‘Is this a thing?’: Mum’s shock as four-year-old repeats harsh parenting phrase heard at daycare

An Adelaide mum was shocked when her four-year-old repeated the phrase “you get what you get, and you don’t get upset” to her, having heard it at daycare.

Megan Watson said while she’d never personally heard the traditional old-school saying before her child said it to her, it left her questioning her own parenting style.

“I’m not authoritarian, but I’m also not passive,” she said in a TikTok, adding that she considers herself to be “in between” these two parenting extremes.

Watson felt the phrase goes against everything parents are currently being told about teaching children to “acknowledge their feelings”.

Her social media video questioning the phrase’s ongoing relevance has since gone viral and triggered a debate among her followers, parents and teachers alike.

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Parenting educator Gen Muir has weighed in on the controversy on Today Extra, with show hosts David Campbell and Belinda Campbell both admitted to using the phrase on their own children.

The author of Why Kids Need Boundaries and Little People, Big Feelings explained Millennial parents are increasingly teaching their children it’s “OK to have feelings” and avoid traditional phrases like this designed to “minimise emotions”.

While the phrase has “probably never made anyone feel less upset”, Muir says a balance can be found that can teach children “not all behaviours are OK, and you don’t always get what you want”.

“We’ve got to walk that line where we teach kids that all feelings are welcome, but not all behaviours.”

Muir pointed out that some educators, who often have up to 30 children in a class, may lean on particular phrases more than others, and recommended working with educators to help children “increase their frustration tolerance and increase their resilience”.

“We do that by setting healthy boundaries at home by sometimes allowing our kids to feel disappointed that the TV’s going off,” she continued.

“They’re allowed to feel disappointed, and that’s the change from the past. We’re not saying, ‘Go to your room, you’re not allowed to show your emotions.’ We’re saying, ‘Sure, you’re allowed to be upset, but the TV’s still going off.’”

Alternative sayings can also be used in its place, with Muir suggesting: “I know you wanted this to be different, it makes sense that you’re upset.”

Instead of gentle parenting, which she feels hasn’t worked, she said parents should aim for being firm without losing kindness and without resorting to shame and punishment.

“By allowing some of those emotions, kids actually learn to process them and therefore tolerate them better, which means they’ll be able to manage them more as they grow,” Muir said.