The Mistake Parents Make When Kids Get Angry #parentingtips #adultchildren

2 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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1:13

In this segment, the speaker teaches parents a two‑step de‑escalation method for handling angry or accusatory remarks from children or adult children. First, they advise labeling the child’s emotion by prefacing statements with “it sounds like” or “it seems like,” which reframes accusations as feelings. Second, after the child continues, the parent should repeat the last three to five words of the child’s statement (e.g., “Kick you out?”) to encourage the child to keep talking until the emotional intensity subsides. The approach emphasizes empathy, emotional labeling, and reflective listening to defuse conflict.

Chapters

So the other thing that you can do is start with "it sounds like." Same sort of thing. It sounds like this is a really tough situation for us both. It sounds like you're going through a hard time. It sounds like this is very upsetting to you. See, when you use "it sounds like" and "it seems like," You're taking the accusation and you're putting it into a feeling, and you're labeling the feeling. And that's what you want to do. So if they come at you with attacks, make sure to start each sentence with "it seems like" or "it sounds like." Really important. So after you use "it seems like" or "it sounds like" to label the feeling, They're going to come out with something else, and what I want you to do is just say the last 3 to 5 words of whatever they say. So if they say, "You're just trying to kick me out," just say, "Kick you out?" And then you let them keep talking until the emotion drops.