"I hate you! I hate you! I HATE YOU!"

CD+AL

This came out of my sweet boy's mouth today, and I'm kind of in shock.  I expected it at some point, but I guess I thought we had several more years before this started.  He was mad b/c I put him in timeout to cool off b/c he was being too rough with his sister.

Any who...Is this normal for a 4yo?  How do/would you handle it?

MammaBear81

I usually say, "I'm sorry your feel that way, I still love you."  They calm down and it passes.  It still hurts, but they are learning to express themselves, so I take a deep breath and relax.

shouldbworkin

Oh yeah, it starts at that age.  Fun times!  I try not to give it more attention than it deserves and give him the words to express himself appropriately.  e.g. it's ok to say you're mad at me or you don't like what I said, but it's not ok to say you hate me.

luvmagoldn

MammaBear81:

I usually say, "I'm sorry your feel that way, I still love you."  They calm down and it passes.  It still hurts, but they are learning to express themselves, so I take a deep breath and relax.

This. 

Pesky

shouldbworkin:

Oh yeah, it starts at that age.  Fun times!  I try not to give it more attention than it deserves and give him the words to express himself appropriately.  e.g. it's ok to say you're mad at me or you don't like what I said, but it's not ok to say you hate me.

Exactly.

jlw2505

Its normal and I have found that not really showing a reaction to it works best.  We simple do a simple "we don't talk like that" or "Please don't say things like that as you can hurt my feelings" type of things and then leave it alone.  If DD is really upset, she gets a time out to cool off/calm down and then we move on.  We try to talk to the girls at other times about nice things to say, how to react when upset and other ways they can express themselves but never in the heat of the moment.

2lovelyboys

I say something along the lines that I am sorry you feel that way but I love you but I do try and express that we don't talk like that to each other, it's not acceptable and it hurst our feelings and I know you would be hurt if that was said to you.  I know they are expressing their feelings but I let him know it's not acceptable to use the word hate.

KathrynMD

DD likes to say she hates ON us.

Its funny but heartbreaking.  We basically try to ignore it.

Sometimes I'll try to talk to her about why its wrong, but normally she's already pretty wound up, so I just treat it like a tantrum behavior.