Sometimes when my son is mad at someone, he says things like" I want to kill everyone on the whole world" or "I want to kill my whole family" He says he dosen't mean it, but I'm afraid someone else is not going to be understanding of that kind of language. Why does he do it, and how can I get him to stop?

There is a wonderful book called "Between Parent and Child" by Dr. Ginott that helps me talk to my kids.

From my reading of that book, a good response for this type of talk is to say, "You seem very very angry, " and leave it at that. Your son may then say, "I am." and then you would would say, "You are." And just go back and forth mirroring his feelings until it seems disfused.

My older son (non-ADHD) gets very angry too. I just mirror his feelings and eventually he cools off.

My younger son (ADHD) responds almost instantly to it. It gets him thinking and talking and he soon gets distracted and moves onto something new.

It's so disturbing when kids talk like that. It hurts to hear your own child express such intense anger.

If you are seriously concerned that your child is having violent thoughts he may act on, get professional help immediately.

Give him the words to use. I basically have the same advice as Melanie, but you would be amazed at how much it helps.
My son had started to get seriously verbally abusive, threats, swearing awful names to all of us, etc when he was mad.

I read the "The Explosive Child" book and it really opened my eyes to the fact that my son had no feeling words. He knew what the words were, but didn't know how to match those words to his feelings.

I first sat him down and explained to him (while he was calm, you can't reason with an angry child) that any feelings that he has are perfectly okay. That it is okay if he is angry with me, frustrated, sad, etc. They are feelings, they are his, and they are OKAY. That he can tell me his feeling any time, as long as he does it appropriately. I explained that when he is mad, and says "I hate you, I want to kill you" that he has said something very bad, so he gets in trouble. But, what he is probably feeling is angry and frustrated, and if he said "I'm really angry and frustrated", then not only would he never be in trouble for that, but I could help him get through it.

So, from there, the first thing I try to do is watch his signals. At his first change of tone, first clenched fist, first sigh, first whine, first sign of his mood changing... I give empathy (empathy calms them) "boy I can see that you are really frustrated, I'm sorry you aren't happy right now, lets see what we can do to work this out". If you can catch them early, you can usually avoid the blow up.

If he does blow up and says he hates me, etc, I say "I think when you are more calm and can think clearly, you will realize that you don't hate me, but you are really frustrated and angry with me. It's okay to be angry or frustrated, but it's not okay to say you hate me". This will either calm, or irritate. If it irritates, the conversation is over. No point in trying to talk more because they can't hear you anyway. When they calm back down, then you can go over it one more time "when you were angry with me, if you would have told me you were angry or frustrated with me, I could have helped you. Instead you said you hate me, which hurts my feelings and is disrespectful".

This was really frustrating for me at first because I felt like I was "letting go" of being called names, and him being disrespectful. Yet I had tried everything else I could think of and nothing was working. I was amazed at how quickly this helped. We are still working on it, things still aren't perfect, but they are 80% better then they were.

I think these kids that lash out with words just don't know how to express themselves (excuse me for the blanket statement). They don't have words to go with their emotions, and they also don't know that it's okay to feel whatever they are feeling. Typically they say "I hate you" because of their feelings, and then get in trouble. So I think they get a bit lost, and don't know that it's not their feelings that are wrong, it's just the way they are expressing them. When you turn that around so that they know their feelings are okay, they learn the words to go with them, and also learn to trust you to help them through those feelings, then the whole relationship begins to change.
Again it takes time, patience, and lots of practice.

Hope that helps.

Hi,
I often wonder where children get these phrases from.My 5 year old tells me she wants to kill me and stab me with a knife .
It's very upsetting especially in a child so young.I ignore it when she says things like that and not react.It's really hard .

Hi,
I often wonder where children get these phrases from.My 5 year old tells me she wants to kill me and stab me with a knife .
It's very upsetting especially in a child so young.I ignore it when she says things like that and not react.It's really hard .
Who knows, could be t.v., friends, etc. Even some cartoons now have some violent story lines. I've realized lately that my son copies a TON from television. V-chip here I come:D

Ill just blame Spongebob then ! lol

Hi,
I often wonder where children get these phrases from.My 5 year old tells me she wants to kill me and stab me with a knife .
It's very upsetting especially in a child so young.I ignore it when she says things like that and not react.It's really hard .
As a childs vocabulary grows they start using them in different ways. They don't always have to hear something before they say it. Depending on the response they get it will determain if they us it again.
For example:
If your childs says "Wow mommy you have beautiful eyes" and you give them a hug and cookie............They may say it again
If your child says "That dog just pooped in the yard" and you say and do nothing they may never say it again
If your child says "I am going to kill all my friends" and you freak out chances are they will say it again

They may have never heard these word put together before so when they try it they will use the response of other when decide weather to use it again.

I hope I was able to explain it ok, and if so I hope it helps.