"Nobody Likes Me!"

How to interpret and respond to kids' negative self-talk.

A couple of weeks ago in a newsletter thread, a subscriber raised an excellent question. She wrote:

I have a 6-year-old who melts down before bedtime. What really throws me for a loop is when she's done yelling and stomping her feet and she calms down, she starts saying, "I hate myself. I'm not a good kid. No one loves me." I have no idea where this is coming from. Isn't she too young for the teenage self-loathing? It's kind of scary and worries me. What's the best way to respond?

I’m going to answer this question broadly (how to handle negative self-talk in general, including in tweens and teens) and also address this specific situation (which is slightly more complicated because it occurs in the context of parents setting a potentially unwanted limit, i.e. bedtime).

When kids talk about themselves this way, it can be heartbreaking. My kids, too, have said things like “I am the worst person in the world,” “I have no friends,” and “Nobody likes me,” and it just makes me want to… well, start bawling. When we hear our kids making such dramatic proclamations, it’s scary. We don’t ever want them to feel this way.

But I have good news: Your child likely doesn’t feel as worthless as you think they do. They’re upset, yes — but they don’t really believe nobody loves them or they are a bad person. They are having VERY BIG FEELINGS, and they may not even know exactly why, and exaggerating is the best way to ensure that you’ll take them seriously. (If you hear your child saying these things regularly, however, it might be wise to have a conversation with a pediatrician or therapist. Frequent negative self-talk is linked with anxiety and depression.)

In this particular case — the negative self-talk happens right before bedtime — a kid may also have learned through experience that saying dramatic things buys them a bit of time before you say night night. Often, little kids utter dramatic proclamations when something is happening that they don’t like — when a limit is being enforced or a fun thing is coming to an end — in part because they know that these statements will get them what they want. I’m not saying your kid is being manipulative when they do this, but they are being clever!

So what should you do when your child makes a particularly self-deprecating declaration? Here’s what I suggest.