I was surprised how early I got it, I think my oldest was 3 1/2 the first time he said it and I was expecting older. I was being the best parent I could at the time though and I actually felt pretty proud. I took it as a good sign I was doing my job.
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2026
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We seem to have dodged that phrase so far. At three, her goto was "you're not my favourite!!!". The hardest thing was taking their feelings seriously, without laughing at the cuteness.
If it helps, training them to negotiate helps a lot. It lets them get a "win" while doing what you want. It also requires higher level thought, which seems to help suppress emotional tantrums. Finally, it encourages them to make known what is actually important to them.
We used to do a lot of choices to ease transitions (“do you want to brush your teeth first or get on pajamas”) but currently she’s in a “none of them” phase. Sometimes we can get her with a “special toy to play with when you wake up tomorrow” (or to take in the car or whatever) but a lot of times there’s no winning and we just grit our teeth and trudge through the routine.
We get a lot of “that’s not my favorite” and “I’m not playing with you because you’re not nice to me”.
Outside of the moment she’s really good at expressing everything “I was frustrated when I was all done because I wanted to play more” and we have a good conversation about it. We’re just working on appropriate reactions in the moment.
The false choice trick either works really well, or they clock it quickly and leave you for dust. Our minion caught on far too quickly.
Powering through the tantrums is sometimes all you can do. My record was about 30 minutes or so. By the end I was more wowed by their stamina than stressing. Once they realise that tantrums don't work well, they move on to other tactics (for better or for worse).
Personally, one of the hardest parts of having threenagers was not laughing every time they got mad about something dumb. It was just too cute.
I definitely snorted at it. Turned away so not sure if she caught it. Usually I get a lot of “I’m not playing with you because you’re being mean to me” when I ask her to do something
All kids are different. We never heard that line from our kids. I think because my partner understood what they were going through, and was able to talk it through with the kid and was patient and was able to steer the emotions in the right direction. I never understood that super talent, and I'm very grateful to be with someone who just knows how to read emotions. Not sure if this helps, but KILL THEM WITH KINDNESS might be a good starting point strategy.
I’ve actually never had that from my kids.
Me neither. The worst thing my 4yo said to me was that I couldn't come to his birthday party anymore.
Damn that’s cold lol
Same here, that means there either too scared or too loved. Good job either way.
I don’t like the word hate being thrown around so I’ve talked about it to them several times. I also don’t want a good job if they’re too scared lol
Read the post and am seriously afraid my kids are too scared. 😬 I'd rather the "I hate you" once than that. OTOH, while not the greatest parents, I hope my ex and I somehow made sure that sort of talk was verboten.
We reduced the complaining on bedtime and lots of other requests by using timers: "Here is a 5 min timer, when it rings, it's time to get ready for bed..."
We’re about 50-50 with the timer. Sometimes she accepts it and sometimes we still get meltdowns. She’s going through a phase of transitions and routines being hard. The last two weeks with the holidays and family visiting and no school haven’t helped.
Not a teenager yet but timers help so much it's unreal.
Ah can't wait to get to that stage, we're currently in the everything is "mine" stage.
Congrats on reaching this milestone.
I particularly love the comment Alain De Botton makes about this.
"Gently introduce them to the misery of existence" is one hell of a way of putting it lol
