Replacement Phrases

What worked for us was treating it as true for awhile.

'But you said 'never', remember?' the mext time it came up

Or

'Okay!' and cheerfully throwing away all of xyz

Both got tears and tantrums, and never/always stopped being misused as a general rule.

He's just venting, and it's a phase that will probably be gone in a week if you ignore it when he says it.
You can open the dictionary and look up the word "never" so he knows what it really means, and then tell him he sounds silly when he says it because it's not true.

So...he has a flair for the dramatic? :D

How about

"No--you don't get to XYZ right NOW. Maybe tomorrow?"

or

"Now is not the time for abc."?

or

"We don't have time to lmnop right now."?

My daughter did this a few times too. When she did it I would just look at her and smile. It was so silly and dramatic.

I don't know how you can replace his response. He's just going to say what he is going to say. All you can do is react to it. The bigger deal YOU make the more he'll do it b/c he gets a reaction from you. You may need to alter YOUR response to alter his. Try ignoring it. When he says "now I'll NEVER get to eat peanut butter and jelly" just don't reply. So what if he says this? Where is the harm, outside of becoming irritating to you? Of course, it's not true and you don't have to appease him in this small matter.

Let him have his drama and the less attention it gets the more it will taper off. If he chooses alternate words on his own, praise him with your attention and approval.

Don't think that you need to replace it with anything...either ignore it or have a sense of humor about.....Yeah you are problably right...you'll never have another PB and J again....

How about putting a sign on the frig for 3 strikes. Everytime he says it, it's a strike. When he gets 3 strikes in a day, he loses one of these - your choice which one, for x-amount of time.

OR - just ignore him and walk away. At some point he'll stop saying it. Never give in when he says it either, or that will make him continue for even longer.

Dawn

rather than try to think of ways of eliminating his chosen way of expressing himself, i'd totally work to develop a sense of humor about it (hard i know when it's making you nut up! but SO much more effective.)
there are all sorts of replacement phrases you can force/cajole/insist/suggest he use. but what will that teach him, ultimately? that hyperbole has no place? that he's not good at finding his own words and mom has to choose them for him? that he can't express his disappointment?
it sounds more as if you're just sick and tired of hearing THAT particular response than that there's anything particularly wrong with his response.
if you don't want to mirror, ie 'it sounds to me as if you're pretty upset that you can't have PBJ right now. but dinner is in half an hour so you really won't be hungry for long' or you don't want to make him work through it (i wouldn't) ie 'what does 'never' mean? do you actually believe that no PBJ at this moment means you can never have it again?' then your only recourse is to be the Word Police, or to emphasize the ridiculous and hopefully you'll both end up laughing.
'i know! NEVER! the PBJ ogre has been lurking outside the window just WAITING to hear me tell you no, and now it's going to SWOOP INTO THE HOUSE AND STEAL ALL THE PBJ!!!! and it will probably stop on the way out and tickle you til you puke! EEEEeeeeEEEEeeeeEEEEE!!!!!'
:) khairete
S.
ps, your SWH is interesting. looking back, you've got so many really good helpful answers, but none of them is the right magic formula as to how SPECIFICALLY to stop YOUR child from using these SPECIFIC words. if all these suggestions can't help you, i can't imagine how this 5 year old is going to hit on the EXACT right words that you will deem acceptable. the only recourse i can see for you is to teach him to say exactly what you want him to say and continue to punish him if he doesn't comply. but do i think that's what you SHOULD do? no. i think you should actually read and consider some of the excellent replies to your question.

He's five and five year olds are dreamy. He's coming from a whole different place with it than it appears. Put it in perspective. Children only know the moment. They live in the present. They love to make up stories or say things again and again that's all part of their imagination. Although I can understand how this could be irritating. Don't let it get to you. Let yourself be playful about it, if that doesn't suit you, ignore it. This isn't the deal it appears to be.

If it were me, I'd go with it, something like, "Oh, you'll never get to have peanut butter and jelly again, oh my what shall we do?" See what he says and go with it - make it playful and light. You might say too, "Should we take all the PB&J and make one giant sandwich and pretend we're giants, cause we won't get any more? or "Oh no you won't go to the store again. I guess we'll have to stay there night and day, night and day, sunrise to sunset."
He's five not 25, his vocabulary is building and is imagination is dreamy as it should be. Let him be, it's all okay. Lots of growth to go yet. Remember an adults brain/mind is completely different from a child's for the most part. Children live in a different world than we do.
Give a hug for me

He is 5.
When he says things like this, he is not being literal about it.
It is just a phrase.

Trying to make HIS response, different, may not work.
Because this is a phase.
Kids.... go through many developmental phases, of which their emotions and words and wording are just that. They are 5. Then when older of course they develop more.
I have a son that is 5. And yes, my son is VERY verbal AND has many words and emphatic expressions that he uses. But so what. It is no biggie. I know he is merely stretching his wings verbally and in how he CONVEYS things. Which is not to be taken literally. But for a 5 year old, they naturally have a sense of pretend play and opposite words.
To me, it is an exercise in their development of language attainment and usage and development.

He is not trying to be accurate or exact or literal. He knows that.
He is 5.

I think this is a matter of personal preference.
He is not 10. But 5.
He will not go to school, or continue in school and be always saying this throughout elementary school.
It is a for now, phase.

You want your son to choose his words "correctly and better," and to be more "accurate." But for him, he IS expressing himself about situations. That is how he "feels." For him, it is not about choosing the best word from a dictionary to suit others.
He is 5. He will learn tons of other words.

Given the situation in which your son says "Never," he is expressing what HE feels IS relaying how he feels. Not a literal sense of the word. It is fiction.

I know some ADULTS who use the word "always" or "Never" a lot as well. ie: "You never listen to me...." "Why do you always leave your clothes on the floor." "You never do your school work well." "Why are you always late in getting home after work?" "How come you never listen to me?"(for a wife talking to a Husband.), "You never do your chores." "You never eat what I make." etc.

Some people are very boxed in by vocabulary. Some are not.
Some people are very literal. Some are not.
For example: if I tell my Husband that I'm tired today. He actually thinks, I feel so tired. Meaning, sleepy. But it is just an expression, about my day. Then he will ARGUE with me about how I should NOT have used the word "tired" but rather another word, because to HIM, being tired means the person should just go to bed. So if I tell him I am "tired" his next response is "Then go to bed instead of saying it." But he is not interpreting me, correctly
Now, if he tried to get me to choose another word to suit HIM, as I talk, well I would just go talk to someone else. I express myself, being myself. I am not him. He is not me.
So, the next time I just want to say I had a hell of a day and am tired and numb from the activity of the day.... he may take it literally.
But to me (since I am the one that said it) and to many other Moms, they know that I am just expressing how the day went. It is not LITERALLY that I went to Hell and am tired and will sleep and that I am actually numb because of the activity of the day.

I think this is what Authors must go through.

Its a matter of interpretation as well.

And it is a phase.
No biggie.

I hope that is just a phase because my 5 year old DD says the same exact thing all the time!!!! I don't have much advice other than maybe it will soon pass because it is very annoying isn't it? ;) Not sure if this is the best way to handle it, but I usually will stop her and say "I don't want to hear it" (meaning the whining etc.) Then you can always tell him that you understand he is disappointed but we can't always have what we want when we want it all the time. You can have him use the words disappointed, frustrated or upset instead of the "I'll never...." phrase. Give him the sentence of "I am disappointed I didn't get to eat Peanut butter and jelly for lunch today." Or "I am upset that we won't be able to go to the store." Hope this helps! Good luck :)

How about a phrase that expresses how he's feeling?
I feel sad/disappointed/mad that I can't do that right now. I hope we get to try again tomorrow, because it's fun when we do that activity.

My son has gone through several different phrases like that. "If I can't do X, then I'm never going to school again". "If I you make me do X, then you owe me a million bucks". "If you don't recycle, I'm never going to scouts again". "Do you love me? If you love me, you would buy me X". "If I can't find my X, then I'll get the wastefullness badge". "You don't want me to have any fun."

Today, we are both sick, so I wouldn't take him to the children's museum, and his response was "You hate me!"

I try to calm him down, but I don't get too upset. It doesn't seem to make a difference whether I punish him for saying something disrespectful, point out the flaws in his logic, tell him he's being overdramatic, or just tell him he needs a hug. For my son, I believe that most of these overdramatic statements are caused by poor impulse control, because he hardly says any of them when has taken his ADHD meds. The speech teachers at school also work with him on language pragmatics, basically how to say the right things to communicate and have a conversation.

How about no u cant have a PBJ now but maybe for lunch tomorrow ect give him a time reference when u say no

Replacement phrase: "Right now, you can't x, but you can try x again another time."

Or you can try responding yourself with "OK, but we can talk about it again after never..."

I like Dawn and Riley's advice : )

Also, I would ask him, "Do you REALLY believe that?" when he says it. If he says "no" then reply, "then why would you say that? You need to believe what you say." And have HIM think up a new response on his own, one that makes sense. And if he says, "yes," ask him based on what. Get him to think this through.

How about, not now, but maybe later you will get....