Back talk and disrespect can come from even the most well-behaved child. Learn some ways of coping and how to deal with your kids talking back.
The first time you hear back talk from your kid can be the most detrimental part of parenthood. There’s nothing fun about hearing your kid say something negative to you when you’ve instructed them to do something. While backtalk can put a parent in a head spin, especially if this kid never talked back before, it’s a completely natural part of childhood. Below are some ways you can handle back talk from your kid so that you can instill better response habits in your kid before back talking gets out of control.
How To Respond To Back Talk And Disrespect (Without Totally Losing Your Cool)
Stop Replying
If you’ve already stated what the rule is or what your answer is and yet your kid has some feedback to provide, ignore it. Do not continuously engage your back talking kid because they will go at this for hours and in turn received just what they wanted, your attention. Worst case scenario, they end up getting their way because their back talking drained you to the point you simply gave in.
Do Not Negotiate
There are to be no second chances when it comes to back talk. Kids will learn rather quickly where their parent’s weak point is and how they can work their parent down. Stand very firm with your mission to stop your kid from back talking by never negotiating and never allowing a second chance. This should hold true if they are especially old enough to know better, such as a tween or teenager.
Stay Calm
Remember that having your kid backtalk is a completely normal and natural part of child development. While you have no reason to tolerate it, you should always react in a calm matter of fact way so that this behavior doesn’t’ develop in a pattern over the years of adolescence. Remain firm in your tone when handling back talk and consistent with your consequence.
Communicate Your Feelings Right Back
When kids say things, “I hate you!”, “You’re so mean!”, “Don’t talk to me!”, a parent’s first instinct might be to yell right back, and point a finger, and say things like “Don’t you talk to me that way!” or “You’re grounded!” or “Go to your room!”. As soon as you child sasses you, take a breath, collect yourself, and calmly tell them that how their words made you feel. Examples would be “What you said hurt my feelings,” or “I hear what you’re saying. I love you and I’m still your mom, it’s very disrespectful to speak to me like that”, or “I understand you are angry. Let’s take a break. When you’re ready to talk, I’m ready to listen .”
Determine a Consequence
While walking away is fine for milder situations, if your kid is truly back talking in a disrespectful way and you feel it’s worthy of a consequence, then it’s time to start determining how you will consequence backtalk. Take a breather, and make the proper decision for a consequence to where the punishment fits the crime.
There you have it, a few ways you can work towards handling back talk from your kid. Kids look to us to teach them to be a good human being, if you can learn to handle backtalk with ease as a means to teach them proper ways to respond to an adult that they’re frustrated with, you’ll be giving your kid a fantastic life lesson that will take them far in this world.
