One day you ask your child to move her shoes and the response you receive is far from polite. Welcome to parenting an adolescent! Adolescents will talk back to their parents as well as siblings, other family members and so on. The back talk is often obnoxious and disrespectful and is usually said in the moment. Your teen is actually learning how to assert her or himself. Adolescents do not often think things through and recognize that what they say can be disrespectful and upsetting. It can be a very frustrating time for parents, but parents must realize that their jobs is to teach their teen to state their viewpoint in a more appropriate and respectful manner.
How you can handle your teen talking back to you. The urge to respond back in anger when your teen talks back to you is understandable. Talking back is not only annoying but it also makes us feel as though they are questioning our authority as well as pushing our buttons. If you do respond out of anger, the chances are you will quickly become involved in a power struggle with your teen. Talking back once in a while is acceptable as your teen is learning to assert him or herself and inject opinions, but if it becomes a habit that happens regularly it needs to be dealt with. Here are some suggestions on how you can handle your teen talking back in a healthy way.
Choose the battles with your teen wisely. Let's say that your teen is both mumbling under his breath at your and swearing at you when you ask him to take out the garbage. Instead of dealing with both unwanted behaviors right off the bat, choose the one that is more important to you. In this case it is probably the swearing at you. Discuss the behavior with your teen, set out consequences for the behavior and give it a bit of time. Once there seems to be some improvement on that behavior, tackle the other one. If you attack your teen for every unwanted behavior, you will just frustrate yourself and your teen and possibly hinder any improvement in the behavior.
Explain acceptable and unacceptable behavior. In order to call teens out about unacceptable behavior, you would have needed to express to your teen what unacceptable behavior is. Unacceptable behavior varies from person to person and family to family, so it is important that you clearly define what is unacceptable in your eyes. It is also just as important that you set the consequences for the unwanted behavior. Clear expectations are necessary to help your teen move towards good behavior.
Don't overreact to back talk. While it is easy to overreact to your teen when he or she talks back to you, try your best not to. It is probably going to happen at some point, but try not to make it a habit. Step back and examine the situation. Chances are, your teen isn't always behaving poorly and always talking back, so try to see the good in your teen's behavior as well. By blowing things out of proportion, you are actually giving the behavior of talking back more power than it should have.
Don't take the behavior personally. While it is very easy to internalize some of the things your teen might say to you in the heat of the moment, it is imperative that you don't take it personally. Remember that however upset your teen is, he or she is still your child who loves your and really needs your approval and support. Once you take the behavior personally, you will get angry and chances are you will overreact.