Trying to teach my son to be respectful is possibly ruining my relationship with him

[Anonymous]

How much screen time does he get? How is his sleep? Diet? Does he get enough activity/exercise/stimulation? For my 9 year old son who has been getting an attitude like this lately, if we cut back on screens, get him to bed earlier, get him eating healthier, sign him up for more extracurricular activities and make sure he gets plenty of outdoors time running around every day, his behavior is SO much better. It is no surprise that this is the case and ideally, we'd always do these measures w/ our kids anyway but when family life gets busy, it's easy to start slipping up and allowing more screens, relying on easy but less healthy foods, and not getting to bed on time.

I also agree w/ PPs about spending lots of 1-1 time w/ him if you can. Our kids always have better behavior when they've gotten that attention and time to feel truly seen and heard by us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We saw these things increase when we were falling behind on our 1 on 1 “time in” with each kid. It is so exhausting handling everything, but we work really hard to prioritize that even if it is just playing Roblox for 15 minutes.

We also had good success with Kazdin’s positive reinforcement strategies. We had to pick 1 situation at a time and basically script it (with 3-4 options). We started with saying “thank you” when someone gives you something instead of “I don’t like this food” or “why did you give me this”. When they said something nice we would either explicitly praise, or if out in public do a tiny high five or a wink and talk about it later.

Eventually the positive reactions of others became the reinforcement, but I had to point those out sometimes. (The Publix cookie sample lady was great for this. She would give him an extra cookie whenever he was especially polite in asking/ saying thank you.)

When our now teen acts crabby, we can say something like- “Hey, what’s going on?”. Then sometimes they ask for a hug, or a rest/snack, or to do something together.

We also treat the first 30 minutes home as decompression. And we don’t manage those comments other than empathy (sounds like a tough day). One of our therapists memorable described those sharing as the lancing of an emotional boil. So I mentally put on my PPE and wait it out. And then after a snack/ break we can problem solve if there was anything that needed action or if it was just sharing about their day. I try really hard to do some self-care (like having music in the car instead of a conference call) before pick up so that I have some emotional resources left.

Sorry this is so long. I remember wondering if my 5 year old would be a grumpy old man forever.

This is great advice! (Not OP but thank you!)