How to Respond When Your Kids Say, “I Hate You” | Dr. Becky Kennedy & Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | How do you suggest parents deal with retorts and rudeness?
00:00:05.000 | And again, let's extend this to all relationships.
00:00:10.920 | So you get in your best mindset,
00:00:13.840 | and by the way, I love this I am thing.
00:00:16.940 | Two of the most important words in any language
00:00:22.360 | when translated to other languages.
00:00:23.960 | I am blank, I am a good this,
00:00:25.640 | or I am whatever role identity is key to the brain.
00:00:30.160 | We know this.
00:00:31.000 | You go in and you say, I'm really sorry.
00:00:37.820 | I struggle to regulate my emotions.
00:00:39.780 | I believe that you're really upset.
00:00:44.580 | And the kid says, I hate you.
00:00:47.280 | Now, earlier you said that good boundaries
00:00:50.180 | are about not expecting a change in behavior
00:00:52.860 | from someone else, they're about our own boundaries.
00:00:54.740 | So, or maybe the I hate you comes from,
00:00:59.660 | listen, we're not gonna go to so-and-so's house
00:01:02.080 | for a play date today.
00:01:03.060 | - Great example, I hate you.
00:01:05.100 | - I hate you.
00:01:05.940 | So is there ever a case for no response?
00:01:10.820 | - I mean, to me, the most underutilized parenting strategy
00:01:15.620 | is doing nothing, literally.
00:01:17.340 | It's one of my most used strategies,
00:01:19.320 | 'cause there's like really good reason for it,
00:01:22.500 | especially in this situation.
00:01:23.740 | So I always, to me, I would say we have to understand
00:01:27.060 | before we intervene.
00:01:28.020 | So I know every parent's like,
00:01:28.940 | what do you do in that situation?
00:01:30.220 | But it's like trying to fix someone's tennis swing
00:01:34.060 | before you look at their tennis swing.
00:01:36.420 | There could be a lot of problems.
00:01:37.440 | So again, why is a kid saying I hate you?
00:01:40.240 | And I would ask every parent to just keep this in mind.
00:01:42.520 | It's a tool, and you can't use it in real time.
00:01:45.700 | Eventually you can, but we have to say it
00:01:47.560 | at the end of the night.
00:01:48.440 | When my kid said I hate you,
00:01:50.220 | what is my most generous interpretation
00:01:54.540 | of why he would say that to me?
00:01:56.460 | And if you're like any human, me included, by the way,
00:01:59.380 | like your least generous interpretation is immediate.
00:02:02.580 | You're like, because he's a sociopath.
00:02:03.820 | Like that's what we say all the time.
00:02:05.340 | We're like, wow, or because he's like a horrible kid,
00:02:07.340 | 'cause he's spoiled, 'cause he's nasty.
00:02:09.120 | It comes easily, so that's fine.
00:02:11.140 | But what is my most generous interpretation?
00:02:13.700 | And when I don't know, I'll push myself to say,
00:02:16.620 | okay, well, like I was in a situation with my husband.
00:02:19.860 | What would lead me to say that?
00:02:22.120 | I don't know, what would lead you to say that to someone?
00:02:25.380 | - That I hate them?
00:02:26.220 | - Yeah, like they say something to you like,
00:02:27.740 | hey, Andrew, we're not gonna be able to do this dinner.
00:02:31.420 | - It would have to be some sort of deep betrayal of trust.
00:02:34.660 | And I have to acknowledge that if I said that to somebody
00:02:38.340 | that I really care about or love,
00:02:40.260 | as I'm saying I hate you,
00:02:41.500 | what I'm really saying is I love you so much,
00:02:43.940 | and that hurts unbelievably at such an unbelievable
00:02:48.860 | intensity that what's coming out of my mouth says,
00:02:50.820 | I hate you, because if you didn't love them.
00:02:53.540 | - That's right.
00:02:54.380 | - It would have no effect.
00:02:55.380 | It would be a meh, it would be a meh,
00:02:58.660 | but instead it's a, ugh, it hurts.
00:03:01.140 | So we somehow there's a neural circuit in there that goes,
00:03:05.180 | you know, I whatever, insert expletive, hate you.
00:03:08.900 | - That's right.
00:03:09.740 | - But what you're really saying is I love you so much.
00:03:12.720 | - Yeah.
00:03:13.560 | - And as a consequence, that thing you did or said
00:03:15.660 | hurts so much.
00:03:17.220 | - That's right.
00:03:18.300 | And so I think that's like exactly what's going on
00:03:21.740 | for a kid.
00:03:22.580 | Or like, to me, my most generous interpretation
00:03:26.020 | in a simple way is my kid,
00:03:28.020 | when I said we couldn't go to this friend's house
00:03:30.260 | that he thought we were going to,
00:03:31.660 | his friend he was gonna sleep over,
00:03:34.120 | he had like so built it up in his mind.
00:03:35.820 | He'd like, probably like kids do,
00:03:36.900 | like they have this whole image.
00:03:37.900 | Oh, and then we're gonna do this and this.
00:03:39.140 | And like the letdown was so intense.
00:03:42.180 | And again, I go back to kids have all the feelings we have
00:03:46.060 | and they're born with none of the skills.
00:03:47.580 | So it takes a lot of,
00:03:49.260 | it takes like a pretty well-developed skill
00:03:50.980 | to be really disappointed, by the way,
00:03:53.460 | and surprised, right, in the moment,
00:03:56.820 | and like manage it in like a mature way.
00:03:59.780 | I'm sure we both know adults
00:04:01.220 | who aren't really capable of doing that, right?
00:04:03.260 | So the fact that my seven-year-old is doing that.
00:04:05.000 | So if I think about it that way,
00:04:07.180 | we latch onto our kids' words as if they're the truth.
00:04:10.980 | They're not the truth.
00:04:11.980 | It's not to say they don't matter,
00:04:13.280 | but they're not the truth.
00:04:14.700 | The truth is whatever world is under the words.
00:04:18.020 | Like I'm disappointed and I don't know how to manage that.
00:04:20.980 | So if I think about the outcome,
00:04:22.260 | like where do I wanna be?
00:04:23.740 | What I would love in that situation.
00:04:25.940 | 'Cause the truth is when I say to my kid,
00:04:27.300 | sorry, we can't go to Bobby's house.
00:04:29.260 | I wouldn't even want,
00:04:30.100 | it's not normal for my kid to be like, oh, no problem.
00:04:33.560 | Because like, I'm just picturing my 25-year-old
00:04:36.140 | like trying to get a job and being like,
00:04:37.780 | mom, oh, I didn't get it.
00:04:39.100 | And then he's like, no problem.
00:04:40.380 | I'm like, that's kind of weird.
00:04:41.620 | Like, really?
00:04:42.440 | Like, that's weird.
00:04:43.280 | I'd want you to be disappointed.
00:04:45.440 | And so what I want my kid to be able to do
00:04:47.560 | is to be like, I don't know, what's the best to get?
00:04:49.400 | It's like, oh man, I was really looking forward to that.
00:04:53.040 | That's like ultimate maturity.
00:04:54.660 | So how do I get from I hate you
00:04:56.840 | to, oh man, I was really like, you know,
00:04:59.860 | looking forward to that.
00:05:01.680 | All the things we wanna do just like don't even make sense.
00:05:04.560 | Like sending my kid to their room saying like,
00:05:06.880 | you're such a nasty kid.
00:05:07.880 | I've never seen any of your friends
00:05:09.320 | say that to their parents.
00:05:10.440 | And I'm good at acting these things out.
00:05:12.000 | Because of course, I say these things too.
00:05:13.960 | But all I'm doing is basically telling my kid
00:05:16.400 | the version of themselves I don't want them to be.
00:05:18.840 | So now I'm further away from that outcome.
00:05:21.280 | Just not effective.
00:05:22.540 | My kid obviously literally needs to learn
00:05:25.880 | some of those skills and practice them.
00:05:27.800 | We don't think about simulations with kids nearly enough.
00:05:29.880 | We know that in sports.
00:05:31.320 | People practice all the time.
00:05:32.680 | We don't do that with emotion regulation.
00:05:34.400 | So what do I do in the moment?
00:05:35.560 | I think the best question here is
00:05:37.520 | what do I do outside the moment
00:05:39.120 | to help my kid build the skills
00:05:40.640 | so they actually have more of a skill
00:05:42.440 | the next time that moment comes?
00:05:44.040 | Still, I'm a pragmatist.
00:05:45.200 | What do I do in the moment?
00:05:46.020 | I hate you.
00:05:46.860 | I probably would do nothing first.
00:05:48.560 | When someone is rude to you
00:05:50.600 | and they say something nasty,
00:05:52.080 | I don't know, I just like this is one,
00:05:53.400 | this is my son, this is me.
00:05:54.480 | My son just hurled I hate you.
00:05:56.400 | It's like sitting between us.
00:05:58.000 | When we say back to them like, you know,
00:06:01.520 | I hate you or like go to your room.
00:06:03.960 | We take all the energy from what they said
00:06:05.960 | and we just like throw it.
00:06:08.120 | And then like we have this ping pong match.
00:06:09.840 | When you do nothing,
00:06:11.080 | I always picture if this is like I hate you,
00:06:13.320 | it just sits between us.
00:06:15.500 | My kid has a much higher chance
00:06:17.440 | of kind of reowning what they just said
00:06:20.760 | because I'm just kind of sturdy in that moment
00:06:23.640 | because I didn't just take it from them
00:06:25.760 | and say something to them,
00:06:26.920 | which just gives them the opportunity
00:06:28.360 | to like take what I said
00:06:29.720 | and have no responsibility for the first thing they said.
00:06:32.560 | It's always true in adults.
00:06:33.680 | When someone says to you like something nasty,
00:06:35.560 | if you actually just stay there,
00:06:37.460 | they're kind of like, oh, shoot.
00:06:39.040 | Like I shouldn't have said that
00:06:40.280 | because like it's right there.
00:06:41.960 | So I'd probably say nothing.
00:06:44.100 | Now, a couple, I don't know if I'd really do that,
00:06:46.400 | but I'd want to do that.
00:06:47.360 | Let me be clear.
00:06:48.640 | Something else you can say in that moment,
00:06:51.120 | which takes a lot of presence
00:06:52.240 | so it's not gonna happen right away,
00:06:54.280 | is just something like, whoa.
00:06:56.460 | Like clearly you're disappointed.
00:06:58.760 | I get that.
00:07:00.000 | I believe you.
00:07:01.480 | And I know there's another way you can say that to me.
00:07:06.120 | That's actually right back to family jobs.
00:07:08.120 | I'm validating and I'm setting kind of a boundary
00:07:11.200 | in some ways.
00:07:12.020 | Like I know maybe there's a hope there too.
00:07:13.480 | Like I know there's another way.
00:07:14.720 | If my kid keeps saying, I hate you, I hate you.
00:07:16.840 | You're the worst, you're the worst.
00:07:18.040 | I'm gonna say, listen, I love you.
00:07:19.240 | You're a good kid.
00:07:20.080 | You're having a hard time.
00:07:21.360 | I really won't stay in your room
00:07:24.080 | while you keep saying this to me.
00:07:25.140 | And part of that is 'cause it's not good for you either.
00:07:26.860 | Like this isn't a good dynamic.
00:07:28.040 | I'm gonna step outside.
00:07:29.360 | I'm gonna come back.
00:07:30.880 | And we can talk about it when we're both in a place
00:07:34.020 | where we can be a little more respectful
00:07:35.240 | or something like that, right?
00:07:36.520 | I don't have to be a punching bag.
00:07:38.320 | But at least now I'm helping my kid see
00:07:40.920 | that he is having a feeling under these words.
00:07:44.680 | If I can't differentiate the feeling from the behavior,
00:07:48.560 | how can I expect my kid to ever learn
00:07:51.680 | to differentiate those two?
00:07:53.340 | Which is how my kid can actually get
00:07:55.520 | to a more regulated place.
00:07:57.320 | - Thank you for tuning in
00:07:58.160 | to the Huberman Lab Clips channel.
00:08:00.000 | If you enjoyed the clip that you just viewed,
00:08:02.120 | please check out the full length episode by clicking here.
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