struggle with these things. It's
very hard to remain calm in the face of hearing ugly things
from your kids, and it does hit you right in the gut. You
just have to understand that they're young and immature and
(barring unusual situations) this doesn't mean that they
*really* hate you, or even that they're making a calculated
decision to wound you. It usually just means you've cornered
them and they're lashing out unthinkingly.

Best wishes,
Ericka

In article .com,
A father willing to talk! wrote:

My son sometimes snaps and start telling me or my wife that he hate me
or her.

It usually happens when he does not follow our orders, such as take a
bath or get out of the bathroom because it is time to sleep, or he
wants something we are not willing to give him, such as toy.

My DS1 is six and when he does that, I ignore it: he's just saying that he's
angry with me. He doesn't understand "hate" any more than he understands
"genocide" or "adultery".

If you make a fuss about it, it will happen more often.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/

Chookie schrieb:
In article .com,
A father willing to talk! wrote:

My son sometimes snaps and start telling me or my wife that he hate me
or her.

It usually happens when he does not follow our orders, such as take a
bath or get out of the bathroom because it is time to sleep, or he
wants something we are not willing to give him, such as toy.

My DS1 is six and when he does that, I ignore it: he's just saying that he's
angry with me. He doesn't understand "hate" any more than he understands
"genocide" or "adultery".

If you make a fuss about it, it will happen more often.


I agree. A speech therapist (and wonderful person/teacher for me) once
told me "When children say 'I wish you were dead' they just mean they
wish you'd leave them alone for a while." and I think it's the same with
the "I hate you" and "You've ruined my life" and all that kind of stuff.
They don't understand what hate or death _really_ means, and to be
honest, don't we sometimes tell people "I hate you" when we really don't
mean that as a life long promise but more as an "I'm so angry I could
explode"?

So yeah, I agree. Keep calm, give both of you a time out and remember to
breathe.

cu
nicole

In article .com, A father
willing to talk! says...

My son sometimes snaps and start telling me or my wife that he hate me
or her.

It usually happens when he does not follow our orders, such as take a
bath or get out of the bathroom because it is time to sleep, or he
wants something we are not willing to give him, such as toy.

We usually try to talk to him, negotiate about other activities that
he will not do if he persist on his behavior, warn him minutes ahead
that we will be moving to other activities, etc.

However, this is very difficult and frustrating. Moreover when we are
respectful of his decisions and tastes. We try to give him this he
loves and spend time with him. We also try to give him moral values
such as be nice with people, respect other people and your family, and
so on.

We usually ask to stop saying this kind of things calm down and
breath. Sometimes it works, sometime it does not. At most we ask him
to go to his room and wait until he is calm and talk to him again. In
addition, we punish him not watching TV for few days and become very
cold when we talk to him. He usually respond fine to this kind of
treatment. But I hate to do this. I would like to have a nice
conversation and fluent relationship with my son.

Suggestion are more than welcome!.


He tells you he hates you??

gasp

HOW as good upstanding decent parents did you EVER expect to - - -

- -

- - - NOT hear that!! :-)

Here's what you do. Self-inoculate yourselves. Designate yourselves the Great
Asshole and Queen Bitch of the household. When he calls you names and says he
hates you, nod your head(s) and say "yup", and keep right on with whatever you
need to do.

Banty (whose son called her a "bitch" - and answered with "hmmmmm, and that
makes YOU.....?")

On Oct 22, 7:55 am, Banty wrote:

snip

Here's what you do. Self-inoculate yourselves. Designate yourselves the Great
Asshole and Queen Bitch of the household. When he calls you names and says he
hates you, nod your head(s) and say "yup", and keep right on with whatever you
need to do.

Banty (whose son called her a "bitch" - and answered with "hmmmmm, and that
makes YOU.....?")

Letting your son call you that without a severe punishment makes you a
wimp in my book. If my children called their mother that, she'd be
justified in slapping them. They ought to be frightened to even think
of saying such a thing. I never dreamed of calling my mother that,
even though like almost all people, there are times when she is
unpleasant.

A boy probably won't show women in general more respect than he shows
his mother. What kind of man do you want to raise?

On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 05:32:24 -0700, Beliavsky
wrote:

On Oct 22, 7:55 am, Banty wrote:

snip

Here's what you do. Self-inoculate yourselves. Designate yourselves the Great
Asshole and Queen Bitch of the household. When he calls you names and says he
hates you, nod your head(s) and say "yup", and keep right on with whatever you
need to do.

Banty (whose son called her a "bitch" - and answered with "hmmmmm, and that
makes YOU.....?")

Letting your son call you that without a severe punishment makes you a
wimp in my book. If my children called their mother that, she'd be
justified in slapping them. They ought to be frightened to even think
of saying such a thing. I never dreamed of calling my mother that,
even though like almost all people, there are times when she is
unpleasant.

A boy probably won't show women in general more respect than he shows
his mother. What kind of man do you want to raise?

Yet you advocate using violence against your child, which teaches lack
of respect, as well.

I think the whole point of Banty's post (and I may be wrong... I've
been known to, a time or two) was that the OP is over-reacting by
punishing a child for expressing a negative emotion.
In my opinion there are more adults in therapy now because their
parents didn't allow them to express or feel negative emotions.

Nan

In article . com, Beliavsky
says...

On Oct 22, 7:55 am, Banty wrote:

snip

Here's what you do. Self-inoculate yourselves. Designate yourselves the Great
Asshole and Queen Bitch of the household. When he calls you names and says he
hates you, nod your head(s) and say "yup", and keep right on with whatever you
need to do.

Banty (whose son called her a "bitch" - and answered with "hmmmmm, and that
makes YOU.....?")

Letting your son call you that without a severe punishment makes you a
wimp in my book.

That's an ego thing. A parent shouldn't be playing que-es-mas-macho.

If my children called their mother that, she'd be
justified in slapping them. They ought to be frightened to even think
of saying such a thing. I never dreamed of calling my mother that,
even though like almost all people, there are times when she is
unpleasant.

You never called your mother that because *she* was unpleasant?? Are you
referring to her disciplining you, or (because you say "..like almost all
people") just unpleasantness in general? You seem to be mixing up parenting and
being the adult with a minor child, with adult-adult interaction in general.
Which I think is exactly the problem here - adults taking *personally* what
immature kids say out of anger or to get a reaction. Because they think of what
they'd do or how they'd feel if a neighbor said the same thing. Wrong wrong
wrong.


A boy probably won't show women in general more respect than he shows
his mother. What kind of man do you want to raise?


He'll learn to respect her when she responds from a position of strength as a
calm centered adult. Not by her flipping out over it and getting all
hurt-feelings over it.

Banty

A father willing to talk! wrote:
My son sometimes snaps and start telling me or my wife that he hate me
or her.

It usually happens when he does not follow our orders, such as take a
bath or get out of the bathroom because it is time to sleep, or he
wants something we are not willing to give him, such as toy.

We usually try to talk to him, negotiate about other activities that
he will not do if he persist on his behavior, warn him minutes ahead
that we will be moving to other activities, etc.

However, this is very difficult and frustrating. Moreover when we are
respectful of his decisions and tastes. We try to give him this he
loves and spend time with him. We also try to give him moral values
such as be nice with people, respect other people and your family, and
so on.

We usually ask to stop saying this kind of things calm down and
breath. Sometimes it works, sometime it does not. At most we ask him
to go to his room and wait until he is calm and talk to him again. In
addition, we punish him not watching TV for few days and become very
cold when we talk to him. He usually respond fine to this kind of
treatment. But I hate to do this. I would like to have a nice
conversation and fluent relationship with my son.

Suggestion are more than welcome!.
Just ignore him when he says things like that. If he persists even after some
ofthe silent treatment, you need to give him a little flick on the lips.
Children should not disrespect their parents, regardless. The respect, or
lack of it, he shows to you will be what he gives to other people.

--
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