When your child says he wants to hurt you: A How Not To Guide

Recently Eli has been experimenting with exploring boundaries and testing limits to see how we'll react, particularly when he says things that are inappropriate or offensive.

In other words, he's acting like an asshole.

Most frequently this manifests itself in him telling us that he wants to hurt us. I want to punch you, he'll say, or I want to shoot you. Sometimes he says this mid-tantrum, through sobs, his chest heaving. Other times it's almost playful, scornful, like a dare.

I have a master's degree in Child Development from a respected university. I've read my fair share of parenting books — not to mention those weekly "Your Preschooler This Week" BabyCenter emails. So I know how to respond appropriately in these situations. I know that I'm supposed to remain calm and unruffled and say something like, "I can tell you're really angry right now" or "You must be feeling very upset."

Is that what I actually did this past week? Let's get real. HELL NO.

The other day, when Eli announced that he wanted to punch me, I responded "Then I don't want to be around you" and I closed the bedroom door. And locked it.

I did. I locked my 3-year-old out of my bedroom. Would you want to be around someone who tells you he wants to punch you?

The next time it happened, I promptly burst into tears. Not fake I'm-trying-to-get-you-to-empathize tears but real, frustrated tears, the tears of a woman who wonders where she's gone wrong and why her sweet boy has turned into a sociopath.

"Mommy? Why are you crying?" Eli asked tentatively.

"Because you keep saying you want to punch me and it makes me feel so SAD!" I replied. Eli's lip quivered. Soon he too was wailing.

"Now I'm sad like you!" he cried. "We're both sad!"

The first time he said it, I silently carried him to his room, deposited him on his bed, closed the doors to his room and ordered him to stay in there for three minutes. In other words, a classic time-out. When the timer beeped, he tearfully apologized and vowed that he would never say it again. But "never" is to 3-year-olds what "fact" is to Ben Carson, so...

Of course, in case you hadn't heard, time-outs are now cruel and abusive. I get this in theory: Isolating my child when he's having a hard time sends him the message that it's not OK to be having a hard time and doesn't really help him deal with having a hard time.

On the other hand, theory is a heck of a lot easier than practice, and sometimes in practice isolating myself when my child is having a hard time helps send us both the message that at least no one will get strangled when he's having a hard time.

Later that day, I did what I always do when I've made the wrong parenting decision and want to feel guilty about it: I turned to Google for advice on what I should have done instead. Google confirmed that I was, in fact, the worst mom in the world and that the right reaction would have been to remain calm and unruffled and that is really hard to do when you want to punch a wall, Google.

But what I appreciated was the psychology behind why it's prudent to do this, according to this helpful article: "Your child needs an accepting witness who loves him even when he's angry."

It's fitting that the site is called Aha! Parenting because reading it, I did have an aha! moment. Eli knows I won't want to be around him when he says he wants to punch me. So by isolating him in that situation I really am confirming his worst fears: that he is unlovable, or that I like him only when he's behaving appropriately, or that if he says the worst thing he can think of, I won't love him anymore.

(Aha! I am. The. Worst. Mom. In. The. World.)

I know I'm not the first mom whose kid has said something mean to her. I'm probably not even the first mom who's asked Google, "Is my toddler a sociopath?" Yesterday was the first time that I felt so frustrated and so demoralized that I wasn't even looking forward to going home after work. But when I got there, my stark-naked kid streaked out into the hallway and wrapped his arms around me.

"I'm not going to shoot you," said a muffled voice into my thighs. "I love you."

When Eli was a little younger and he used to cry about going to daycare, I'd sing him a little song to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell": "I love you all the time, I love you all the time, even when I'm not with you I love you all the time."

The other day, after Eli told me he wanted to kick me and then upped his game by actually trying to kick me, I had my first opportunity to practice what Aha! Parenting preaches. I mustered up all my zen and took a deep breath.

"I know you're so mad that you're feeling like you want to kick me," I said through gritted teeth, "and it's OK to be mad, but it's not OK to kick me."

Deflated, he fell back against the couch and dissolved into wails.

"I love you," I said softly. "I love you all the time."

Let that be my mantra for the days and years ahead: I love you all the time. Even when I want you to get dressed and you put your underwear on your head. Even when you wake me up at 5 a.m. by leaning over my face and loudly requesting a chocolate sandwich and milk. Even when you say you want to shoot me or, God forbid, you learn crueler insults to fling at me. I love you all the time.

It's a hard-knock life

One of my favorite memories from childhood is also one of the oddest, if only because it seems so random. I was 8 or 9 years old and I had been sick, so I was up very early in the morning — perhaps 4 a.m. It was still dark and my mother and I were watching I Love Lucy together on TV.

That's it. I've thought a lot about why this moment has stuck in my memory when I can barely remember anything about our family trip to Disney World or most of high school. I think what it comes down to is less the memory itself than the feeling — the feeling of being safe and warm and well taken care of.

When I was a kid, my mom always took amazing care of me when I was sick. She'd make me chicken soup and hot tea, diligently record my temperature and medications and let me watch Annie a hundred times in a row. She'd give me apple juice to drink and make sure my pajamas were warm and clean. And — of this she's particularly proud — she always changed my sheets so I'd have nice fresh sheets to sleep on instead of germy ones.

My mom always was and continues to be an expert at Jewish mother guilt and can always find a new way to say "I told you so," but when I was sick I never felt that she was annoyed or impatient with me. It was like all her energy was concentrated on making me feel better. And it usually worked.

There are a million ways my mom and I are different, as people and as mothers. But when Eli is sick, it's my mom I try to emulate. Last week, when he was laid flat by a raging ear infection, I even found myself calling him "sweetheart" — which isn't something I don't think I've ever called him before, because it was my mom's nickname for me.

Of course, with Eli sleeping in my bed and coughing all over my pillow, he was generous enough with his germs that I soon found myself with a raging sinus infection of my own. (Note to Mom: Of course, I changed Eli's germy sheets — but not mine!) I don't know if other moms feel this way, but to me there is nothing more pitiful than being sick as a grown woman with a child, a dog, a job and other responsibilities.

I want someone to change my sheets, I thought miserably. I want someone to make me chicken soup and put on Annie. Not the remake, either — the original with Carol Burnett.

There are some things I appreciate about being a grownup. Whenever I'm in a bulk candy store and some mom is telling her whiny kids they can't have any more candy while I'm gleefully shoveling more into my bag, for instance, or turning up the space heater in my office really high, or even when I go out with friends after dark and I decide to wear my glasses instead of my contacts because I'm grownup enough that I no longer give a fig about trying to look cute. (Yes, I said "give a fig.")

But as much as I felt like a grownup taking care of my son the way my mom took care of me, when I was sick I just felt like I was 9 again.

Sometime last week Eli announced joyfully, "You're my best friend!" But then, he continued mournfully, "But when I'm big, I won't see you anymore. Because I have to go to big kid school."

"Who do you think will take you to the big kid school?" I asked, pointing at myself. He shook his head.

"I have to go by myself!" he declared.

That's how I feel, some days: like I still need my mom, but I have to go by myself.

(Fortunately my mom lives three blocks away. And sent over chicken soup. And at least I have Phil to entertain Eli and walk the dog and get me apple juice and Afrin. But alas, no surviving copy of Annie.)