How do you deal with eye rolling and complaining?

[Anonymous]

Here’s an example from today: I was making my kids lunch and asked her do you want X or Y? She rolled her eyes, sighed and said impatiently, “I always want Y.” No “please” or “thank you.” I looked at her and raised my eyebrows and she squeezed out a “pleeeease” with another eye roll.

My feeling is that she’s being rude and the consequence is that I won’t make her lunch and she can have school lunch (which she hates and probably won’t eat). I was calm and just said “I don’t like your tone, so I’m not making your lunch today. We can try again tomorrow.”

My partner says that I can’t shut down all of my kid’s negative feelings. If she’s annoyed about something, she should be able to express it and that discord over such small things is normal. My kid was tired and should be allowed to be grumpy with me. She says refusing to make her lunch was an overreaction. Again, I was calm and polite and still offered her empathy (e.g. “I know you’re having a rough morning.”)

She’s 9. No time in the morning for her to make her own lunch, so please don’t suggest that—it would have made her late for school. Also, I generally don’t mind making her lunch—it’s an easy task that helps our mornings go smoothly.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Make the lunch the night before, or have her make it the night before. I would have done the same thing you did in that situation. You can also skip asking what she wants & just pack what you decide.

[Anonymous]

I would have said "try again", stopped what I was doing until she said it politely. "I don't make lunch for impolite people". I don't care about the eye rolling, I roll my eyes too and might roll them back at her. Is she rude outside of the house to you or other people? I don't accept that but know the house is a safe place.

Also, if she's not eating the lunch, just let her buy lunch. Mine buys every day for the same reason. I'd rather she eat.

[Anonymous]

Catholic school. Preferably one with nuns armed with rulers.

[Anonymous]

Rolling your eyes at a parent is unacceptable.

[Anonymous]

I’d say she is allowed to feel negative feelings and to be honest at her age she can’t always be expected to control them. But if once she’s rolled her eyes or been rude she needs to correct. I think immediately shutting down packed lunch for one eye roll is too extreme. I agree with the “try again” poster. Or she can pick her own darn lunch.

[Anonymous]

Rolling eyes. Paddling
Backtalking. Paddling
Sassing. Paddling
Paddling the family canoe. That's definitely a paddling.

[Anonymous]

This is when 123 Magic works well. You say one and it puts her on notice to self-correct. She doesn’t, you say that’s two. When you get to three, she gets the school lunch. This is how you teach her to check herself, to realize what is not acceptable, but you give her a chance to regroup as a teachable moment. I believe your lunch example was just one example of things that might come up in a day. I don’t think making the lunch is the real question here, it’s the rudeness.

[Anonymous]

OP I sympathize. My kid is also extremely insolent

I say the eyerolling is ok if she's registering annoyance at being asked to do something, as long as she does it. I would just look past it.

However in this case it's more a lack of respect cuz you're not asking her to do anything. As long as expectations of treating your parents with respect are entirely clear in the household, then ironically, you might consider shoring up your mutual relationship by spending some one-on-one quality time together. I find that usually improves her mood around me and how she treats me, as the nagger-in-chief.

Another simple thing is just to avoid asking for her opinion for peace's sake, especially if she woke up on teh wrong side of the bed. I would not take away the lunch for the day, the consequence seems outsize to the transgression.

[Anonymous]

Op, I dont find any type of disrespectful behavior, which includes eye rolling, acceptable. My kids know it, there are immediate consequences, and at this point my kids don’t do it. If they are disrespectful, they will usually get once chance to correct before they get a consequence. If it’s happened more than once during conversation the conversation ends and they take a break to go think about their actions.

FWIW, my kids are 8, 10, and 12. I’m from an immigrant family, but was born and raised in the US.

My DH (family has been here for many generations) thinks eye rolls and other behavior I think is disrespectful is fine. But I am consistent and call my kids on it every time, so they don’t do it with him either.

FWIW, my kids are allowed to express their unhappiness with my decisions and choices to me as long as they do it respectfully. (I was definitely not allowed to do this as a kid, so I feel like this is radically different than how I was raised.)

So they can tell me (for example, like the lunch thing you mentioned) - “hey mom, I’m really feeling overwhelmed in the morning with getting ready for school on time, and when you ask me about lunch it feels like one more thing I need to deal with. Can you please assume I always want X for lunch instead of asking me every day?” Demands, an annoyed tone, or an eye roll would mean I stop making lunch and they can figure it out for the day.

[Anonymous]

They get sent to their room and told they can come back when they can behave respectfully.

[Anonymous]

Negative feelings are fine, but she gave you eye roll and nasty tone being because you… dared to do something kind for her and check her preferences. Not okay, and a day of school lunch is certainly reasonable.

Treating people like crap just because does not get you nice things.

[Anonymous]

I either ignore it altogether or sometimes make a joke. Humor is a really underrated, underutilized parenting strategy. Tweens and teens can fall into the habit of taking things too seriously, so if you can lighten things up a little, they can learn to let things go.

But please don't try to force your child to have the "right" facial expression in response to you. I have a very strong memory of my dad once (very gruffly) telling me to go clean up my room and I said "okay" and wen to go do it but apparently didn't say it with joy and enthusiasm, and he wound up yelling at me about not being sufficiently happy about cleaning my room. It was a ridiculous conversation. It's okay to not be happy about doing a chore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s an example from today: I was making my kids lunch and asked her do you want X or Y? She rolled her eyes, sighed and said impatiently, “I always want Y.” No “please” or “thank you.” I looked at her and raised my eyebrows and she squeezed out a “pleeeease” with another eye roll.

My feeling is that she’s being rude and the consequence is that I won’t make her lunch and she can have school lunch (which she hates and probably won’t eat). I was calm and just said “I don’t like your tone, so I’m not making your lunch today. We can try again tomorrow.”

My partner says that I can’t shut down all of my kid’s negative feelings. If she’s annoyed about something, she should be able to express it and that discord over such small things is normal. My kid was tired and should be allowed to be grumpy with me. She says refusing to make her lunch was an overreaction. Again, I was calm and polite and still offered her empathy (e.g. “I know you’re having a rough morning.”)

She’s 9. No time in the morning for her to make her own lunch, so please don’t suggest that—it would have made her late for school. Also, I generally don’t mind making her lunch—it’s an easy task that helps our mornings go smoothly.

Thoughts?

Eh. Not making the lunch seems petty. I would just allow her to restate it nicely, make the lunch, and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would have said "try again", stopped what I was doing until she said it politely. "I don't make lunch for impolite people". I don't care about the eye rolling, I roll my eyes too and might roll them back at her. Is she rude outside of the house to you or other people? I don't accept that but know the house is a safe place.

Also, if she's not eating the lunch, just let her buy lunch. Mine buys every day for the same reason. I'd rather she eat.

This is what I do. I say “try again, nicely this time.”