Exactly What To Say When Your Child Says “I Hate You,” According To Experts

Every parent has heard it before: “I hate you!” your kid shouts, before storming to their bedroom and slamming the door. Maybe they started with the “I hate yous” as a preschooler or they didn’t come around until the teen years. Either way, as a parent, it’s hard to know how to respond in the moment. Scary Mommy asked two child psychology experts exactly what to say when your child says “I hate you” that help de-escalate the moment and prevent you from saying something you regret too.

Why do kids say “I hate you” to their parents?

Great news: they don’t actually hate you; it’s just easier to find those words in the heat of the moment than, say, “I understand the boundary you’ve set but it causes me to have big, big feelings, Mom.”

“Those words may be describing the intensity of the moment more accurately than they’re describing the relationship,” says Dr. Missy Kleinz, licensed professional counselor, owner of Stardust Therapy, and creator of Big Feelings World. “‘I hate you’ might actually mean, ‘I hate that you said no.’ ‘I hate this boundary.’ ‘I hate this situation.’ ‘I hate that I can't have what I want.’ ‘I hate how I'm feeling right now.’ Especially when children are overwhelmed, they don't always have access to more precise language for everything that's happening underneath the reaction.

“I hate you” is a “weaponizing term,” according to Carol Calkins, LCSW, a psychotherapist based in Colorado. “They’re coming after you, pretty much. What’s happening is the frontal cortex has completely shut down. They’re responding because they’re so upset, angry, or hurt.”

If you’re hearing “I hate you” from a teen, take that with a grain of salt too, Calkins adds. This developmental stage of their lives is all about separating from parents (individuating, it’s called), and they’re testing limits that maybe they took no issue with before to see what power they have now.

Calkins and Kleinz agree that it’s normal to get your feelings hurt when your kid declares they hate you. You’ve poured your life into taking care of them and love them more than anything. If it’s any comfort, the fact that your kid feels safe enough to say they hate you is proof they actually don’t.

“When a child says, ‘I hate you,’ they’re telling you something good actually. You might be the safest person in the room to aim at; kids don’t weaponize against people they’re afraid of,” says Calkins.

It’s not your job to convince your child in this moment that they don’t actually hate you, Kleinz says, or even to figure out what they really meant by it or if they’re sorry. Instead, this is the moment to give both of you a pause to collect yourselves.

How Not To Respond When Your Kid Says “I Hate You”

On the heels of an “I hate you” is not the time to cave on the boundary you set that sparked your kid’s anger in the first place, Calkins says. It’s also not the time for a big lecture — they’ll be too flooded with emotion to hear it — or time to let your emotions get the best of you and fire back with a scathing remark. You should also never let an argument turn physical, she says.

How should you respond when your child says “I hate you?”

Both experts agree that when your kid lets an “I hate you!” fly, it’s your job to remain calm and simply de-escalate. Kleinz explains this process to her clients as a Feel, Pause, Choose response.

• Feel: “Notice your own reaction. That hurt. I'm angry. I'm sad. I feel rejected. You don't need to talk yourself out of the feeling. You're allowed to be hurt by what your child said, just like they're allowed to be hurt or angry about the situation itself,” she says.
• Pause: “Give yourself enough time to remember that there may be a story underneath those words. In that moment, they may be rejecting the boundary you set, the answer they didn't want, the situation they're in, or simply the way they're feeling.”
• Choose: “Respond to what's happening rather than immediately reacting to the words. That response can be very simple: ‘I can tell you're really upset with me right now. Do you want me to stay with you or give you some space?’”

In the moment, say something short and sweet like “I love you and I’ll always love you.” Then, give your kid time to cool down, Calkins says. Whether your kid wants space or to lay on you or have a hug, any of that is fine. But save talking about the moment until you’re both calm.

“Let’s say you come back, the child is calm and you say, ‘Geez, wow, that was a big feeling. I’m still here. I still love you, and you’re allowed to be mad at me, but I need you to talk to me in a way that isn’t so hurtful." And then you need to give them examples like, ‘I can listen to what you’re saying better when you say, ‘I am really mad at you right now’ as opposed to ‘I hate you.’”

You could also ask your child to walk back through the interaction with you, if they’re old enough to do so. Ask them if there’s anything else they want to say, and if they can find a way to express what they wanted to without being mean, says Calkins. This is also the time to apologize if you said anything you wish you hadn’t. Tell them you were heated and you wish you hadn’t said it, and offer up what you should have said instead. There’s major benefit in modeling to your kid how to repair the mistake they also just made, she advises.

With younger kids, it can be harder to determine what was really happening for them if they don’t have the language to explain it. You might have this conversation with markers and paper nearby and ask your child what color their feelings were, Calkins says.

“They might know, ‘I don’t actually hate Mom,’ without yet being able to explain they felt disappointed, powerless, frustrated, embarrassed, overwhelmed, or treated unfairly. You might ask, ‘Were you really angry that I said no?’ ‘Did it feel unfair?’ ‘Were you disappointed because you thought something different was going to happen?’ The child may say yes. They may say no. They may find a completely different word that fits better. We’re helping them become curious about their own experience and gradually develop more precise language for it. Over time, ‘I hate you’ might become ‘I’m really frustrated.’ ‘I'm disappointed.’ ‘I hate that you said no.’ ‘That feels unfair.’ ‘I want to be alone right now,’” Kleinz says.

These conversations matter for both of you. Your child needs to learn how to describe their feelings, and you deserve not to be treated like an emotional punching bag along the way.

“A parent is an emotionally significant person in a child's life and is often the person standing directly in front of them when a boundary is set. Sometimes, as the parent and safe relationship, you're going to get the brunt of that frustration. But being a safe person doesn't mean accepting unlimited hurtful behavior,” says Kleinz.

The take-home message from this whole conversation should be: “‘Your hardest feelings don't scare me and it won't break us’ is a really important message. ‘Bring it on. I'm still here.’ That's, I think, a very important lesson for children and adolescents to know,” says Calkins.

As for Kleinz, she hopes parents know they don’t have to have a perfect, therapist-approved response ready to go. “You're a person in the interaction too. You can feel hurt. You can pause. You can remind yourself that there may be more happening underneath those words than you can see in that moment. The goal isn't to become so regulated that your child's words don't hurt. It's to give yourself enough of a pause that the hurt doesn't determine what happens next.”