My Child Explodes Every Time I Say No (what to do when every boundary leads to yelling, disrespect, and “you’re stupid!”)

In today's episode, I invite you into my real-time coaching session with a mom of a 6-year-old who hears every no as rejection. If you've got a kid who digs in saying hurtful things in the heat of the moment, this episode is for you. Welcome to the Parent Coaching Chair podcast. I'm your host, Julie Fragnito, and your partner in parenting. Here we'll talk with real parents about their real moments. Come along as we grow from each other's experiences and receive practical, high structure, high nurture tools that you can use to lead confidently at home. Before we dive in, if you're dealing with something at home right now and you wish you could ask me what to do in the moment, you can. Ask Julie is my 24/7 instant parent coaching service. Just send me your situation and you'll get a personalized response rooted in my high structure, high nurture approach. You can learn more at transformingparenthood.com.

So I have a 6-year-old and it seems like just anytime that we're trying to redirect or give advice on why it's— we're not gonna be doing something, he just takes it really hard and he will just, you know, we say no and he'll blow up and just saying things that are not kind and things that I know get to him. It wears on him. I can, I can see later in the day. Where he just, he doesn't feel good about things. And I think his overall self-esteem is pretty low when it comes to his behavior. I think it's just developed over time and it's kind of worsened over the last year where his self-image, I feel, it's not a great one. And he feels like he's a bad person. He was saying yesterday that he couldn't wear this specific thing because my husband said, oh, that looks really nice. And he's like, oh, I gotta go change this because I'm not nice. So he went and changed his outfit. So, I don't know. I think he's playing into an image. I don't know why, but I don't think he feels good about the choices he makes and, um, he digs his heels in. Once he's told no, you know, so, you know, right, you lie, he thinks it's stupid and we're stupid and it's just hard.

I can hear that you feel like this is happening more often than not. Is that kind of what it feels like these days or are there Are there good moments and positive moments where you don't see glimpses of this?

There are a lot of good moments. It just happens a lot, but, um, maybe, maybe 50/50.

Okay. Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about this insecurity idea has been developing over time. Do you have any more information to add to that? An indicator that, you know, something you think may have caused it, or is it simply just you noticing like, oh, it started when he was 3 and now all of a sudden it's every time we say no.

Yeah. You know, I wonder if there's ways that he's been redirected in the last year. At school, they had a method where, I don't know if that's the only case. I'm sure there's lots of cases, but if you did something that you weren't supposed to, you would kind of be set aside and So you could reflect and it seems like that's, that's kind of when he started kind of really developing this self-image of, you know, I'm, I'm bad. And it got worse and worse and worse. It started where he told me like, oh, there's this new thing that we're doing and I don't like it. And then he's just like, oh, I'm just never gonna get out of this, you know, the cycle of correction. And then he just started having a lot of behavior issues and From the beginning of the school year after, he didn't have any changes anymore. Like, it was just bad. He just stuck his heels in. He was just, he was just this person. He was bad. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So I hear, one, how exhausting this is, and then also you are noticing that he's saying things like, I feel bad, or I don't like myself in this. As hard as it is for our parent hearts to hear these kinds of things, In the behavioral sense, he's trying to make sense of his world, and it's very clear that developmentally this is exactly what he's supposed to be doing, but he's just trying to figure it out. These people think I'm bad. I don't, I can't get outta this cycle. I'm just, I guess I'm just bad. I'm curious to know if you have any specific moment to bring me to so we could really break that down.

So you're watching TV and he wants to change the channel, so he comes in and tries to change it. It's like, no, we're not doing that. You know, we're, we're doing this. And all of a sudden it's just, you're just like, you're stupid. You know, this is stupid. And will just yell and scream and run the door, run out the door and kick things. And until you can finally get his attention, like, yeah, that's not okay. You know, that's not, that's not reasonable way to to react, um, eventually he'll calm down some of that. Or if you are talking and then he feels like it was his turn, he was gonna interject and it was his turn to talk and like, hey, wait, you know, this is our time to talk. And he's like, no, I was talking first. And then, um, if you try to talk to him, he'll cover his ears and, you know, it's like, no, you know, you're stupid. You're stupid as mom. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So yeah.

Sure. So it's almost as if he carries that no. Or you can't do this right now as shame, right? It's just all piling on top of his little body of like, you hate me. No matter when you say no, it's almost, that's all he's hearing is, can I change? I'm going to go change the channel. No, you can't change the channel. Oh, you hate me. I'm going to go run off and scream. Or no, you can't interrupt right now. We're having an adult conversation. You hate me. I'm just going to sit here and scream. And it's something that gets exhausting over time. And it's, it's really, really frustrating to deal with. How do you find yourself dealing with these moments?

Um, you try to take a deep breath and you try to reason and then it's like, okay. I mean, we, we kind of have different approaches, my husband and I. He'll try to reason with him. I'm like, no, he's not gonna listen right now. This is just not the time to engage. And you know, one of us will walk away, the other one will try to talk to him and it just, you know, It'll just get bigger and bigger. And so it just depends on who's talking to him at the time. And, but ideally, you know, we step back and when he's not blowing up, then like, okay, are you good? Uh, you know, that's not okay. You know, what, what can we do to help you? Sure. Um, yeah.

Yeah. So tell me a little bit about the, the boundaries aspect of this. So let's say like the TV situation. When he, you know, pouts and runs off and cries, does the channel eventually get changed?

No. Okay. I, I usually will just take the remote away or sometimes he'll find a second remote, so I'll just take the cable away from the TV. I'm like, okay, when we earn it, then we can put it back. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay.

And then like the moment of interruption, I can imagine that being hard because you're trying to talk and then. His outburst is literally interrupting, so it probably is getting you to stop having your conversation that you were trying to tell him you were having. Are you continuing talking to the other adult in the room? Are you dropping everything and handling him first?

We usually just drop it and, you know, try to handle him and sometimes just walk away and try to have a conversation another time.

Sure, sure. I appreciate your context because, you know, one thing that's standing out to me is that I don't think this is primarily a behavior problem at his age, right? I think it's also an interpretation problem. It sounds like, like I said before, he just experiences boundaries as straight up rejection. So he hears no, stop, wait, or correction, and it just gets filtered through his nervous system and he's like, people don't like me, I am bad. That doesn't make disrespect, changing the channel, interrupting, not listening to you okay, but it just helps us kind of get the idea of why his reactions are so dramatic and so big. And so here the goal isn't to get rid of limits. It sounds like you're doing a really good job of taking the thing away, consistent corrective action. You cannot have the remote. Doing all of these things. Kids need limits. They need consequences to see how far they can get and what is allowed. But the goal here is actually to help him experience those limits while at the same exact time, the idea of getting him to believe that he is loved, he's not singled out, and he's actually being treated very fairly. And so I think that's kind of the trick here. And what I teach is high structure, high nurture parenting. And so we always want to protect both of those things equally. We don't ever want to change our boundary in the face of a high emotional breakdown. And we also never want to stop protecting the relationship that we have with our kids. And I hear this back and forth where you're like, my husband handles it because he wants to talk it through and have a conversation. And I'm like, no, we have to wait. This is not the time to engage. And I hear you guys trying to find that balance and I hear how intentional and caring and thoughtful you are in these moments where you're maybe not sure of the perfect approach. I mean, who is? What is that balance where I can say no and he feels loved and doesn't feel the need to jump away and scream and make this big scene? I have some tools for you. So the first thing that I wanna start with is I want you to work on separating him from the boundary. So this is kind of a tough thing to do, but I'm gonna give you some practical ideas. He has this narrative in his head that everybody is against me, and we need to shift that narrative from everyone is against me to this is kind of just the expectation in my house. You feel like you're almost dreading giving him a correction because you know how it's gonna end. Stop climbing, don't throw that, not now, wait, you can't do that. We need to give him one message outside of the crazy moments. And maybe you've said something like this before, but something to this effect of my job is to keep everyone safe and respectful. That is literally your job as a parent. My job is to keep everyone safe and respectful. Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is no, but that never changes how much we love you. Tell me if you've ever said anything like that to him and what the effect has been.

Yeah. Yeah. That is a conversation I've had with him, especially at night. He, he opens up at night and talks about, you know, how he's, how he's feeling. So that definitely is one of those things. Like, no matter what you do, you know, we love you. Sometimes you're not gonna hear the answer that you want and It, it doesn't mean that we love you any less. Mm-hmm. Um, and I usually before bed, he, he will listen and he's like calm and, um, he's okay with that. But then, you know, we're, we're back to a moment where he's not regulated and does not— sure. Does not remember that.

Sure. Yeah. And I think that's helpful and, and it's important to know your kid. Does he, do you feel like he can recall? A specific moment from that day that was maybe one of the worst of the moments?

I don't think he likes to. I think he does, but I don't think he likes to. He usually will, if you bring up something hard, like a hard moment, he'll, I just, I don't wanna talk about it. I hear. But so, I mean, I think he, he kind of knows how the day went and then if you bring something specific, he likes to feel loved, but then if you remember the hard thing, he just shuts down. Really want to talk to people.

Okay. And so I think that's an important piece of information in knowing your kid. Like this level of engagement, maybe outside of the moment, is not really the most effective for him. And that's okay. Like maybe it's just not gonna put the pieces together because now we're actually adding more shame and this is backfiring. And maybe that's just not for him. It's, you know, some kids will be like, Yes, this is exactly what happened today. I feel like everybody hates me. I don't know what to do. And then we engage. But if he's not welcoming that level of conversation, that's an important piece of information for me to know, for you to know. We need to work on separating the boundary from him. And so maybe bringing it closer to the moment, maybe not before bed, but maybe in the moment where he says something like, everyone is so mean. Everyone hates me. This is another way to kind of effectively send this message. I don't want you to ever debate those sentences. 'Cause it's, it's typically our instinct as parents to be like, everyone is not being mean. You just can't use the controller right now. Or everybody loves you. This is not something that has anything to do with how much we love you. And so in those moments, we start entering into a back and forth, actually making it feel worse for him. Guess what we're saying? You're wrong. Again, right? He's just telling you what he's feeling and then we're coming in layering shame on top of more shame on top of more shame. And then we try to bring it up later and he's like, I don't want to talk about it. Uh, yeah, that makes sense. Right? This is starting to make sense because he's such an intense kid that when we layer on any sense of him being wrong, he feels like he needs to hide and run. And so when he says things like, everyone's so mean, everybody hates me, I want you to step back and not debate it. I want you to just sit there and say, hmm, I could see why it feels that way. And what you're saying there is you're just pausing and giving him space. He shared something with you, and that's really, really powerful. That's like gold for us, especially if we can't get him to open up in other moments. This is him opening up. Everyone is so mean. He's just saying his feelings and we can't debate his feelings. And so how do we respond? We say, it feels that way to you, or I could see why it feels that way. That's going to disarm him a little bit. And when we sit there and wait for him to come down from it, I don't want you to let it go. I don't want you to change the subject because if this is happening over and over and over again, it's going to continue happening unless we stop it in its tracks. And the way we do that is we want to say something like, can you tell me what part felt so mean? What, what part felt so mean? And if he can't answer that, I want you to fill in the blanks for him. I wonder if feeling, I wonder if hearing the word no feels like everybody's against you.

Hmm.

I wonder if that's what's happening here. I wonder if hearing the word no makes you feel like Daddy and Mommy don't love you. And what you're doing is you're jumping in with him. You're not going against him anymore in these moments. He already feels like you're against him enough. So that's the first tool in separating him from the boundary itself. Is it the way I took the remote? Is it the way my voice sounded? But did my voice get really angry like this? And then you were like, my mom doesn't like me. Did my body come over yours and you were like, ah, you're scary. If you went through these instances with him, I could see you maybe even getting a giggle out of him.

Yes. That's awesome. If, um, if I can get his attention. 'Cause like I said, you know, he gets so big that there's no reasoning. So if I can get his attention with that and, you know, cool down for just a second to recognize that feeling, 'cause I don't think he recognizes those feelings at all. So, yeah, 'cause trying to talk to him and asking, you know, like, what's happening? You know, he does not know how to say it, but I've never put it into words like Oh, I wonder if this is what's causing you to feel that. So that, that's awesome.

I love using I wonder as the beginnings of my sentences with children of this age because you're jumping in with them. You're creating an equal playing field. It's like, hey, this isn't about me. I just wanna get inside your brain.

Hmm.

I wonder, you know, and, and maybe you waited out. I appreciate you saying now is not the time to engage with him when he's screaming. You're right. His, his brain is too dysregulated. Maybe he runs off to his room. You sit outside in the hallway and say, hey, I have a question for you when you're done. And you just sit there and you show him this conversation is not over. I'll wait, but I will be right here because I've got questions. I've gotta figure this out so this doesn't happen anymore. And that also helps both of you in your calmness and your problem solving in those moments. Let's move on to the next tool. I want you to try to build his tolerance for the word no. I know that sounds crazy because right now every boundary to him feels personal, and we wanna practice hearing no when literally nothing emotional is happening. So we don't wanna wait for him to be doing something wrong. We don't wanna wait for him to be interrupting, grabbing the remote. We want him to hear the word no sometimes. If he wants a different color cup, or if he has to wait 1 minute before interrupting, or if let's say someone else gets to pick the game first. The moments where he handles that well, I want you to praise it. I want you to show him or just say, high five. You just handled disappointment.

That was awesome. Awesome.

Your body stayed calm even though you didn't love that answer. Even if he didn't, you know, race off screaming or crying, and maybe it was just a small little reaction, like, ugh, I want you to just notice when he makes a tiny little step in the right direction. I see that skill being built as a coach, as a parent, as a mother, we wanna notice the baby steps and they're there. We just have to find them. And so I see that was disappointing, but you stayed right there.

High five.

That was hard to hear. Hey, thanks for still talking with me. Because what you're doing is you're showing him that he is more than his worst behavior. I'm gonna pour my attention into you when you are doing the right thing. He needs a muscle built for frustration tolerance. He doesn't need a muscle built for obedience. And so when he is working really hard or doing the right thing, we need to show him that we see it.

That's awesome. I think that's a great reminder to just be so consistent with that. 'Cause I think we just expect him to know and do these things and then we move on to the next thing, but he hasn't, he hasn't built that yet. He hasn't built that good self-image and So I, I just, that's a great reminder.

Yeah. And I love how you said that we expect him to know, we expect him to just know. And that is such a common thing that I hear when our first child no longer becomes our only child and then a new child comes into the picture and suddenly we have these crazy expectations of the oldest. We're like, you need to know this. How do you not know this already? You should know this by now. And we put all this extra pressure, not just on our kids, but on ourselves. It's okay if he doesn't got this. Let's take that as a message to us that we have to take baby steps. So how am I going to do this? I'm going to show him when he is doing the right thing, because I know there are good moments and I know he's a good kid. And I know that he shows a lot of good and good grows exponentially. So the minute we acknowledge it, it will grow. And the next time we acknowledge it, we'll grow even more. And eventually we're gonna push out all of that shade, all of those nos, all of those moments of him feeling like quote unquote the worst. And I'm gonna leave you with my third tool. The last thing that comes to mind is the idea of disrespect, because I know that that's really hard in these moments to handle and to hear. So tell me, in these moments where he does get really mad. I know you mentioned a line, you know, you're mean, I'm not listening to you, you're stupid.

Yeah. Yeah. I think his latest is, uh, you're a stupid old man, you're a stupid old mom. Um, and sometimes he could, he could do, uh, I don't know why, but sometimes towards my mom, he'll hit her. So I, I don't know. I don't know what to do about that.

Yeah. So I think that's really important because these go hand in hand, right? When A kid is feeling something intensely. Sometimes the words just follow. There's no space between their urge and their action to just be aggressive or to be emotional. These words, the disrespectful things, you're stupid, you're stupid old man, you're mean, I'm not listening. They have become his strategy, right? He's learned that these statements instantly pull adults into conversations. You know, let's say he says, you're a stupid old man. I'm assuming he says that to your husband. What, what is the typical response?

Um, I mean, it usually hurts and I think you can tell and he'll just like shrug it off and like, all right, well, I don't get it. And we'll, you know, probably just walk away. Okay.

Uh, what about with your mom? Cause I know it's an important piece that you mentioned.

Yeah, she, she watches him, um, I, she doesn't say anything. She's like, just let him be. He's, he doesn't need to be reminded of anything. He, he's just, he's feeling the things and he doesn't need to be reminded that he's, that he's bad, basically.

Okay.

She thinks it'll just work out. And that's the thing. I think we all have different approaches, so he doesn't really know what to follow. I mean, you're not, but any of us are doing a great job at exactly helping him, right, Julie?

Sure, sure. And do you, um, ever engage with the disrespect? Like, don't say something like that. We don't say that. You can't call somebody stupid.

Yeah. Yeah. We will say, you know, wait, you can't say that. That's hurtful. There, there's no reason to.

Okay.

Yeah.

And so I think that's an important piece, right? I love that you guys, and I appreciate the context of we're all trying. We're all trying different things and I hear how much you really, really care. Um, and you're really, obviously love him so much that you're like, we just want to do what's best. And is he going to just come out of it? Is this him feeling really emotional? Are we supposed to be coming down hard in this moment? Where do we fall and what can we get on the same page with? And so one thing that I do want to say is that on the disrespect piece, whether it's from you or all three of you or one of you, He's learning that these statements can pull adults into conversations. Maybe not so much with your mom cuz she's like, just let him be. But the idea is when he does say these statements, we want to definitely bring it to his attention by drawing the line somewhere. We can't just shout things out like that. And so drawing the line is very quick, concise, and neutral and firm. And just something along the lines of like, I will listen when you are using respectful words. We do not say that. Just very quick. Or, I'll wait. We do not have conversations with words like that. There needs to be some level of whoa, right? Even when we're in our most emotional moments, we need the ones that love us to be like, whoa, let me hold you back, right? You need to calm down. This is not something that's okay. Because sometimes when our kids get taken away by their emotions, they don't really know where the line is. Everything just feels like gray to them. And I'm not saying to engage in a lecture or conversation. I'm just saying, let him hear it. Let him hear you say, we don't talk that way. I will wait. Right? And then when you're waiting, be nearby. Don't just leave. Don't exit. Don't disappear. Stay nearby. Just sit, fold a blanket, wash your hands at the sink. And just when you hear that lull in his emotions, I want you to just say, thanks for coming back so calmly. And then practice replacement phrases. So right after he comes to you calmly, tell him, dude, you cannot say you are mean. You cannot say you are stupid, but here's what you can say. I don't like this. Give him something different to start changing his behavior, just little steps at a time. By doing nothing, right, we're just going to let it keep happening because he's going to say, I don't know, there's no reason I need to stop doing this. And by coming down too hard, he's going to shut down even more and feel more shame and maybe say, you're even stupider than you were yesterday. But by finding that balance in the middle of we don't, we don't talk that way. I'll wait right here. And then letting his body come down and saying, Hey, you cannot call somebody stupid, but you can say, I don't like that. Let's practice. Or instead of yelling over me when I'm having a conversation, you can say, can I have a turn when you're finished? And so that, those are the examples that you gave me with the remote and the conversation. These are really, really important replacements. To give him because children have a tough time finding respectful language when they're in the middle of an emotional state. Adults have a tough time finding that. We need to give him the skills to replace the stuff we don't wanna see anymore.

I love it. I mean, it's, as you, I, to hear you say it, it sounds so logical and I'm like, well, we haven't given him those tools. You know, we, we get mad and triggered also and walk away and what does he do with that? So that is just, it's perfect. It's exactly what we should be doing. And sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh, I saw something about this. How do I handle this? And I wish I could, you know, like scroll through and like, okay, this is how you can tell that. But if I can have 3 tools that I can focus on, like, okay, these are gonna be my tools, my focus to help him with this right now, we can get behind that. This is really the It's a relief to hear, as simple as it may sound for, you know, for some, it's perfect. It's awesome.

I'm glad to hear that that resonates with you because oftentimes we, we're so stuck, right? Correcting our kids and telling them no, no, no, no, no. We're not actually telling them what they can do instead. And then they just get stuck in their feelings and then they just learn to dwell and they have no way out. Like, well, what am I supposed to do differently next time? Well, don't take the remote. No, that's not the lesson. The lesson is if you would like the remote, just ask. Say, can I have the remote please? And if maybe in that moment you want him to get really good practice asking for the remote, maybe every time for the first few times you say, sure. Yeah, you know what? Yeah. Thank you so much for asking. You can change the channel on that remote. And we're kind of zooming in a little bit more. To actually take the time to teach him the little baby steps along the way.

This is incredible. I, I'm really thankful. This is gonna be really helpful for all of us. I think we'll have a little family meeting with the adults and say, this is how we're gonna handle it for a while. And just, you know, watch, watch some confidence grow in this little guy.

I love that you care so much about getting everybody on the same page. And I'm really grateful that we got to have this conversation.

Thank you so much. You're a lifesaver. I appreciate you.

If you're sitting there thinking, I wish I knew exactly what to say in moments like this, that's exactly why I created my Mastering High Structure, High Nurture Parenting course. It teaches you the complete framework behind every coaching conversation you hear on this podcast with 34 video lessons, an 80-page playbook. And lifetime access, you'll have the tools to handle whatever parenting challenge comes next. Learn more at transformingparenthood.com. If this episode helped you, make sure you're following the podcast so you don't miss next week's episode. And if you have just 30 seconds, leaving a quick review is one of the biggest ways you can help me reach more parents who need this message. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you back here next week.