An age-by-age guide to dealing with 'I hate you'

It came out of the blue, but it hung there like heavy, humid air: “I hate you.” I’d been shivering in the cold among fellow parents, waiting for my kids to emerge from a weekend class they’d recently joined. Out they spilled, buzzing with new friends, heading for, and I signalled benignly to my nine-year-old daughter that we were leaving. She announced it calmly and quietly, but within earshot of the lot, before taking off for the monkey bars. She seemed jubilant. I was destroyed.

It’s important to remember that when coming from a child, “hate” doesn’t translate to the passionate dislike we understand as adults. It’s an impulse word signifying frustration or loss of control. “What they mean,” says Jeanne L. Williams, an Edmonton-based psychologist, “is, ‘I can’t handle this situation, and I don’t have the skills to respond in a more mature way.’” Plus, it doesn’t take much for kids to feel the effect words can have—and they can get heady with the power they can wield.

Tweens do grasp the meaning of “I hate you” and they’ll deploy it for maximum impact. But the advantage of having an increasingly articulate child is that sometimes she can’t help blurting out what’s really bothering her. “Sometimes what she says right after ‘I hate you’ is important,” says Daniels. Whether it’s “You never let me do anything fun” or “Why do you hate my friends so much?” at least you have a clue to go on. “It gives you some sort of context, so you know it’s not random hate.

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