5 Things Parents Shouldn't Say to Their Kids

1 "I don't care.":Little kids love to share details...of their playground conversations with friends, of the cloud formation they think looks like a sea serpent, of why they squeezed an entire tube of toothpaste into the bathtub. And sometimes? Parents just don't want to hear the specifics. But beware of saying "I don't care!" because you're cutting off communication with your child and saying that something important to him or her isn't so important to you. " 2 "Act your age!": Your daughter is seven years old but you think she's acting like she's three...and you tell her so. Pincus says this common reaction is less about the child's behavior and all about the parent trying to manage his or her own frustration. The child may, in fact, be acting their age. "It's just not working out for the parent," she says. "It makes us feel better in the moment." The result? Kids hear their parents criticizing them at a time when they, as children, are having trouble and perhaps need some help gaining control. Try this: Says Pincus, "When you are stirred up, just take that pause. 3 "Say you're sorry!":Your preschooler takes a toy from another child and makes him or her cry. You instantly tell your child to say sorry for his or her actions. You're trying to teach your child to be compassionate, which is a laudable goal. But "forcing a child to apologize does not teach a child social skills," 4 "Don't you get it?": You've taught your kid how to catch a baseball five times over. Or how to add and subtract fractions. But when your child shows signs that it's not clicking for him or her, you hastily ask, "Don't you get it?" Learning specialist and author Jill Lauren tells Team Mom on Shine that this comment is degrading. "If the child 'got it,' which he desperately wants to do in order to please his parent, it would be clear. Implicit in a 'don't you get it' comment are the judgments of 'Why don't you get it?' followed by 'What's wrong with you for not getting it? 5 "I'm going to leave without you!":Your kid refuses to leave the toy store or a park and you are going to be late for an appointment. So you issue an ultimatum sure to freak your child out: "I'm going to leave without you!" For young kids, fear of parental abandonment is very real. But what happens when your threat doesn't work? "The biggest problem is that we want our kids to believe what we say. For a whole host of reasons, we need our kids to believe us. If you want them to believe what we say is true, we cannot say something that is patently false,