"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.

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

tutrles he simply does not have the emotional capacity to reason in this way, his brain has not developed that level of understanding, not even the most empathic, sensitive child can possibly understand and put into some context what has gone on the two years prior to that. How can he possibly understand something that happened when he is two. The reason why children do not remember as far back as babyhood is that their memories, thoughts and feelings and the images to go with them, they occur when words come, when they learn verbal communication that would be from 2-3 onwards. They do not have the words to put to the memories that come before that so they cannot possibly know it.

The way that children can be affected is by absence of love and attention in the first few years, through stress (thinking of the level of the romanian orphans) and they manifest it in a long term attachment issue, due to parts of their brain physically not forming. These are children who have been seriously starved of attention, not those whose first two years were not as great as the mum wanted them to be. Not your son, and if it were your son, he would not be expressing it intellectually he would be expressing it by bad behaviour, by lack of attention and affection, by other signs of cortisal damage etc, not through telling you he is sad at how you treated him as a baby.

Not sure if that made any sense whatsoever!

"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."

It's the last half of this that is wrong. Because you are worried about the first half- his earlier life- you take a normal childish way of expressing himself as significant in a way that other mums wouldn't. It is a little bit as if in a few years time you attached an awful significance to the loss of his milk teeth because your mind was focused on his possible earlier trauma, whereas other mums would just think 'oh, they all lose their milk teeth'.

The problem is that your needs are not the same at this stage. You need to handle the burden of whatever went before. He needs a brisk cheerful mum who will let him behave as other children do without getting upset or worried or even too interested in it.

He may not have understood events when he was 1 and 2yrs old but that doesn't mean he doesn't remember. In the past he expressed his feelings with bad behaviour, now he is expressing it by telling me how he feels and how I make/made him feel.
So his emotional capacity to reason - yes, he absolutely does mean that I made him sad. That's what happened in the past, and that's what he is telling me now his language has advanced enough for him to explain. He couldn't explain it when he was 2 but he can now and he clearly remembers that I made him sad - certain triggers like me telling him off for certain behaviours trigger those memories - the behaviour ironically that started when I was struggling and he was acting out.

Bad behaviour is one thing - I can almost normalise it as typical childish behaviour because I see a lot of other children doing what he does, but hearing him explain how he feels is confirming to me how he feels about how I treated him when he was younger and making me feel that this is more than just a flippant, childish comment.
They may not have the words to express the memories but that doesn't mean that the memories aren't there.

That is interesting Mojoceratops. I have been very careful about the words I use so that he doesn't feel that he is bad or naughty. I am allowing him to feel the way he does, he's entitled to have those feelings and emotions. My first thought was how much love and reassurance is it going to take for him to move on, because this has been going on for a while now.

He is 3 you are giving him too much power. He is a child and doesn't have the tools yet to unravel a complicated family situation. Ignore him and keep it light heavy one on ones with a 3 yr old is going nowhere. If you continue like this as he gets older he will realise the power of these words and it could then be a problem. Let him be a child not a confidante or friend He is a baby

Why don't you pick him up next time kiss him and say Don't be daft and then get on with your day? This is a lot of pressure

I do not give him too much power! I am quite strict and as much as he would love to rule the roost, he absolutely does not. Ignoring implies dismissing to me and I can't/won't dismiss something that implies he has feelings that I have ignored in the past - so he is getting plenty of love, affection and attention particularly when he says negative things. I am reading playful parenting so that's the approach I'm working on.

so, what is he learning then, by telling you that he does not love you? 'if i tell mummy i don't love her, i get lots of kisses and cuddles' he does not understand 'dont love' he understands that a certain word or two gets him lots of fusses and that is what he wants, which completely contradicts the idea that you make him sad.

I think you are taking way too much responsibility for his feelings and giving too much weight to the things he says.

I am so sorry that the guilt you feel over PND has made you feel like this.

His ability to make you feel like this is power. Nothing to do with how strict you are. Ignoring is not dismissive it is a normal part of parenting because if you took the one on one route with every negative thing a child said to you you would never get anything done! Ignoring will show him it doesn't hurt you and then if you show him love and attention at other times he won't associate this behaviour with having a hold over you.

"he is getting plenty of love, affection and attention particularly when he says negative things"

OP, you do understand that this reinforces the negative things he says?

I really do suggest you get counselling. He may be complicated, but he is mirroring your feelings back to you. When you are able to love and accept yourself, his words will stop affecting you in the way they are ... and in fact he will probably stop saying them.

With a 3 year old, I would be talking less.

They just don't have the points of reference, perspective or thinking abilities to talk about sadness in the way that an adult would.

I completely agree with Pavlov's points about how an emotionally damaged child would be acting. From what you are saying, your DS is just reflecting back at you what you are conveying to him. This is normal behaviour for a 3 year old.

I have also read Playful Parenting - just concentrate on the playing and don't over think it.

No parent is perfect. Children survive with imperfect parents.

Definitely agree with Noddy - if my own son said this I would cuddle him quick, say 'well I love you' or similar and then get on with the day. Try not to dwell. As long as you're lovely and kind to him, don't give too much attention to it, it'll stop.

And believe you me, any training that you have with children will fly right out the window with your own unless you can devote some time to understanding yourself.

He's learning that it's o.k to feel the way he does, and as others have suggested, that I still love him even when he does things that he shouldn't (hitting/pushing/kicking).
I do feel very responsible for his feelings because he's only ever been at home with me - so what he feels is a reflection of his experiences at home with me. I give weight to what he says based on the context - I don't take everything he says so seriously!

He has no real idea how I feel about what he has said, he's not doing it for attention - he says it when he's got my undivided attention, when I'm making an effort to spend time with him allowing him to do or say whatever he wants or needs (usually tickle me!).

"He has no real idea how I feel about what he has said"

You have no way of knowing this, turtles. Children are often incredibly attuned to a parent's emotions - especially if a parent is anxious. They might not be immediately aware of exactly what it is that they are picking up on, but they will articulate it in the way that they know how. Your son knows something is wrong - probably not in the way an adult would know, but know he does.

Counselling can make such a striking difference. I say this as a therapist, as someone who has been in therapy for a significant length of time, who has a young DS, and who has had PND.

If you think it is OK to experience feeling sad, why is it a problem? Do you think that he talks about being sad because he is referring back to past events? Do you think those experiences still have the power to make him feel sad now? It seems to me that this is the way you are thinking.

Assuming that you are right and he feels sad now because of what happened when he was younger, it is still not in your power to either change what happened in the past, or to control his emotions. All you can do is be a good enough mother now (which as you are a member of the human race will not be perfect and will not be as described in Playful Parenting).

I'm not saying it's a problem that he feels sad, but that he's referring back to past events - certain things trigger those feelings for him and he's able to tell me how he feels now. He tells me when he has my undivided attention and he knows I'm really listening to him.

It's interesting to hear perspectives from those who have had counselling and are therapists. Part of me is denying that it was a problem bad enough to need counselling, and I still don't believe that I had pnd so things were bad but not that bad. I'd rather give more time to ds than go out for an hour for counselling, even though he'd be over the moon to spend more time with daddy or granny!

"I'd rather give more time to ds than go out for an hour for counselling"

And that might be part of the problem right there, turtles: an inability to put yourself first. If you can't find an hour a week to look at what's going on with you, what does that say about how much you value yourself? Your son is almost certainly mirroring that back to you - and it is working because his words are affecting you so deeply.

Also, your reluctance to go into some form of counselling with the reason you give (one hour? really?) might tell me, as a therapist, that there is something you really are resisting. Which makes counselling even more viable, imo.

If you want to PM me at any time, I'm here, btw.

-- Conflug

I am sorry but I think this is all about you and you maybe need to get some help to work it through without bringing him into it. Lots of children go through phases saying things like this but I really don't think a 3 yr old can refer back like that and associate feelings with 'now'. You are projecting adult feelings onto a child. It all sounds very sad for you but I bet he is fine x

Yes, it is all about me. I have very high standards and am very hard on myself. I tried a while ago to find a therapist/counsellor but it's not that easy to find the right one, and even though I'm a sahm the whole process caused me so much stress I gave up.

He does seem fine - very happy, affectionate and confident but there are a few little things that give away a sadness and insecurity to me.

He does seem fine - very happy, affectionate and confident that is everything you could possibly want for your child! that sadness, it is your sadness. You are seeing it/looking for it, as it seems you cannot possibly accept that the difficult first two years could not have had a huge impact on him. The sadness you see, that is your sadness, not his. His sadness is the normal learning of emotions of a 3yo that every other parent of a 3yo posting on here has experienced and talked about.

If he were damaged by your actions in the first two years, he would not be 'very happy, affectionate and confident'. And if you study attachment theory in detail that would be explained in more detail of how/why. It could be useful if you have not already, to read a bit about attachment theory, and how damage is done, because it just simply does not affect a child in the way you are talking about. They are not formed emotionally enough to react that way.

As he is also a member of the human race, there are times when he will feel sad and he will feel insecure. Sometimes he will also feel cold and he will also be a bit too hot and sometimes he will feel bored. That is how we are programmed. It is also normal to have periods when you disconnect and reconnect with other people.

I get the impression that you feel guilty because whenever you recognise sadness and insecurity in him, you assign it to past events and blame yourself? You will never be able to mother him into never feel sad or insecure.

"You will never be able to mother him into never feel sad or insecure."

Agreed, merrymouse. You're getting some great advice from all quarters here, turtle, imo.

One of the central tenets of attachment theory according to Winnicott, a psychoanalyst who worked widely with infants and the parent-child relationship, is that of being the "good enough" parent. A significant part of this is to be able to contain a child's otherwise hard-to-bear feelings; in other words, you, as the parent, are able to demonstrate to them that difficult emotions can be survived.

"Survive" sounds like extreme language, but in the eyes of a small child who depends completely on others for its survival, anything that is unpredictable or which causes distress can feel like that kind of a threat to its survival because it shakes the foundations of their world.

The point is that we cannot avoid these threats -- many of which are things we'd consider 'normal' such as an infant's realisation when it wakes up that 'mother' is not in the room. To that infant, in that moment, she has ceased to exist. The point is how the parent reacts to these threats. Is s/he attuned to her/his child's needs? Can s/he hold and soothe that child when they are expressing distress? And, in this case, can s/he demonstrate that s/he is able to withstand and bear the child's otherwise unbearable emotions for them?

Which is why your ability to look at, sit with, bear and process your own emotions is essential.

My DD snd neighbours DD fell out over whether to watch Lion King or Cinderella... When her friend couldn't have her own way she kicked everything over and stormed outside shouting "I hate you and the whole wide world and everything" . She is 4...