PEARL 35

Sassing and Disrespect

“I don’t have to listen to you, so shut up!” If you’ve ever been

downwind of an explosion of defiant words like these from your child’s
mouth, you probably know all about your reaction. Purple face. Clenched
fists. Pursed lips. Temptation to sprint for the paddle. And all of that is
just a prelude to the fireworks that follow.
Disrespectful kids are tough to take. They seem to have a smart-aleck
comeback for everything we say. The trouble is that when we detonate a
fireworks display in response, we are actually rewarding our kids for
sassing us. We are giving our children emotion. And kids thrive on
parental emotion; they lean back and enjoy the show. It’s part of human
nature. Sermons on fire and brimstone usually will outdraw those
concentrating on Jesus’ love. Humankind doesn’t want peace; it wants
emotion.
Rather than saying, “No child of mine is going to speak to me like
that,” followed by a sermon-length lecture on respect, Love and Logic
parents make it clear from the start that sassing does not result in an
emotional response.
The key to defusing sassy kids is to get them out of our sight and
earshot until they can speak quietly and calmly and our blood pressure
has dropped fifty points. But we don’t dictate their exile. We let them
pick the banishment of their choice: “Would you like to go to your room
or down to the basement? Come back when you can talk as calmly as I’m
talking right now.”
Observe how Suzanne handles her disrespectful son Calvin: