They Don't Hate YOU, They Hate...

Have you ever been told, "I HATE YOU" by your child?
Or even worse "You're not coming to my birthday party!"

Parents of strong-willed kids (esp. mom) can become the scapegoat for the anger they harbor, and it can lead to parents hearing things like “You don’t love me”.

This often causes a spiral into permissiveness to avoid conflict, anxiety, and/or a lot of self-doubt as a parent.

Spoiler Alert: They don’t hate you. They hate feeling crazy and all alone with their BIG emotions. And we do too.

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IN THIS EPISODE I SHARED:

• My CRAZY week and what led me to resent my husband
• 7 things they hate MORE than you
• The prerequisite to building the momentum that’s needed to problem solve forward together

DON'T MISS:

• How to interpret and respond when your child says “I HATE YOU!”

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
Episode 111 (June 2023): “Why are they so angry?”

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// CONNECT WITH DANIELLE //
Website: parentingwholeheartedly.com
IG: @parent_wholeheartedly
APPLY: parentingwholeheartedly.com/apply

Transcript

Danielle Bettmann  0:04  
Ever feel like you suck at this job? Motherhood, I mean. Have too much anxiety and not enough patience? Too much yelling, not enough play? There's no manual, no village, no guarantees. The stakes are high. We want so badly to get it right, but this is survival mode. We're just trying to make it to bedtime. So if you're full of mom guilt, your temper scares you, you feel like you're screwing everything up, and you're afraid to admit any of those things out loud - this podcast is for you.

This is Failing Motherhood. I'm Danielle Bettmann, and each week we'll chat with a mom ready to be real, showing her insecurities, her fears, her failures, and her wins. We do not have it all figured out. That's not the goal. The goal is to remind you, that you are the mom your kids need. They need what you have. You are good enough, and you're not alone. I hope you pop in earbuds, somehow sneak away, and get ready to hear some hope from the trenches. You belong here, friend, we're so glad you're here. 

Hey, it's Danielle - Positive Discipline Certified Parenting Coach for strong-willed kids ages 2 to 10. I help defeated parents find validation, support, and proven techniques to parent their strong-willed kids with composure, connection, confidence, and cooperation through a four-month group coaching program based on the Wholehearted framework I've developed over years of working with families one on one, and if you just found the podcast, go to failingmotherhood.com to view a playlist of our most listened to episodes, as well as where to start if you have a strong-willed child.

And welcome back! I have a couple of quick updates for you. We took a break through July, and last week we debuted our first new episode for Fall 2024, which is A Skeptic's Take on Gentle Parenting. So if your partner is a 'it is what it is' type of parent who leans toward a more authoritarian style of parenting,  send them that episode. Joseph is incredibly honest about his skepticism and where he landed and how he healed his relationship with his daughter and it is so good.

This week, my program, Wholeheartedly Calm, is getting a facelift and upgrading to Calm 2.0, it has been three years since I introduced the program and moved from working one-on-one with families to a group program, and we have not looked back. Wholeheartedly Calm is a three-month group coaching program filled with about 10 to 12 other families working through the process at their own pace, meaning that you learn from other veterans, support new families behind you, and have deep, vulnerable conversations with other moms and dads who get it alongside you every step of the way. The time commitment includes an average of about 30 minutes of audio modules each week, as well as two opportunities to join live, recorded Q and A Zoom calls, one on Tuesdays and one on Fridays and enrollment includes a printed and shipped 125+ color workbook full of printables, cheat sheets and resources, as well as access to unlimited written support via Q and A resource library community. Upon graduation, families are invited to an optional month-to-month membership for alumni of the program with access to twice-a-month live calls to maintain the progress that they've made and be able to come back for more support when they need it, through the written community. 

But inside Calm 2.0 the three months of live support is now going to be extended to four. Each family will have the opportunity to schedule a one-on-one call to dive even deeper together, and more bonuses are being added on sleep aggression and parental preference, as well as an additional week of modules being added. That's, again, only a super quick synopsis, but after you apply, we schedule an interview call so that we can talk through all of the details and answer all your questions so you can decide if it's the right fit for your family, and you can find those details in the show notes of this episode. 

Now today, we are talking about a common fear. It is a well-known reality that strong-willed kids experience very big emotions. The reactions at home with you are often unfiltered, without impulse control, and are quick to make even the most well intentioned parents concerned about their child's emotional maturity, their integrity or their respect for rules and authority. Quite often, parents, especially Mom, can become the scapegoat for the anger that these kids harbor, and it can lead to parents hearing language like, 'I hate you or you don't love me'. Strong-willed kids tend to use language in these moments that comes close to illustrating the magnitude of the emotion in their view, so it becomes very inflammatory very quickly. Now we are not making excuses for this behavior. We are seeking an explanation so we can better understand support and respond to this behavior ultimately, hopefully improving it and eliminating it. But for more on mitigating anger, tune in to Episode 111 of Failing Motherhood, titled, 'Why Are They So Angry?' from June 2023, but when you have a child that is literally shouting, 'I hate you' at one parent in particular when they're a literal angel at daycare or school, it is very hard not to take that personally. The problem with the parent taking it personally, however, is a warped view of reality, develops a story that that parent begins to tell themselves. Then they react by either doubling down on firmness, trying to hold their ground, demanding respect and showing that kid who's boss, or they begin pulling away boundaries, becoming a punching bag for that child's emotions, and spend their energy trying to be one step ahead of them, so as not to set them off or make them upset in order to prevent the pain that comes from that conflict, which fuels indecision, insecurity and walking on eggshells for the whole family. 

Now, teens have more factors like hormones at play, but if you have ever been devastated by something your 2 to 10-year-old child has said to you, I need you to hear me when I say they don't hate you. They hate being told what to do, don't you? They hate not being able to do things on their own. They're in a perpetual state of development, of needing to discover what makes them unique, find their voice, assert their own otherness from you, and find evidence that creates their sense of self and self-esteem, and find reasons to be proud of themselves based on what they can do. So they hate not being able to do things on their own. They hate not being able to articulate how they feel or ask for what they want, they are quite literally trapped in a body that understands high levels of concepts in the receptive language that thinks in quite sophisticated ways, but then falls short and becomes incapable of expressing themselves in satisfying ways, especially when dysregulated. That's so frustrating. So of course, they hate not being able to articulate how they feel or what they want. 

They hate feeling misunderstood, don't you? It's one of the most alienating feelings, because we desperately seek belonging and connection, no matter what age we are. They hate the concept of time and deadlines and alarms and being late. You can be honest, you hate it too. They hate the burden of responsibilities that comes with age, don't we all?  They are not wrong or bad for having these thoughts, feelings, and emotions. The problem comes when we don't recognize this in the moment, and instead jump to conclusions about how personal this attack is. The problem comes when, instead of co-commiserating in the moment, showing them we're on their team, and problem-solving forward towards cooperation, instead, we choose to become the poster child for these things, literally signing ourselves up for the PR campaign for them, plastering our face on cereal boxes or PSAs. And yes, making peace with and living within these realities are important in a lot of ways to be successful as an adult. That's the truth. But they don't need us to be the ones that are shoving it down their throats and enthusiastically asking, doesn't that taste good?

It is not our job to make a case day in and day out and convince our kids that society's emphasis on being punctual is for their own good, and they should stop fighting it and hurry to the car with a smile. So if you do make yourself the face of the PR campaign, you can't be surprised when the frustration with it comes out on you. I'll give you an example. Last week, my local area had a storm super randomly on a Wednesday at 6 pm with sustained 80-mile-an-hour winds. There was widespread tree damage, which created the Metro area's worst power outage ever recorded. Our power went out and didn't come back for over five days. We had no idea it was going to be out for that long, of course, so the days that we spent waiting were genuinely quite brutal. It also overlapped with the hottest days of the summer, with heat indexes over 100 degrees. We had to make desperate arrangements for work calls and cancel the rest of our work run around town, finding dry ice to try to hold on to the food in our freezers, while we lost all the food in our fridges, needed to take our laundry to the laundromat, make arrangements for our pets, eventually borrow a generator so my husband could sleep with his CPAP, cancel days of vacation the following week, spend copious amounts of money we weren't planning on spending eating out for every meal, buying several containers of propane for that generator each day, dry ice over and over, and other air-conditioned entertainment. Meanwhile, our neighbors across the street all had power, and 1000s of people in the city got it back before we did. We ended up being one of the last rounds of repairs because a wire had snapped just behind our house that we didn't realize the first few days. 

Anyway, after all that initial adrenaline wore off, it was hard for me not to feel irritable and disappointed. Every night we went to bed without power, and every morning we woke up without power. Now, I promise there's a point to this story. I'm not just complaining. My husband was a rock star the whole time - running around while I stayed home or researching, reaching out, and carrying on. And frankly, I started to resent it. It was like he was borderline enjoying the outage like it hardly bothered him at all that we had to cancel days of our planned trip or be so miserably hot in our house a couple of times, I genuinely had to say to him, "Can you just say this sucks with me for a minute?" And I know that doesn't solve all our problems, but I needed to know I'm not crazy for thinking this sucks. And I am the only one who thinks that every time I felt defeated and had the chance to vent it out with him, a little bit, I felt so much more empowered to tackle the next few hours. And sometimes our kids just need to know that they are not crazy for thinking some of the aspects of our lives genuinely suck, and they're not alone in feeling that way. 

Validation and solidarity are often the prerequisites for building the momentum forward that's needed to move forward together. So often that is what happens on our group coaching calls, where parents come with a frustration and all of us start joining in with either nods, typing in the chat 'I hate that',  'me too', or jumping on and saying 'yes, that happens at our house', and I always make a point to say how understandably frustrating that behavior is, or how mortifying that moment must have been, And we just stay in the emotional solidarity and validation first, before we ever start diving into the problem solving of how to maybe respond differently next time or prevent it altogether. I see that as a necessary bell curve so that they even want to hear what I have to say to be able to critique and look back with hindsight at their own response or behavior. It's a very vulnerable thing to do. In that same vein, don't let them convince you of things you know to be true. They are going to say things they don't mean out of anger. And how preposterous is the idea that you don't love them? That's absolute nonsense. Well, yes, it can hurt your feelings. It takes one second of reflection to realize how very wrong they are. You and I both know there is nothing they could do to make you love them more or less. So in that moment when you're faced with a kid saying 'you don't love me', you need to be able to channel the same reaction you would have if they alleged that your hair was purple or you're 150 years old, rather than reacting to the idea that they truly don't think you love them, and you failed them as their parent. When they say, 'I hate you' interpret it as I hate this moment right now, and possibly respond by saying, it's okay that you don't like me right now, and find something about this moment that you hate too - be honest and admit that it sucks. Sometimes it sucks that you have to rush around every morning and get them to school by 8 am when you both could still use another two hours of sleep. That sucks. It sucks that you're rushing around and super busy at night, and you don't have the time to be able to just sit and hang out and talk together and be able to spend the time that you want to with them, that they want to with you. It sucks to have to do so many chores all day, every day, just to kind of maintain the status quo. It sucks. Be honest about it. 

Then when you're both back to square one, unregulated, you'll be on the same team, working together to figure out how to move forward. Because they don't hate you. They hate feeling crazy and all left alone with their big emotions, and we do too. Thanks for being here. I believe in you, and I'm cheering you on. 

See you next week, where I have a back-to-back double feature with the Moms Talk Autism. See you then.

Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Failing Motherhood. Your kids are so lucky to have you. If you loved this episode, take a screenshot right now, share it in your Instagram stories, and tag me. If you're loving the podcast, be sure that you've subscribed and leave a review so we can help more moms know they are not alone if they feel like they're failing motherhood on a daily basis, and if you're ready to transform your relationship with your strong willed child and invest in the support you need to make it happen, schedule your free consultation using the link in the show notes. I can't wait to meet you. Thanks for coming on this journey with me. I believe in you and I'm cheering you on you.