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Sassy Kids: How to Deal with a Mouthy Child
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Are you tired of
disrespectful talk from your kids? Do your children respond with eye-rolling
and sarcasm to everything you say? Most—if not all—kids go through phases when
they are sassy, mouthy, or disrespectful. As a parent, it’s hard to know when
to let it slide—and when to address the problem. James Lehman explains where to
draw the line—and tells you how you can manage sassy talk in your home.
If you
don't respond to a behavior and give it power, the more likely that it will
become extinct; it's going to die out like the dinosaurs.
Parents often ask me, “How do you differentiate between
disrespectful, sassy or ‘fresh’ language and abusive language?” I believe these
behaviors are found on a continuum—let’s call it the “Inappropriate Verbal
Response Continuum.” They are triggered by your child’s emotions: primarily
frustration, anger and a need to get back at others when he thinks something is
unfair. On one end of the continuum is abuse. The intent of abusive language is
generally a personal attack upon another person. It’s meant to hurt the other
person and make them feel small and afraid. Verbal abuse often includes foul
language and disturbing threats of violence designed to intimidate the other
person to get them to give in.
Kids who use abusive language and behavior want to attack you so
that they can control you. They don't care about consequences; they're not
intimidated by them. Abusive behavior has to be handled very clearly and
sternly. (I won’t be addressing verbally abusive attacks in this article. If
your child’s behavior is verging on—or has already entered into the verbal
abuse stage, please read “Kids Who Are Verbally
Abusive: The Creation of a Defiant Child” and “How to Stop Threats and
Verbal Abuse” in EP.)
Responding to Disrespectful
Comments
Why do kids talk to adults in disrespectful ways? I believe
children and teens do a lot of things because they don't know how to express
emotions appropriately. They learn a lot from watching other kids and people
around them. If your daughter is frustrated and doesn't know how to show it,
and she sees somebody else roll their eyes and make a face, she’ll absorb that
lesson without even thinking about it. Then the next time she’s frustrated at
home, she’ll roll her eyes and
make a face at you. If she gets a reaction, that will often just reinforce the
behavior, because she knows she’s gotten to you. Don’t kid yourself: if you
threaten your child by saying, “Don't do that to me, young lady, or you'll be
grounded,” that will only make her do it more.
When my son was in middle school, for some reason he went through
a period where he said, “Oh, sure,” to everything in a sarcastic way. I
responded to him once or twice by saying, “Is something wrong? Why are you
using that tone with me?” And he said, “What tone? I don't know what you mean.”
I said, “I just don't like the way you're talking to me; try to talk better.”
His answer? “Oh, sure.” I became a little frustrated, but I also knew better
than to show it. I didn't want to empower that behavior—or necessarily stifle
it. Instead, my wife and I allied ourselves together and were able to laugh it
off; eventually, it wore itself out.
And that's the important thing to remember here. If you respond to
mildly annoying behavior in a strong way repeatedly, you give it power and
strength. As your child gets into adolescence, he’ll start to find ways to push
your buttons. When you confront him, he'll say very innocently, “What did I say?
What did I do?”
I personally think that the less you challenge it, the less you
give it power. Remember, the less power you give it, the more it's going to die
its natural death. That process is called “extinction.” If you don't respond to
a behavior and give it power, the more likely that it will become extinct; it's
going to die out like the dinosaurs. But if you feed the behavior and play with
it, you’ll only nurture the disrespect. In my opinion, the worst thing you can
do is challenge it inconsistently: let’s say sometimes you let it slide and
then sometimes you confront your child. When you do that, those behaviors tend
to become more entrenched. I understand that many times it's not easy to ignore
mildly disrespectful behavior. That’s
why I think it’s helpful if you can talk to your spouse, a friend or relative
about it.
How to Respond to Sarcasm
In the middle of the inappropriate verbal response continuum is sarcasm.
Kids generally manifest this in two ways. They either make sarcastic comments
when they’re feeling like they’re under pressure, or they use chronic sarcasm
as a way to manage their angry
feelings safely.
By “safely” I mean it’s safer to show their anger through sarcasm than it is
through any other means they’ve learned.
Usually sarcasm is learned and modeled by adults, and so part of
the response to sarcasm in kids is for the adults to speak differently. Many
times when adults are angry at their kid’s performance, they make sarcastic
comments. These comments are hurtful and kids develop a defense to that by
becoming sarcastic themselves. You’ll see kids who are really cynical and
sarcastic using that language in all areas of their life. Its function is to
help them deflect any blame while downloading a piece of anger onto the person
who’s the target.
By the way, I like it when comedians use sarcastic humor, but not
when a child or adult talks to me that way, because it’s belittling. That
feeling cuts down on communication. All these mechanisms—sarcasm, disrespect,
sassy talk—curtail communication. When you see this behavior, you have to ask
yourself, “What’s being communicated that’s making my child respond that way?”
It’s usually not hard to discover what your child is threatened by that leads
to sarcasm. Sometimes it’s a secret, sometimes it’s a task he hasn’t completed,
and sometimes it’s a power struggle. Whatever it is, once you’ve identified it,
it becomes much easier to defuse. “Don’t be sarcastic” is an appropriate thing
to say. A really good question to ask is, “How come you get sarcastic whenever
we talk about your history homework?” It’s effective because it both identifies
the issue and puts your child on the spot.
A very powerful way to respond to sarcasm is to simply say, “Don’t
talk to me that way, I don’t like it,” and turn around and walk away. That way,
you’re taking all the power out of the room with you. If you argue or try to
make a point, you’re giving your child more power. Another effective way of
managing it is to say, “Why do you get sarcastic when I ask you about
homework?” If your child says, “I don’t get sarcastic when I talk about
homework,” then say, “Fine, then let’s keep going. I expect you not to be
sarcastic.” If, on the other hand, your child says, "I get sarcastic
because you don’t understand,” you can say, “It’s your job to make me
understand. And sarcasm doesn’t help.”
When Your Child Uses
Sarcasm with Siblings
When your kids use this kind of language with each other, I know
it’s hard as a parent to stay out of it—but you may be surprised to hear that I
think you really have to try. It’s important for all your kids to learn how to
stand up for themselves. Believe me, they're going to get it in the schoolyard,
on the school bus, or in the classroom no matter what. That doesn't make it
right and it doesn't make it good. But the bottom line is that they need to
build up a callous to these kinds of comments. Think of it this way: at the
beginning of the summer, using a shovel hurts. You get blisters, and your hands
are sore and tender. After awhile, they get calloused and then they don't hurt
anymore. That's exactly what you want your kids to do with mildly sarcastic
comments.
When something rubs your child the wrong way, try to not jump in
there unless something is being said that’s really abusive, disgusting or
demeaning. If that’s happening and your child escalates, intervene immediately
and pull that child aside. Give him a choice of two things at that time: to
either change his language, or be removed from the group. Calling your child
aside is important because often the embarrassment being corrected in front of
another kid or children can cause him to escalate even further. If he does,
you’ll need to deal with it, but you don't want to promote the likelihood of
that happening in the first place. Is it the end of the world if you give your
child a consequence in front of the other kids? No, but I think those things
are best dealt with privately. If your goal is to get him to change his
behavior, separating him from others gives him a better chance of hearing what
you’re saying.
“Duh! Nice one, Mom.”
It’s easy and natural to become irritated when your kid says,
“Nice one, Mom,” or “Duh.” This is where you have to draw the line between what
kind of disrespect requires your attention and what doesn't. I think that
things that are not a personal attack or which are not meant to demean you can
be handled by just trying to ignore them. “Planned ignoring” is the key here.
Planned ignoring is the concept where you decide consciously to ignore
attention-seeking behaviors as long as they’re not overtly harmful or abusive
to others.
This is tricky, because there are also terms which might be
considered mild by some, but which are actually put downs that I believe you
need to address. When your child says, “That's stupid,” to you, make no
mistake—he means you're stupid.
And by the way, when you tell your
child “That's stupid” and he says, “Don't call me stupid,” I don’t think you
should try to play some word game with him. If you say, “Well, I didn't say you were stupid, I said the
behavior was stupid,” your child is going to see right through that. My advice
is, don't use the word “stupid” in a sentence when you're dealing with your
child unless you want him to feel stupid. There are plenty of other words that
are not demeaning. And by the same token, if your child says, “That's stupid,”
you don’t have to say, “Are you calling me stupid?” You can say very clearly,
“There's no name calling around this house.” I believe there should be a
consequence for name calling. Set limits on it very clearly and hold your child
accountable. Every time he says the word “stupid,” to someone in the family,
for example, he goes to bed 15 minutes earlier or has 15 minutes less TV time.
He should be held accountable from the get go.
When Your Child Says, “Do
It Yourself.”
When you ask your child to do something, and he comes back with
“Do it yourself,” I think your response should be very clear: “I'm not going to
do it myself. I told you to do it, and you will have the following consequence
until you do it.” For younger kids, you might take away a toy until they’ve
complied. For older kids, you might take away video games, TV, their cell phone
or iPod. In the Total Transformation Program, I call this technique, “Stop the
Show.”
If your child gets rude and says, “I'm not going to do it; this
isn’t my chore,” you can say, “Well, I asked you to do it and I want you to do
it now.” Don't get into whose chore it is. If the noncompliance persists, then
the show stops. In other words, whatever your child is doing is over for the
time being. Have your child take a seat in his room without any kind of
stimulation around like music or a computer. Understand that when kids get
over-stimulated, they get stuck. So the first step in getting them “unstuck” is
to avoid stimulating them by demanding things. Rather, take away all the
stimuli that you can. Sending them to their rooms and shutting off electronics
helps. Research shows that after three minutes with no stimulation, your
child's body slows down. So wait for a few minutes, and then go in and say,
“Let's talk about this.” Don't say, “Do you want to talk about it?” Sometimes
we ask kids questions when we don't really want them to make a decision. So try
saying, “Let's talk about this. I asked you to mow the lawn. You won’t be able
to come out of your room until you agree to do it. Would you like to do it now
or do you want to stay in your room a little longer?” And if he says, “No, I’m
not doing it,” then say, “Okay, let me know when you’re ready,” and leave the
room. If he wants his privileges back, he will comply eventually.
When Kids Are Fresh in
Public
These days, adolescents have less fear of being sassy, mouthy or
disrespectful to their parents and other adults in public. I think if they're
acting that way in public, then you can correct them in public. Say, “Don’t
talk to me that way, I don’t like it.” If the rude attitude doesn't stop, then
take them to the car.
If your child is being smart alecky to other adults, you can use
the same technique. Say “Don't talk to Mrs. Smith that way, I don't like it.”
If your child persists, you can say, “Let's go. Goodbye, Mrs. Smith.” Take your
child and leave. By the way, if it's another parent's child being rude to you,
I still think you can say, “Don't talk to me that way Tommy, I don't like it.”
Then turn away from him. Use very simple, matter-of-fact behavior. Have a
serious look on your face; you don't have to look mean or angry, but don't look
like you're cracking a joke either.
By the way, I don't believe in giving your child a second or third
chance when he’s nasty or rude to you. I think this creates bad habits in kids.
From the time you start giving him chances, your child will say to himself,
“Well, the first one is free, so I won’t get in trouble if I call my mom a
name.” I know it may be heartbreaking at first not to give your child a second
chance, but that's the best way for him to learn.
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