The 5-Word Phrase That Can Help the Next Time You’re About to Go Apesh*t On Your Kid, According to a Psychologist

As the parent of two young children ages seven and ten years old, I’ll admit that I have some (OK, many) deficiencies as a parent. For starters, I was not blessed with infinite patience and I tend to be too reactive. See, I always start out nice—the portrait of a gentle parent—but then my kids start pushing my buttons and I start talking through gritted teeth and, well, it’s all downhill from there. 

These days, this type of meltdown is most likely to occur when I sweetly ask my kids to tidy up their room. They whine, groan, stall, talk back, start fighting and cursing each other…and what should have been a simple 20-minute chore turns into two solid hours of misery for the whole family before they get the damn thing done. It is during those two hours that I can feel myself about to go absolutely ballistic on my precious spawn—and I’ll admit that I have on occasion reached the point of unleashing the full force of my lung power, only to later regret my dysregulated parenting behavior.

I suspect that I’m not the only parent who knows what it feels like to have their frustration tolerance tested to its limits, so I asked licensed clinical psychologist and mother-of-two, Dr. Bethany Cook (PsyD, MT-BC), to share a simple mantra that parents can turn to when their kids really get their goat. Her advice is to repeat this simple phrase to yourself (probably many, many times if you’re anything like me): If they could, they would.

Now, I had a lot of follow up questions about this piece of advice. Something to the tune of: Umm…but my kids absolutely can clean their room, so why should I make excuses for them? And, are you suggesting I just shrug my shoulders and say, ‘well I guess they just can’t,’ while they continue languishing on the couch like they’re freakin’ royalty!?! As you can see, I have some work to do on my peaceful parenting journey—namely because my internal voice is anything but peaceful. Rather, it’s the angry, impatient voice of the adults who raised me. (Yep, if this advice doesn’t work, I’m tapping an exorcist next.)

But Dr. Cook challenged me to reconnect with my inner child and asked me if I could remember a time when an adult asked me to do something and I just couldn’t. I did, in fact, recall a couple of times when I was little and would tell my dad I was hungry and he would tell me to get myself a snack—something I was totally capable of doing, physically—and I just lost it. I was hungry. Helpless. Psychologically stuck. 

This is just one example of how kids can get stuck. Perhaps in your home it’s a little kid who doesn’t want to stop a building project they started when it’s time to leave for school, or a kid who just can’t motivate themselves to get their own damn cup of water when you’re juggling five things already. In all these scenarios, the ‘if they could, they would’ mantra applies. 

Importantly, this phrase is not about letting kids off the hook (i.e., my kids' rooms still need to be cleaned). Instead, the idea behind ‘if they could, they would’ is about recognizing that “their frontal lobes are simply not developed enough to meet the expectations that you are holding,” says Dr. Cook. 

So how does this mantra help a parent come to terms with the fact that the things we think should be easy can be overwhelming to our kids? Well, by acknowledging that if they could, they would, you are helping yourself find a place where you “feel calm and curious before you start exploring why your child is acting this way,” says Dr. Cook, adding that, “by doing this you’re modeling empathy and compassion for your child, whilst simultaneously providing it to yourself in a way your own parents likely did not.” This place of calm acceptance and curiosity is a place where solutions can be found in a collaborative way.

It’s also worth noting that this zen approach to parenting does great things for your relationship. “Kids don’t do things to intentionally piss you off,” the expert notes. “The only time kids do things as a real f*** you is when they’re older and they’ve been screamed at and misunderstood throughout their childhood. Avoid that and nurture your relationship instead by showing understanding for their limitations,” she adds.

My goal for this week? When my kids raise hell over cleaning their room (and you know they will), I will lean into the mantra and sit them down, empathize with the fact that they feel overwhelmed, and ask them what I can do to help (like going into the room and joining the clean-up effort or making them a fun playlist to make the chore feel less onerous). In other words, I’m going to listen instead of shout.