"I don't love you" said my 3yr old

[turtles]

What can I do about it ?

I really struggled to cope with things when he was little and have recently started to feel like I've really got my issues sorted but now he keeps telling me how I make him sad and he doesn't love me - he only loves daddy and granny.

I've been trying really, really hard to connect with him and be positive and loving with him all day every day but he just responds with "but I don't love you" or "you make me sad". I've tried taking a play approach and role reversal (I'm really sad, can you make me better?) but it doesn't seem to be working. He's very loving and appears happy and confident so I had no idea he felt like this. I'm a sahm and have spent a lot of time with him but he's very intense and spirited so can be very hard work to keep on top of his behaviour.
I feel like I've messed him up and it's imprinted now forever, he'll never get over how crap I was as a mother in the first 2 years of his life.

5 exactly what I 'may' have said too! It has now aged 6 progressed to 'well you/no one is allowed in room! not even you mummy . ever! not even when it's bedtime !

While Dh and I laugh as quietly as we can, before having words about door slamming.

ha ha yes i have the door slamming with ds3 age 7. does she stomp off up.the stairs all dramatically bemoaning how its all so 'unfair' its soo hard not to laugh!

I have my longest individual chats with my two at bedtime, I don't try to keep it as short as possible - why would you do that? IMO children are at their most relaxed in bed after a story or whatever and it's when I really get to find out what's bugging them as they seem more willing to open when we are chatting in a relaxed cuddly manner in the dark than if they were distracted with other activities during the day. I enjoy the intimacy of these bedtime chats too - each of them on their own getting my full attention without a sibling interfering!

Maybe he feels you rush him at bedtime?

On a more general note I would just keep plugging away and saying "well that's a shame because love YOU " when he says this stuff. And keep on with spontaneous hugs etc during the day. Find out what makes him tick and even if Thomas the tank engine or whatever bores you senseless then feign interest and get him to tell you more about it.

You might be doing all that anyway of course. I just drop any heavy conversations about sadness etc and keep things light hearted and NO PRESSURE for him to demonstrate his love for you. Demonstrations of his affection for you will come. Even if its just looking pleased when you give HIM a hug. One of my sons is not very huggy and tries to go "oh Mum!l" etc in an embarrassed way when I give him a hug sometimes (he is 9 so thinks he is grown up!) but he always looks secretly pleased when I do it. So I carry on doing it rather than not bothering because he seems a bit uncomfortable (on the surface).
Ed

He's 3! he would love you if you were the worst mother in the world (not that i'm suggesting you aren't a good mother) .It's an evolutionary tool implanted into every small child to love their parents, because they wouldn't be able to survive without them.
he's jsut a smart cookie and has figured out how to push your buttons!

I'm not showing him it upsets me, I'm responding with love and playing.

I'm sorry to hear about your pnp 5, I know things weren't terrible in the grand scheme of things but I feel pretty crap about how things were and how I treated him so hearing him say this is a bit of a reality check of his emotions.

I do really feel for you, OP, but I think, as others have said, you need to leave this issue alone for the moment. It's not helping to raise the topic or to talk in any way about either of you being sad. Whatever he says, don't respond to that - just say what is anyway, and always would be, the truth: tell him you love him. The thing is, even if he didn't love you (and I'd be sure he does, but is testing out boundaries with you) you would still love him, wouldn't you? So just keep saying it. In a way, whatever he says is irrelevant - it doesn't change your feelings. And all this will pass in time.

My 3.5 yr old told my DH last night that he liked it when Mummy went out (so he could watch more tv I assume). Felt a bit gutted when DH told me. This morning my DH was the worst in the world and DS was an absolute nightmare to get dressed screaming for me. They are fickle at this age.

its fine now turtle these things happen.

just because he says he doesnt love you does not mean that us how hevactually feels! hell at three years old he doesnt understand love (do adults?!) he us expressing that he doesnt alwats like what you do/say ie that its bedtime! or you wont let him eat chocolate all day! and you may not tjink you show a reaction but they pick up on the smallest things!

i am sure you werent crap. no-one is a oerfect parent and you dont hace to be.

find something he enjoys and do.it with him. play with him, have lots if cuddles and just enjoy him. they change so fast at tjis age and are learning so much about hiw things work and that includes emotions and feelings. its good to teach him.to express his feelings and emotions but dont read too much into them. three year olds are fickle creatures!

If you think A 3 yo telling you they don't love you is upsetting, wait until your 16yo tells you he hates you, you are a public embarrassment and he'd rather stay home that be seen out with you!
They don't ever mean it. It's just a way to bug you!

Yes, there's no point going over and over it but I don't think it's something that should be ignored or brushed under the carpet. It was mentioned I should look into counselling but that was my line of thinking - if adults are recommended counselling to deal with issues then why should kids just be expected to put up with what ever life throws at them because they put on a happy face 20mins later? I'm not saying he needs counselling, it was just my line of thinking wondering how he's coped with life so far and wondering about the effects certain events have had on him, and hearing him say I don't love you as a reflection of how he's coped.

o.k, am getting far too serious for my own good - late night philosophising is never good!
I'm hoping I get off lightly with boys hearing what similar aged girls are saying to their mums already!

Sounds like he's picked up on the fact that it upsets you or is an issue that creates attention and so of course that will just make the issue worse. When did he start saying 'I don't love you'? Did you ask him 'do you love me' or did he just start saying it by himself, in the kind of nonsense way that children do? The more you make an issue of it, the worse it'll get.

It's better to just laugh it off and act like it's no big deal. I can't imagine a 3 year old having much of a concept of making someone happy or sad or loving someone anyway. Their emotions change every hour of the day at that age.

I really wouldn't get so serious and intense with a child that age.

He's 3. He doesn't think about how you treated him until he was 2. He thinks about how to get the sweets out of the fridge and where he left his teddy. Just be his mum and love him.

And he will love you right back.

I'm not getting serious and intense with him, I'm just pondering. He can be very serious and intense in himself though! The way he said it and the context was not just a fickle, flippant remark so he could move on to snack time/toys/whatever. When I do sit with him to talk I'm amazed by what comes out, that's what started off my pondering.
He does understand the context of making people feel happy/sad because he is explaining that I made him sad (in the past). He couldn't express his feelings at the time so now I'm spending more time with him and listening to him more, he has the opportunity to tell me.

My DD 4yo says it all the time. I say No you cant have an icecream. she says I dont love you any more. I say no you cant ride your bike. she says I dont love you any more.

Life has been difficult for us since STBXH walked out earlier this year, but I keep reassuring her that I love her and that daddy loves her and it doesnt matter whether she loves us or not, that we will always love her

Ds1, 5yo tells me he wants to move to a new house and that I can't go with him. He doesn't want to live with me anymore because he doesn't like me.

He stomps off to his room and slams the door saying he hates me.

He loves daddy more. Until daddy tells him off of course.

He doesn't want me to be his mum anymore.

He comes out with loads of this stuff. Suppose he'll say worse as he gets older. I did to my mum

You are the only mum he really wants - today is the start of the rest of his life. I doubt whether many of us remember much from before we were three. You obviouly gave him a poor start, or feel that you did, but there is no need for guilt to sour the future. Let it all go and concentrate on the future. Children don't come into the world to 'love us' - it is too much of a burden. They do, but they are never going to say so to order, the nature of 3 yr olds is to keep saying they don't love you if they can see that you take it seriously, just brush it off with a laugh and a giggle and they can be reassured that you love them whatever - which is of course how they really feel about you.

Just be prepared for the next stage - everyone else has lovely understanding parents who let them have TVs in their bedroom etc whereas you are the meanest mother they know!

You don't think you need counselling because you have sorted yourself out?
If the words of a three year old are causing you deep distress rather than mild irritation, then you do need more support and another person's perspective.

Please talk to a counsellor. You are coming across as very insecure and needy and I think projecting onto your son. He will pick up on your non-verbal cues, leaving aside any loaded language and leading questions. The "hating" is a normal stage in child development. To get all psycho-babbly on you, the child has to learn that they can experience negative feelings towards the mother without it destroying the mother, that it is okay to have 'bad' feelings and how to manage them themselves. This is an important stage they go through, around the age of 3; it's just another stage, like learning object permanance etc. I'm not a child development expert, but this is something I have discussed with my counsellor.

This roughly sums it up - Melanie Klein: "Because in the child?s world there is not yet a distinction between fantasy and reality; loving and hating experiences towards the good and bad objects are believed to have an actual impact on the surrounding objects. Therefore, the infant must keep these loving and hating emotions as distinct as possible, because of the paranoid anxiety that the destructive force of the bad object will destroy the loving object from which the infant gains refuge against the bad objects. The mother must be either good or bad and the feeling experienced is either love or hate.

However, later in development, these emotions start to get integrated, in a natural process. As the infant?s potential to experience ambivalence grows... the infant starts forming a perception of the objects around it as both good and bad, thus tolerating the coexistence of these two opposite feelings for the same object."

If you let your son think his 'hate' threatens you, then that is likely to become a source of anxiety and insecurity for him. He may feel bad (or that he is bad) for having negative feelings. That's the side of the coin I'm coming from, rather than the maternal perspective.

Your OP resonated with me because I've had similar with my DS. It's because I'm quite down about our relationship as since DD has been born I've not been able to give him the attention I used to and I beat myself up about it daily. However I know that I shouldn't take it to heart because DS is so little (2.11), that yes he does need me more (DD is a high needs baby) and I must not project feelings onto him.

I've been giving DS more affection, more attention and spending more time with him and listening more. I also help more at bedtime and spend ages telling him stories before he goes to sleep, which he loves!

He's testing out his emotions - just because he can articulate it doesn't mean the same as how an adult would say it. Toddlers have a very clear logic which is astounding and they don't think how we do!

curlyhaired I love bedtime ramblings! When I pick the children up from preschool and school and ask what they did that day, i get 'cant remember' from both of them! at bedtime, I get the whole day (trying to avoid sleep!).

OP, your little boy will stop this soon and soon he will tell you he loves you. Regardless of what he says, he does love you very much, he just does not have the words to express it or know the power of the words he does use.

You don't have to listen to th e insults of three year olds, because they are three year olds, and therefore not responsible for their oral ramblings. Ignore.

Ps until a child is about ten, " I hate you" probably means that they are furious with you, or have had a bad day.