Daughter says she hates me
How to Deal When Your Daughter Says She Hates You
Raising a teen or tween can be trying at times, but there’s little that can feel more soul-crushing than thinking, "my teenage daughter hates me." This is the kind you’ve made every kind of sacrifice for, the one you’ve shaped your life around, the one you cherish more than you ever thought it was possible to love another human being. And this is what you get in return?
It might feel like the absolute worst, but before you flat-out decide you’ve failed as a parent (spoiler alert: you haven’t!), it’s worth noting that hearing your girl say she hates you can be a sign that you’re doing something right. “It’s easy to forget, but growing up isn’t exactly easy,” says Girl Scouts’ Developmental Psychologist, Dr. Andrea Bastiani Archibald. “Your daughter is dealing with uneven social dynamics, changing hormones, and trying to make sense of who she is in our imperfect world. It’s only normal that she might feel annoyed or angry sometimes, as we all probably did at this stage of the game!” Add to that since adolescents are still developing on an emotional level, most of their feelings are of extreme variety.
“Almost everything is black and white,” says Dr. Bastiani Archibald. “They love things. They hate things. Teenagers have never exactly been known for their nuance or ability to temper their feelings.”
But why is all of this venom being directed at you, and how on earth is this a good thing, you might ask? “People often take out life’s frustrations on the people they feel safest with—the ones they know will stick with them and support them even if they do act out every now and then,” says Dr. Bastiani Archibald. “And while friends at this age can be fickle, you’ve always been there for her—despite a disagreement or temper tantrum here and there. Whether she realizes it or not, she trusts that you won’t disappear on her if she lets some of this frustration out on you.” In other words, when she says she hates you, she’s also saying you’ve made her feel secure enough and have given her a safe space of sorts to release some of the pressure she’s been feeling.
So, yes.
Even though it’s really crummy and painful to hear think your teenage daughter hates you, you should take it for what it most likely is—normal, and not entirely about you. Phew.
That said, her frustration probably is related to you on some level, so take a minute and think about why that could be. “When she was little, you were her whole world,” says Dr. Bastiani Archibald, “but adolescence is a time of big changes, experimentation, and branching out. It’s common to feel a little hurt by any distance your child is creating as she makes new friends and explores life’s possibilities, and it’s also common for parents to want to shield their children from making what they see as mistakes. Whether you mean it that way or not, this can come across as limiting or controlling to your child, and can lead to feelings of resentment as she tries to spread her wings.”
One thing that can help with this is to calmly (and with an open mind!) discuss conflicts with your daughter as they arise.
Listen to her point of view and explain yours as well, rather than just saying, “no,” or “because I’m the parent.” Hearing her out, respecting her point of view, and being flexible when you can, will go a long way in calming what could otherwise be a heated situation.
“As much as you want to keep her from decisions she might regret later on, it’s actually important to let your girl make many of her own decisions, take some risks, and even make a few mistakes here and there,” says Dr. Bastiani Archibald. You might not like the band she’s spending all her allowance money to go see—and know she’ll be upset when she’s out of cash next week—or have mixed feelings about the haircut she wants to get, but those things won’t really matter in the long run. What will matter is that she feels heard, respected, and supported by her parents as she grows into her own person with her own interests, passions, and opinions.
“Keeping an open dialogue and letting her know that you really are considering her wants and needs will help you out a lot when it comes to issues that may put her health or safety at risk,” says Dr.
Bastiani Archibald. “It’s really a matter of choosing your battles. If you show flexibility and understanding when you can, she’ll be more likely to understand when you can’t, and understand that you’re not trying to punish her by setting certain rules.”
The bottom line is that even if your daughter says she hates you (and maybe she thinks at the moment that she does), what she’s probably really saying is that that growing up can be kind of rough. So take a deep breath, try to remember your own teen years, and remember that this, too, shall pass.
An age-by-age guide to dealing with "I hate you"
Photo: Roberto Caruso, Illustrations: Stephanie Han Kim
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 the jungle gym, 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.
How many of us have heard those three little words and wanted to cry? The H-word is so loaded and so mortifying for its recipient that we’re loath to admit the expression ever gets said. It’s far more common, though, than we’ll ever cop to. And I’d wager that if a kid hasn’t said it aloud, he’s at least thought it. I mean, I sure did. Between the ages of 10 and 16, it was practically my mantra. But “hate” was not hate. It was love on a bad day.
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.
The dreaded phrase does have slightly different implications depending on whether it comes from a toddler or a tween—and the art of the response should vary accordingly.
The toddlerYou’ve spent the afternoon at a playdate. The kids are sharing nicely, but yours has become attached to her pal’s favourite doll. When it’s time to leave, your gentle coaxing fails, and you resort to prying the doll away and strapping your daughter into her stroller. Soon the scene is like WrestleMania, with your daughter using fightin’ words.
Saying “no” in any form can set off a toddler. And if your kid has heard “I hate you” tossed around, this is the time she’d deploy it. “Toddlers are picking up the language they hear around them—they’re parroting back what they’ve heard, like when they use swear words,” says Judy Arnall, a family life educator in Calgary and author of Parenting with Patience. In the same way you should ignore the F-word from an experimental toddler in an effort to diffuse it with silence, you should disregard the H-word.
Case closed. “Don’t engage. You don’t want to draw attention to it,” she says. When kids see it’s a surefire way to grab your attention, they’ll try it again and again.
It’s bedtime and you’ve asked your son, who’s watching TV, to go change into his pyjamas. After the third request, he has still not “heard” you, so you flick off the screen—possibly at a climactic moment. Does the pivotal plot point matter to you more than getting him into bed? Nope. An argument breaks out, and he lays it on you.
10 ways to defuse a power struggle
“When little kids say ‘I hate you,’ the goal is to hurt you,” says Natasha Daniels, a clinical social worker at Hill Child Counseling in Arizona. After all, you’ve just ruined all their fun. Daniels’ response? Kill it with kindness. “It sounds counterintuitive, but the best way to counteract ‘I hate you’ is to say, ‘Well, I love you,’” she says. A negative reaction will only reinforce the outburst.
“If they don’t get a reaction at age six, they may say it again, but they won’t still be saying it at 10. It’s a work in progress.”
As children’s language skills improve as they get older, you can start to talk about and validate those intense feelings. But you shouldn’t dwell on it too much—otherwise they’ll realize they have a winning strategy of getting your attention. Williams remembers one particular argument about video games when her son was in grade one. “I wanted him to brush his teeth. In anger, he said he hated me.” They both went to bed angry, but the next day, Williams debriefed with him. “He stood by those words because he was really mad at me, and they were the only words he had. But it came out that he hadn’t wanted to stop playing because he’d lose all his points. I listened and took him seriously. And we worked out a system of warnings to make sure he could stop between levels without losing his points and still get to bed on time.”
The tweenYour 11-year-old daughter is invited to a sleepover and “absolutely everyone” is attending.
But she’s been falling behind on her homework, and a recent spate of late nights has left her in a perpetual foul mood. You say no to the sleepover, hoping she’ll rest up and have a clear head for homework in the morning. After running through the five stages of grief, she flees to her room, slamming the door—but not before sticking it to you with three choice words.
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.”
“I look at this as a ‘downstream problem,’” says Williams. “Think of a flowing river. The event that precipitated it is upstream.
If you dwell on what happens downstream, like taking away privileges, the issue upstream will just keep flowing.”
You need to focus on what really is making your child upset. But first, give her some time to calm down. And once you’ve figured out what’s bothering her, says Williams, “you can really listen to her concerns and share your own. Then figure out some way to meet in the middle.”
About to lose it?“Less is more,” says Terry Carson, a Toronto-based parenting coach. “If you can respond to a child calmly in five words or less, you’ll be far more effective than if you get into a long response.” Prime no-nos? Avoid “Don’t you speak to me like that” or “You’re grounded.” Punishments don’t suit this particular crime. “Sending back hurtful messages only exacerbates the situation. You can say something like, ‘That hurt my feelings,’ and give yourself time to de-escalate the situation. Don’t try to resolve it in the moment.” If you do lose your temper, don’t despair.
“There’s nothing wrong with damage control,” she says. “For a parent to apologize is a big deal for kids.” If you respect them, after all, they may respect you back. “Ask if they’re ready to talk. They may not be ready, but that’s a respectful approach, even to a nine-year-old.”
Read more:
7 ways to deal with a defiant kid
29 toddler discipline tactics that work
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FILED UNDER: age by age Behaviour Parenting style Parenting styles Preschool behaviour service viral Toddler behaviour Tween
My daughter hates me - what have I done wrong
My daughter me …
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gave in the section. But it was the 90s, and I didn’t have money this time, and the second time my daughter simply didn’t show success in anything. She blames her for not letting her go anywhere alone. but she was very distracted, and the time was not like now. As a result, she says that because of me, she now cannot navigate anywhere and she has agoraphobia. She blames me for not taking care of her health, she was blown up to 75 kg at the age of 12, she got severe acne, but I simply didn’t know where to lead her, there were no doctors like now. Yes, now I would have passed on hormones, but then it was not. She blames her for pushing with grades - isn't it the same for everyone? She blames me for pushing her into the university, although she should thank me, she was not capable of anything, even though she studied psychology. She wanted to go after school as a waitress - I forbade it. As a result, I spent my pants in vain at the university.
I spent so much money on it. She blames that she separated her from her love, met a man much older than herself - and what would a normal mother do wrong? That she only loves him all her life, and I prevented her. She blames her for telling her to marry her husband, because at least he loved her and married her. And most importantly, I sagged her ears about the fact that a woman should give birth (yes, I think this is a must). She gave birth to a 4-year-old daughter, she does not love her, she always gets rid of her. And says it's my fault. Now divorced and living with me, it's terrible. I can’t understand, yes, I’m not ideal, but then others are not ideal. Why have the daughters of my acquaintances achieved something and do not hide their mothers, despite the fact that their mothers are also imperfect?
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And here are the others.
.... but the girlfriends....lalala.that's the whole problem.poor unfortunate daughter yours! The only thing I do not understand why she lives with you, does not like to
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Guest 64
My 29 year old daughter just hates me. I understand that I am not the best mother and there are no ideals. But she blames me for literally everything.
She blames me, for example, that I did not give her to the section. But it was the 90s, and I didn’t have money this time, and the second time my daughter simply didn’t show success in anything.
She blames her for not letting her go anywhere alone. but she was very distracted, and the time was not like now. As a result, she says that because of me, she now cannot navigate anywhere and she has agoraphobia. She blames me for not taking care of her health, she was blown up to 75 kg at the age of 12, she got severe acne, but I simply didn’t know where to lead her, there were no doctors like now. Yes, now I would have given up for hormones, but then it didn’t exist .... I killed so much money for him. She blames that she separated her from her love, met a man much older than herself - and what would a normal mother do wrong? That she only loves him all her life, and I prevented her. She blames her for telling her to marry her husband, because at least he loved her and married her. And most importantly, I sagged her ears about the fact that a woman should give birth (yes, I think this is a must). She gave birth to a 4-year-old daughter, she does not love her, she always gets rid of her.
And says it's my fault. Now divorced and living with me, it's terrible. I can’t understand, yes, I’m not ideal, but then others are not ideal. Why have the daughters of my acquaintances achieved something and do not hide their mothers, despite the fact that their mothers are also imperfect?
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Husband left, 2 months of depression... How will you cope if you are left all alone?
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BUCHIC BUCH
DISTRICAL, but TRANDER TRANSTICED
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Masha
My mother always told me: "I can advise, from the height of past years, but go through your own life path, if you want, listen to my advice, if you don't, it's only your path, you'll get bumps, you're guilty"
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Rita
Well, yes, easier blame mother for everything0003
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Guest
If you were my mother, I would also hate you.
There is a reason. You are a toxic parent and in fact you never loved your child, even if you convinced yourself that you want the best for her and love her. A mother who loves a child will never allow a child (especially a girl) to weigh 70 kg at the age of 12. You consciously wanted to disfigure her out of envy, so that she would be fat and ugly. Again, a loving parent will develop a child and lead in sections, even if the child has no talents. Look at the mediocre children of celebrities, their parents love them, and even realizing that the child is ugly or untalented, they still push him into a model / singer, etc. That's what loving parents do. Bottom line, you hated your child, now he has grown up and hates you. Everything is natural. Why are you surprised and what did you expect? What goes around comes around.
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Evil
222222 In what reality are you an author? Yes, there was no advanced biochemistry then, but somehow the usual blood and urine tests helped my mother choose a certain diet for me, which stopped the development of acne.
It is thanks to her efforts, walking with me to dermatologists, doctors, nutritionists, endocrinologists, that my face does not look like potholes, which people whose parents hammered a bolt on the beauty of children. Yes, already at 36+, when I took care of my health, everything became clear what was happening to me .. and why both the skin and weight jumps. But the skin is clear. Education - but didn’t the food come out into the horse? Because if you had a horse, you would have gone into the woods at the age of 23. Because you are a typical rapist. You all know better. True, hatred is a destructive feeling. it’s more logical to just stay away from you, giving you a granddaughter and son-in-law as a prize. You chose them - you live with them .. And so - wiring. About typical monsters by the way .. Heh, they should be kept in a cage, away from people. For people like the author are just an illustration of a poem about those "who know how to do it."
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Yesterday my daughter openly told me that he hates me
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I miss her very much, so I don’t really appreciate it, and even when we lived together I didn’t allow myself such a thing
when I somehow offended my mother (of course, not on such a scale) complete ignore, acts well, you immediately understand that you love and We need parents
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Author, do you live together? You have one way out.
And it's not a psychologist. Wait until your 18th birthday and kick in the ass.
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Then they reacted to this with a concept, relations improved.
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Penelope
don't get involved and don't respond with rudeness to rudeness. She will understand. Guilt is the hardest feeling of all. Will get to her. Ignore, don't talk, step back and don't touch her. Do not give money, remove documents and jewelry from your eyes.
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I'm out of my skin too.
I work seven days a week, just to have everything you need. Everything for them. And then for whom do we live and work? ...... The three of us live, my daughters and I ..... The youngest is registered in the apartment of her ex-husband and inherits half of his dacha .... but you can’t live there like that , they won't let her...that's why it's convenient for her to live with us...I offered her this option if I don't suit her like a mother....
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Guest
I don’t believe that such a good-good mother hate her native daughter . It would be nice to hear her opinion too.
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Her Majesty
And where will she go with a kick in the ass, to the street?
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Victoria
I'm out of my skin too.
I work seven days a week, just to have everything you need. Everything for them. And then for whom do we live and work? ...... The three of us live, my daughters and I ..... The youngest is registered in the apartment of her ex-husband and inherits half of his dacha .... but you can’t live there like that , they won't let her...that's why it's convenient for her to live with us...I offered her this option if I don't suit her like a mother....0176
I am infuriated by my husband with his children and grandchildren ...
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The man immediately warned that all property was written to children
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I don’t want to work
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A lie 22 years long. How to destroy?
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Husband left, 2 months of depression... How will you cope if you are left all alone?
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Wherever he wants, let him go.
It is not for this that they feed her to this day, so that she would arrange hell on Earth for her mother.
And if she is kicked out into the street, she can become anyone: a drug addict, a prostitute or a vagabond.
If there are additionally 3 good daughters, then maybe this is not terrible.
But it is better to endure this period, no matter how hard it is. Get your father to help you cope.
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is the complete opposite of me. She and I can chat for hours on any topic. She asks me for advice, and I express my opinion without imposing. Become an authority? ..... you see, the little one takes a step forward, and two steps back ..... I give her advice ... in response I get a bunch of shit ... But it turns out that, in my opinion, everything .
... the experience is still life .. ..And this is what finishes her off ..... Thank you DEAR FORUM PEOPLE!!! In my heart I forgave her. and wished happiness.....I got the "truth" about myself, bitter, sick and unfair.
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I don’t believe that such a good-good mother hates her native daughter. It would be nice to hear her opinion too.
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I am 14 and she is rude to me, she screams at my request for help - why should I? You can call me crazy and stuff like that.
Hope it's age.
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Sincerely sorry for you.
What can I say.
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2222 I want to hear advice. And you know, I myself know that I ruined it. What should I do?
"The apartment is mine. Until the age of 18, you have the right to live here according to the law, as well as receive food, drink and everything so as NOT TO DIE. And that's all. After a year, I pack your suitcase and put it out the door. You can meet there whenever you want You can come to me, but only as a GUEST, and take care of permanent housing yourself.╩
Try it.
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Guest
In such a situation, an acquaintance bought an apartment for her daughter.
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Sonya
If you have never known what it is to hate your own child, then you have never been a mother. (Betty Davis)
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Her Majesty
Author, do you two live? You have one way out. And it's not a psychologist. Wait until your 18th birthday and kick in the ass.
Where will she go to the street with a kick in the ass?
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Guest
And if my daughter hates me for 15 years (she is 30) - does that mean I'm a supermom?
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B-ka
What was poured into the vessel is poured out (Arabic proverb).
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Victoria
Do you think it would be appropriate to convey to this MCH that I would not like his presence at night .... You see, I feel disrespect on his part .... why is he guarding the peace of your parents? ...... I have a lot of questions .... it seems that he has a quite good (according to) family, though it has many children .... why is she not worried about where her son spends his nights and with whom? Why does he allow himself to mess around in my house?
Why is his mother not worried? Duck "be a good fellow is not a reproach" - why should she worry? He said, "Mom, I won't come home tonight, I'll go to my girlfriend," and that's it.
Just an unfortunate guy got caught, an unequal couple. If he were the same as your daughter - at home, without numerous brothers and sisters, from a wealthy, status family - then it would be easier to talk to him, and perhaps he would not break furniture.
