A Clinical Psychologist On What To Do When You Don't Like Your Child: 10 Things That Actually Help
Peopleimages.com - YuriArcurs | Canva Many parents struggle with guilt and shame over a feeling they don't want to admit out loud: sometimes, they don't like their child. You love them deeply, but you don't enjoy being around them, and that disconnect can feel confusing, upsetting, and isolating. Parenting is hard, and pretending these feelings don’t exist often makes frustration and irritability worse over time.
A child of any age can bring up these feelings, from infancy through adulthood. According to a clinical psychologist, the problem isn't having the feeling; it's what you do with it. If you don't like your child right now, there are ways to cope, reduce conflict, and show up as a good parent without shaming yourself. These strategies focus on behavior, boundaries, and emotional awareness — because those are the things that actually help.
If you don't know what to do when you don't like your child, these 10 things actually help:
1. Separate how you feel from how you act
Authenticity is all well and good, but if you can’t stand your child right now, you can still be a good parent as long as you lie, lie, lie. I am not saying that you cannot give your child feedback on how to be less annoying, and in fact, that’s my next point, but the difference between a good parent and a bad parent has nothing to do with internal feelings or thoughts.
It is all about the external behavior that the child witnesses and experiences. This is a point that is essential to understand if you feel massively guilty about disliking your child. A bad parent is not someone who dislikes their child. It is someone who treats their child like they dislike them. It is okay and normal to have a favorite child as long as you keep it hidden as well as you can.
Meditate on this point until it is etched into your brain permanently: parenting is about behavior, not thoughts. This is such a key point because feeling guilty about your internal feelings can make you anxious, depressed, and also a worse parent. Shed the guilt immediately over your internal feelings, and let’s figure out how to change your behavior.
2. Set your child up to succeed
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Talk with them primarily about topics they enjoy. Ask them about things they find interesting, even if you find them very boring. If you go to dinner, don’t make it some activity designed to expand their culinary horizons (unless they enjoy this), but rather find a place where everyone can find something they like to eat.
Avoid topics that cause arguments, especially in the first few minutes after you see them in the morning, or when you first see them after school. Do things that your child enjoys on weekends; if they are unathletic, you can hike on your own; dragging them along will only lead to a bad scene.
3. Limit criticism as much as possible
This is very hard when you feel angry, but if you can do it, you will increase your parenting self-efficacy and limit your guilt/shame significantly. Limit your complaints or criticisms. Of course, you need to tell your child what to do to some extent, but really try to avoid any pejorative words or tone.
There is a big difference between “Please clean your desk” and “Oh my God, it is still a pig sty in here, I can’t believe how entitled you act. I spend my day shuttling you back and forth, and you can’t even do what you promise to do.” If you can limit your own rude words or tone, not only will you feel better about yourself and your day in general, but your child will eventually model their tone on your newer, nicer tone, and your interactions may become more pleasant.
4. Lower the bar for quality time
Don’t only limit negativity — increase positivity too! Find things to compliment your child about, even if you have to dig deep. Try to reframe qualities that you consider negative as positive. Stubborn can also be persistent, and sarcastic can also be a good sense of humor.
Every time you compliment your child, you can feel good about yourself: you are being a good parent. You are, in fact, being an extra good parent and person, because you are being kind when you feel the opposite, when it is particularly difficult. This is something to be proud of. Aim for saying one nice thing every day. (This sounds easy, but when you’re really in a bad place with your child, it can be tough.)
5. Lower your expectations for quality time
If your child is in a stage that you dislike, aim for ten positive minutes with them per day. And these do not have to be consecutive. One minute discussing something positive about school, maybe 5 minutes looking at a cute or funny video together, 3 minutes telling them a funny story from work, even if they roll their eyes, and 2 minutes at bedtime of some positive interaction. This would be an afternoon to be proud of if you are in a difficult phase with your child.
6. Do positive things when you feel the most annoyed
Particularly when you feel that welling up of anger or even disgust toward your child’s behavior, which of course then leads to guilt, shame, detachment, and a host of negative consequences for your mental health and that of your child, behave in a way that shows love. This will make you feel more confident as a parent, better about yourself and your child, and may even elicit a positive reaction in your child to boot (it may not, but this would be a nice benefit and could start a positive upward cycle between you two).
7. Stop forcing activities you truly hate
Yes, you have to provide meals, transportation to school and home, snacks, baths, and bedtimes. But do not set yourself up to fail. If every interaction longer than 3 minutes with your child ends up in a fight or in a situation where you can’t hide your dislike or criticism of them, do not put yourself in these situations.
Listen to audiobooks in the car or even at the dinner table. Do bathtime every other day instead of every day with a small child. With a teenager, do not attempt to talk about homework every night or possibly even at all (I am big into natural consequences).
8. Take care of yourself consistently
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I kind of hate the term self-care, because it is used so constantly in popular media and really can mean anything, but what I mean here is: do something every day that makes you happy, which will increase your emotional bandwidth for dealing with your child. If you feel like you give up everything and work your behind off just to provide for a child who doesn’t even appreciate it, and your whole life is a sacrifice on the altar of parenthood, you are going to have very limited patience with your child’s frustrating behavior.
9. Explore why your child triggers you
For the majority of people who dislike a child, there is one of two reasons at play: either a parent didn’t like you much, or your child reminds you of someone you have unresolved conflict with (usually a parent or siblings, sometimes your spouse). Figuring this out is like mainlining a patience drug into your bloodstream. When you learn that you are reacting to your child angrily because of a reason aside from that you’re a bad parent and/or have a bad child, your ability to deal with your child, and to empathize with them and with yourself, rockets up exponentially.
10. Remember this is one phase, not the whole story
Not every parent is cut out for every stage. If you are a first-time parent who is not cut out for the baby stage, this can be rough because you fear this means you’re just a terrible parent. 100% of your parenting experience has been hard.
But, there are many, many stages in a child’s life, and some parents don’t hit their stride until the child can engage in conversation, or, quite honestly, until they hit adulthood. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t work to improve your parenting in the interim, but make your mantra, “This phase isn’t good for me, but I will come into my own later on.”
Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten, aka Dr. Psych Mom, is a clinical psychologist in private practice and the founder of DrPsychMom. She works with adults and couples in her group practice, Best Life Behavioral Health.
