Hi, I’m Dana. Do you know the old saying, you teach people how to treat you? If you don’t know that one, it’s a good rule of thumb when we’re talking about children.

You teach your children how to treat you, not the other way around. A common question that I get asked a lot is how do I stop my children from talking back, yelling, being angry towards me, saying mean things to me, swearing at me, okay? So today I wanna talk about that a little bit and give you a few tips for preventing that from happening in the first place or changing it if you’ve got yourself into a bit of a bad habit around it.

So the first thing and the most important thing is to not allow your children to talk to you like that. I don’t actually let anyone talk to me like that, and neither should you.

So what do you do to stop it? Well, I’ll tell you a story about my own kids. When they were little, and it’s very common for kids to do this when they’re feeling angry or upset because they don’t really know any other way to communicate it yet, will say things like I hate you.

That is flat-out no-negotiating automatic time out in my house. You are never allowed to say you hate someone. You said it, you’re going to time out. You said it again, you’re going to time out. I can tell you now that my children are teens, no one ever says that, no one, because it has been a non-negotiable rule in our home.

Now, can I teach them other ways? Sure, you can say I’m angry at you for doing that or I’m feeling really frustrated towards you right now, I’m gonna go take a break, or I don’t like it when you take my thing. That is a completely acceptable way to communicate your displeasure with someone, but they need to be taught that, so they need to see it from you.

Make sure you’re looking at your own behavior. Do you talk to people like that? If you do, then that’s where they’re getting it from. If you talk to your partner like that or you talk to your mother like that, they are going to pick up and that and they’re gonna see, so you always need to look inward first. What am I showing them? What am I teaching them? And then change your own behaviors to match, so that’s number one.

Another tip would be, like I said, helping them learn other ways. Saying things is one way to communicate your displeasure, so how can we help them find more appropriate things to say, but also using your body to communicate displeasure can also be helpful. So you might say to your toddler I know you’re mad that that toy broke, why don’t you stomp your foot? I’m mad that that toy broke. That’s an okay way to express your displeasure. You’re not hitting anyone, right? You’re just using your body in a way that’s more appropriate, you’re hitting or maybe you give the pillow a little punch if you’re feeling really angry about something, but you’re teaching them outlets for dealing with negative feelings, and that honestly is one of the hardest things I think we have to learn as human beings, really, how do you handle those negative feelings?

And another thing to keep in mind is that it’s good to teach your children that negative feelings are okay, right? We don’t want our kids growing up thinking that I have to always be good, I can’t ever be angry, because that’s gonna just teach them to push all those negative feelings down, and we know that that is not a good way to grow up, nor is it really a good way to handle emotions, so we wanna teach them that you know what? Everyone feels angry at times, everybody feels sad, everybody feels down.

I love the movie Inside Out, I think it’s one of the most well-done animated movies for teaching kids about emotions and that all emotions are okay and they all need an outlet and a place, but just always coaching them, teaching and modeling how do you do that in a way that’s not destructive to yourself or to others, that’s not hurtful to others, so if you’re in a situation right now where you’ve got a child who’s very verbally abusive to you, I want you to sit them down, say listen, this might be the way that things have been going thus far but starting today there’s some new rules around that and you’re no longer allowed to speak to us that way and if you do there will be a time out consequence in place and we’ll teach you some other ways, some better ways, but that’s no longer allowed.

Alright, I hope that helps. Thanks so much, sleep well.