Your kid disagrees with everything you say. He’s sarcastic and dismissive. If you ask about his homework or something he was supposed to do, he shouts at you or accuses you of being unfair. Every encounter has become a power play. You’re not sure how things got to this point but you like to get them back to some place more civil.

Welcome to the club!  The good news here is that backtalk is a familiar part of the parent-teen/preteen experience. It’s normal. But that doesn’t mean you have to put up with it.

Backtalk might be normal but it’s not pleasant and the unpleasantness rubs off on everybody. Backtalk might be normal but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it. Instead, here are some strategies to try.

1. Stop the conversation cold.  Don’t continue with whatever you were saying at the point you got a nasty response. Just stop. Fix your kid with a steely eye and say, “Please rephrase that.”  If your child refuses to restate what she just said, the conversation is over. Walk away. You can reinforce the point you were making (“Get your room clean.” ) but don’t provide any opportunity for your teen’s reply. Turn on your heel and exit.
2. Provide a script for disagreement. Your teen is learning that he has opinions and he loves to share them. What he’s not so good at yet is making his points without inflaming an argument. But this is a key skill. Help him to learn it. Guide him in using a formula for argument that includes first restating the other person’s point and then making one opposing statement (“You want me to clean my room. But I have to meet Greg at 3:00.”). Use this formula yourself, both as a way to model good conversation and as a way to defuse your teen (“You want to meet Greg at 3:00. When will you clean your room?”).
3. Time your requests. Notice when your kid is already in a bad mood. That’s probably not the best time to ask her about her homework or even to ask her what’s wrong. Of course, teens are frequently in bad moods. Many of them are as self-centered as two-year-olds and they struggle to understand why the rest of the world doesn’t see everything their way. But being self-centered and insensitive yourself is no help. Give your agenda the best advantage you can by picking the best time to talk with your teen about what you want her to do.
4. Talk this over. Find a time when your teen is feeling mellow and talk about what bothers you about your interactions and what change you’d like to see. Be friendly and respectful and be careful not to accuse. Provide your teen with a face-saving excuse (“I know you’re under a lot of strain…”) and take care not to back him into a corner. It’s possible that he doesn’t realize that he’s being offensive. It’s only fair to tell him that.
5. Start early. Don’t wait for back-talk and disrespect to become a habit. Older elementary kids mimic what they hear bigger kids saying and they mimic what they see on TV. They may think it’s cool or funny to talk back to you, not realizing what your reaction will be. So draw the line at the first instance and be consistent in disallowing disrespect. This is an opportunity to teach the truth that there’s a time and place for everything.
6. Don’t engage with anger. Backtalk is annoying and frustrating but if you let yourself get really worked up about it and start flinging sarcasm and disrespect right back at your teen, you’re going backwards, not forwards. Be a role model, difficult though that might be. Be the mature one.

Backtalk  is more serious when it includes profanity and insults. Abusive speech is a signal of deeper problems, with your relationship with your child and with your child’s relationship to her social circle. If your teen and you or your teen’s other parent have serious issues with each other, family counseling is in order. If your teen and your partner will not go, go yourself. You need some guidance and support in handling this.

Most of the time, though, backtalk is just another opportunity for you to teach your child essential social skills. Instead of taking offense, take action.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Look for free downloads on Dr. Anderson’s website at www.patricianananderson.com.

Here’s the thing about children’s melt-downs: they don’t know how to stop them.

Once a child loses control and is on the floor screaming or throwing blocks around the room or biting her sister and breaking the skin, it’s all over. Her emotional control has fallen off the cliff and she has no way of getting it back on her own. What you do next is the most important thing.

Most of us react by melting down ourselves. We scream, we hit, and we lock our kids in their bedrooms. We act like children. None of this helps a child find her calm again. Most of this simply escalates things. Instead of fixing the day and helping to make certain this sort of episode becomes less frequent, we ruin the day and make certain this sort of episode will happen again tomorrow.

If we want something to change, we can’t do the same things we’ve been doing. We have to show our child techniques for regaining control.

This is exactly the sort of training provided to children in Head Start who have been identified as suffering from early trauma. Children who are angry at the world, who have been hurt deeply even as preschoolers, need help to find their emotional center. Head Start has created a program designed to actively teach calming skills. We parents of less injured children can do the same thing.

It helps to recognize that young children really don’t know how to calm themselves. We see this in babies, who are very difficult to soothe once they’ve reached the screaming-meanies phase. But toddlers and preschoolers (and even older kids) still haven’t mastered self-soothing skills either. They need our help. Here’s what to do.

1. Give a child the gift of your calmness. Your child is standing on an emotional ledge, ready to jump. Any good negotiator knows you don’t yell at someone on the edge, you talk with him calmly. You lend your own calmness to someone who doesn’t have enough. So take a deep breath. Speak calmly and slowly. Helping your child means giving her your quiet strength.
2. If you need to restrain your child, do so with love, not anger. Enfold your child securely but gently. Keep in mind that you are giving calmness, not fighting. This is not easy to do. It will take all your physical strength and your emotional control to keep a child from hurting himself or others while not hurting him yourself.
3. As your child quiets, direct her attention to her heart rate. Show her how to take her pulse at her wrist or to feel her heart. Notice how fast it’s racing. Challenge your child to getting her heart rate down.
4. Show your child how to take deep breaths. Do this together. Three or four calming breaths will steady her pulse and help her to settle. She will still be shaky, so don’t be too quick to ask questions. Let her take the time she needs to get back to calm.
5. Congratulate your child on settling himself. Put off asking what set him off until later; probing into this now make reignite his anger and upset. Instead, suggest a different activity altogether. He may want to go lie down for a few minutes in a quiet place, or he may want to watch TV for a little bit. If he was really out of control, he’ll need some time to feel himself again.

If you are consistent with this pattern, your child will eventually learn how to calm herself without your intervention. It will take time. But even in the short term, you and your child will both feel better about the day and you both will feel like you’ve grown emotionally and in your shared relationship.

A meltdown doesn’t have to derail everything. It doesn’t have to be an everyday occurrence. Take the time to teach your child another way to be.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.