You know what they say: If your kid doesn’t tell you that he hates you once in awhile then you’re not doing your job.
Four year olds are masters of the manipulation game.
My four year old says, " I’m not happy." about whatever doesn’t go her way, like standing on a chair instead of sitting on her bottom. I just give her the options, " Stand on the chair, fall down, crack head open, bleed all over the floor, cost mama and daddy money and you go to the hospital, except the hospital is closed today because all the doctors are out playing golf and we have to cut off your head with a rusty saw." * or " Sit on your bottom and eat your dinner and then we can play Candyland.*"
Nearly every time this litany occurs, she will ask, " Why do they play golf?"
“Because that is what they went to 7 years of medical school for.”
My nearly 6 year old is a master negotiator. One day he will work for the UN and nothing will ever get resolved. Ever.
Lisa put it best, if they haven’t said it, you aren’t doing your job.
This makes me think about the one or two (possibly more) times I told my mom I hated her when I was young. Makes me kinda queasy thinking about it.
Single mom…always did her best…sniff 
I gotta go make a phone call.
Happy
I remember the even numbers being harder, for some reason, so I’d say that things will probably ease up soon. 
My wish for you, anyway!
Sounds like you’re doing a great job of being a father, Casey. I also loved Norinew’s response. A lot of the stuff that seems logical as !=parents falls by the wayside as you raise little ones. You cannot treat children purely as miniature people, because their logic and thought process isn’t the same as an adult. It doesn’t mean that you cannot explain your reasons or actions to them, but it does mean that you can’t let them get away with whatever they want or they’ll learn that the way to succeed in life is to manipulate people. Which only works if you go into politics or perhaps drama. A little bit of “I hate you!” is good. I would be worried about a lot, which could indicate some pretty negative outside influences.
My three-year-old daughter didn’t say she hated me. She told me, “I’m not your friend anymore!” instead. My immediate reaction was laughter, but I didn’t let her see it - I just told her, “It’s my job to be your mommy, not to be your friend, and you can’t (whatever it was she was being sent to her room for doing).”
I really wasn’t hurt, because I knew that was the only way she knew how to express her extreme anger at that moment, and I knew she’d feel better soon. If I had felt hurt, I’m not sure I’d have let her know, because being able to really hurt a parent is an awesome kind of power for a little child It’s just more responsibility than they should be expected to handle emotionally.
Just wanted to echo what Casey1505 said about foods – my son can go from “I don’t want dinner, I’m full” to “I want cereal!” in 5 seconds, without the slightest trace of irony.
Letting kids dictate their own eating habits is as wise as letting professional athletes set their own salaries.
My wife and I took our granddaughter, Emily, to Florda last week. She is a very active 6 year old. The first day, I told her “I think I raised a child just like you.” and I did; it was her mother, Marie. Marie was our first foster child and she was one of a kind, until her two daughters came along. This thread reminds me of Marie because our relationship had many ups and downs and she was the one that told me that she hated me. Actually, we were very close and my other 4 children understand that she was aways first among equals with me. I have no idea what I said when she told me she hated me and that really doesn’t matter. She died of cancer 6 years ago, when Emily was just a baby. My thoughts right now are that I would give anything to hear Marie say “I hate you.”
My three year old says “I hate you!” fairly frequently. It’s usually in the middle of a battle of wills, and I am usually busy, tired and fed up myself. I usually just say, “That’s OK, I’m not too keen on you right now.” and then try to either deflect or ignore him.
If my older boy at 7 said it (he used to but he has grown out of it now) then I would be much more alarmed and upset. He usually says “I’m very, very angry right now!” which is a better way of expressing his feelings and allows me to sympathise with him while insisting that whatever it is gets done (homework, usually. Sigh…)
I wasn’t a bad kid, but I made my mom feel unloved sometimes. When I was 3 and my sister was born, I didn’t take it very well. I completely gave my mother the cold shoulder for abandoning me to go to the hospital to give birth. I don’t think I really understood the situation that well. I felt bad about it when my mom told me later in life; I just didn’t really grasp at the time that I wasn’t the center of the universe, that’s all.
As a teenager, I did scream ‘I hate you’ a lot. Mostly, I hated the situation, at least when it was aimed at my dad. When I told my dad I hated him, though, I’m pretty sure I meant it. (My dad and I are estranged now, I stopped seeing him after college was over, we do not get along.)
What’s the difference? My mom was being a mom, she was looking to teach me the right things and raise me right. She still loved me and cared about me. My dad didn’t really have the same motivations, he was motivated to a large degree by wanting to be left alone or wanting time alone with my mom in his parenting decisions. Dad would say “go clean your room” or “go do something constructive” because he wanted to change the channel to what he wanted, or just generally wanted to be left alone, which was most of the time. I understood this pretty early on in life. Didn’t stop me from also giving Mom a hard time, but I still loved her an awful lot. Dad… well, I don’t hate Dad anymore, but I don’t know if I love him, either.
Casey, you have my sympathies. Kids’ words sure can hurt. But it sounds like you handled it well and that your child has a good sense of right and wrong and a good conscience so you must be doing something right! I just got that recently from my three year old. He’s the last of three so I’ve heard it before. I just remind myself that they are expressing anger, not true hate, and as you did, teach them a better way to deal with their anger. But it still stings sometimes.
And I completely agree with your responses to Reeder. Kids are not mini adults. They are growing and developing beings that need guidance, teaching, correction, limits and a whole lot of love despite their behaviors. That is why they have parents. You don’t give a puppy it’s choice about where to poop and pee and what to chew on because it should be allowed to express itself. You correct it, redirect its behavior, teach it how to act properly so that it stays healthy and grows up with behavior that is safe and acceptable in general society. And with kids, obviously, there is so much more to deal with with.
I’ve said before, the only perfect parents are the ones without kids.
I’m not yet a parent, but I have a vivid memory of my little sister losing her rag with my mom - I think she was trying to get my mom’s attention and not getting very far (my mom may have been on the telephone IIRC). Sister was going redder and redder until she reached that shade of puce that makes one fear they will explode with rage, at which point she yelled out “I’m not going to invite you to my BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!” 
It was clearly the greatest insult/punishment she could think of!!
Grim
IANAParent - much too young, too immature and there are no willing and consenting females to test my masculine propensity to procreate. Add to this profile a bleak bank account - hence, no haps.
But, the current discourse on child-rearing (raising?) suggests that all experiences, no matter how negative to the parent, need be an educational learning experience for the young tot. Let’s explore a narrative that might provide an educative experience.
There is the possibility that, when confronted with the pronouncement that, “I don’t like you anymore”, you could respond with, “Why don’t you like me?”. The obvious response from the tot is, “You make me eat food that I don’t want to eat. And I have better things that I might be doing right now.” You might respond by saying, “It is what I am asking of you that you don’t like (hate), isn’t it? " Yes”, says the tot. So you explore the difference between hating the person and hating what the person does. Learning, not negative.
The object lesson here is that the child focusses on the actual target of dislike/hate and not the deliverer of the target.
Does this make any sense to real parents?
IANAP either, but even I can see that this is pure utopia. The main problem is that children don’t always understand the emotions they are feeling. They lack a fully developed context for the world and everything is very black and white. To a small child, whatever the problem is can be reduced to ‘Mummy/Daddy won’t let me’. The difference between behaviour and characteristics are just a little too subtle. Add to this that a part of development is manipulating those around you to your will and you do get into no-win no-logic situations.
In your example, you just wouldn’t get the responses from the child that you expect. More likely, you’d get: ‘Not hungry’ or ‘I need a wee’ or anything which might distract you from your aim of persuading the child to do something that they (at that moment) decide they might not want.
BTW, I did train as a primary school teacher so I can qualify this with the rudiments of child psychology.
My kids are older now, but when they were little I treated this problem two different ways. Most of the time I responded to “I don’t like you” with “Well, you don’t have to like me, but you do have to obey me.” If they shouted “I don’t like you” or “I hate you” in a loud or disrespectful way, or threw things, or tried to bite or hit, they would be punished (usually a loss of privileges or an early bedtime). I would tell them, “You are allowed to not like me, but you are not allowed to hit me (or scream at me, or call me names).” In both cases, after they cooled down, I would remember to follow up with the old, “I always love you even when I don’t like the things you do” speech.
Me: “Shodan Jr., you have to clean up your room.”
Shodan Jr.: “I doan wanna, I wanna (do some other fun thing).”
Me: “First, clean up your room. Then you can (do some other fun thing).”
Shodan Jr.: “But I doan wanna.”
Me: “Clean up your room.”
Shodan Jr.: “I hate you!”
Me: “Too bad, you still have to clean up your room”.
He was short on nap and cranky. But he cleaned up his room.
He seems to have forgiven me sometime during the last twelve years or so.
Kids repeat whatever gets a reaction. I try to react mostly to the stuff I want them to do again.
FWIW, but it’s not worth much.
Regards,
Shodan
I think you need to keep in mind that children have no power, so throwing tantrums and saying, “I hate you,” is their way of expressing frustration with the parent.
I generally ignore my daughter when she goes into the I Hate You You Never Loved Me Why Are You Being So Mean to Me mode, until she calms down, then I tell her how much it hurts me to hear her say those things, and I ask her how she would like it if I told her I hated her.
Oh, and if I may…I don’t think you should have caved in on the cookie.
Neither did my wife.
Once, after getting angry with my mother (I can’t even remember what it was for now), I very coldly and calculatingly, said, “I hate you.”
Her response?
"I hate you too!"
I burst into tears and apologized. Ah, mom, gotta love her. I know I do.
(Looking back, I think she was just as shocked as I was at what she said.)
There are certain words that are not allowed at Chateau Ujest:
Hate ( *dislike * or annoyed is offered as an alternative.)
**Can’t **( *Can’t is not in our vocabulary. We try out best on everything we start. *
Want ( This is just one of the rudest words out there.)
**Stupid
Idiot
Dumb ** - replace the above two and this one with *" Well, your next choice will be a good one. " * or *" How silly can you be?" * Something that isn’t so demeaning.
It is all in the programming of their little spongy minds.
Loads of fun watching a five year old say, " I am most annoyed at you! "