I Think My Daughter Says “I’m Scared” When She Means “I Don’t Want To.” How Can I Handle This While Respecting Her Feelings?

“How do I know for sure if my daughter is scared, and how should I handle it without invalidating her feelings? I feel she uses it as an excuse when she doesn’t want to do something. I don’t know the best way to handle this, please help!”

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October 26, 2021

This post is part of a series where our team of child mental health professionals answer real questions submitted by readers like you. It deals with subjects related to defiance. Please take care when reading.

We recently received a question from a parent wondering about their daughter’s choice of language. Below is the question, and a response from one of our child mental health experts:

“How do I know for sure if my daughter is scared, and how should I handle it without invalidating her feelings? She says she’s scared whenever she doesn’t want to go to bed, or watch a show her older brother picks (like Go Diego Go), as well as when she’s asked to eat food she doesn’t want, or brush her teeth, or sometime later trying to go potty. I feel she uses it as an excuse when she doesn’t want to do something. I don’t know the best way to handle this, please help!”

- B., Illinois

I suspect your maternal intuition is right on here. Your daughter appears to be using “I’m scared” as a way to express something that she doesn’t like or does not want to do. For her, saying “I’m scared” is the same as saying “I don't want to” or “no.”

Depending on your daughter’s age, you will want to use developmentally appropriate examples and language to help teach her to better discriminate the difference between “I am scared” and “I don’t want to.”

If she is young, you can start with her favorite books, cartoon characters, or stuffed animals. Select a book where a character is actually scared, or afraid of something. Explore this with your daughter, “How do we know the character is scared? What do you feel in your body when you are scared?” You can take these teaching moments and do the same thing with a character in a book that does not want to do something, “What is this character feeling?” “What makes us think that?”

You may also have to model appropriate emotional states for her. You can validate her feelings and then help reframe through statements such as, “I understand you don’t want to watch Go Diego Go, is it because you would rather watch something else?” “I know you don’t want to brush your teeth right now. Let’s get it done fast so we can read a book together.”

Continuing to support your daughter’s emotional vocabulary will also help her learn to use other words to express her thoughts and feelings. For example, you might want to try the Zones of Regulation, The Incredible 5-Point Scale, the Grump Meter, or even games like Emotional Bingo. All of these materials are aimed to help increase children’s ability to identify their feelings and utilize appropriate coping skills when they experience emotions that are difficult for them.

Depending on your daughter’s age, I also recommend the following books: