My friend posted on FB to get advice on how to deal with back talk. Her example:
Her: Don't put your shoes on the counter, that's where we put our food.
Response: You put your food on plates and cutting boards that our on the counter.
Asked again...tantrum.
Some great ideas for how to deal:
-What works for my "no gray area" child. Stop giving a reason for reasonable requests. You don't have to justify everything. State what is undesirable and then state what you want her to do. "Don't put your shoes on the counter; put your shoes on the floor by the sliding glass door." And then, thanks (immediate and recognize when / if she remembers next time). Note I removed "dirty" since that gives her the opportunity to argue that the shoes are clean.
-Another thing that worked for mine at that age was "gamifying" (OK, bribing him) to avoid arguments. If he did as told without questioning / arguing / negotiating, he got to put a marble into a jar. (That was important. He liked picking which marble and putting it in the jar so that was part of it.) When the jar was full we did a predetermined fun activity (no "stuff"). Started with a TINY jar and a TINY reward - but still enough to pique his interest. Then worked up to bigger jars and corresponding bigger rewards. After a while there was an option for me to remove marbles but found that didn't work well. If there were no marbles then he had "nothing to lose" and he exploited that. He was allowed to ask "why" after the task was done and the marble was in the jar. But beyond any reward system the key was (and still is): you HAVE to state clearly what you WANT them to do, not just the "don't". Seriously, he will be 18 in 18 days and if I tell him "Stop doing X" there are still situations when he cannot figure out what he is supposed to do instead, because that's how he's wired. Want to guess how tough this has been to deal with at school, other parents, and random strangers? Inhale. Exhale. Drink beer. Hugs.
-My response would have been, "The only acceptable response to that is yes ma'am while you move your shoes. That's warning #1." She gets 2 warnings and on the 3rd offense gets a consequence. BUT the next time you ask her to do something and does not talk back- tell her you noticed she didn't argue or talk back and that you are proud of her for acting like such a big girl.
-Ok, I am clearly in the minority here, and I hesitate to respond since we obviously have different situations, but if she is not responding with sass, why not actually respond to her questioning the sense of it? If she's really thinking it through, isn't that a good thing (a sign of intelligence)? With Owen we find that if we respond with a logical answer (and some humor if possible) instead of being authoritarian, then we keep it a conversation instead of an argument. I believe that you can pick your battles; you don't have to fight them all to show you are in charge.
- I have a very clear memory of getting in serious trouble for talking back, probably around this age, and genuinely not understanding what I was doing wrong. I thought I was having a conversation/ answering a question/ etc. I have no idea if this is what LG is thinking or not. So I would also tend toward just responding with "Please do what I asked. If you really want to talk about how germs work, we can do that later." Or something like that. Hugs. Parenting = not for the faint of heart, and you are fabulous at it!
