The Sassy Response

Somewhere around 6-7 years old the kids decide that they know better than the parents. When told to do something as simple as put pants on because it will only get to 60 degrees today, they roll their eyes are say "no, I'll be fine". Is that disobedience? I saw that it is.

My boys seem to go in sprees of this attitude. The first couple times I will correct their behavior and explain that it is not appropriate to treat me or their father that way. At times, however, this behavior still continues. Below is a way that I have found to work for my boys. I would love to hear how you have dealt with this, especially if you have girls because I know it might need to be handled differently.

When one or both of my boys gets a little too big for their britches we have a strong talk with them about what it means to respect their parents. Then I instill the military forced respect until they get the idea. I require that they say "yes, mom" or "yes, dad" to us whenever they are asked to do something without any body-language-attitude. This goes for every small thing. If they do not or do give attitude along with the correct words (and they do get a little prompting like "what do you say?") then they have a consequence such as time on their beds or loss of outside play time. This will go on for about a week and then it slips away which is fine with me because I personally don't like it. But, it has come back from time to time.

I also want to give a little tip for those of you who have chosen to raise their children in the belief of God (whatever religion). God commands respect from us. As parents it is our job, given to us by God, to teach that respect to our children. It begins with respect for us as it is written in Ephesians 6:1 "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." I have had my children memorize this verse so that they see that I too am obedient to the Lord in that I am asking them to do what God asks of them. For us, showing them biblical instructions for life has given them a new appreciation for our rules and authority. We can discuss more on that later.