Dr. Jekyll/Ms. Hyde

I would say that most of the time, my kid is pretty sweet; she's generally not intentionally mean, anyway. I say "generally" because, for the past few days, she's been out of control. I've gotten exceptionally bad reports from school about aggression, defiance, and extreme tantrums over not getting her way (as in, not wanting to do what she's supposed to do, then flipping the hell out when she gets in trouble for it). I have not been a happy mama. I was even less happy about the following exchange.

In the car yesterday evening, she told me more than once that she hated me and was going to kill me. I just said, "oh, okay" so as not to give her too much of a reaction. She went on to tell me that she wanted to be mean, that she wanted to hurt, that she wanted to be a bully. She kicked my seat repeatedly while saying these horrible, hateful things. As much as I wanted to pull the car over and show her what a real bully looks like, I kept my cool (which I'm actually way proud of, because I was super pissed). When we got home, she told me she was hungry and asked me what she could have to eat. My response was, "what makes you think I'm going to give you food?" She stared at me for a few seconds and started to reply, but I cut her off, saying, "you said you hated me, that you wanted to be mean and hurt me, that you were going to kill me, so why in the world would I give you anything?" She didn't say anything, so I went on: "If you killed me, would I be able to feed you?" She looked at the floor and shook her head. "If you killed me, what do you think would happen?"

That's when she burst into tears and ran to give me a hug, saying, "I'm sorry Mommy, I didn't mean it, I don't want to kill you or hurt you or be a bully, I'm so so so sorry!"

I accepted her hug, but told her, "it's not okay to say things like that. Ever. To anyone. It doesn't matter how mad you are, you don't say things like that, because the next time you need something from the person you said those things to, you're not going to get it. You can't hurt people and expect them to still be nice to you."

I hope that message sinks in.