How Much Back Talk Should Parents Tolerate from Kids?

"Don’t Give Me That Attitude!"

By Jim McGaw

Here’s a pop quiz. The following are a child’s hypothetical responses to a parent’s request that the table be set. Which one is an example of back talk?

A) “I’m busy with this video game! Jeez, isn’t that obvious?”

B) “How come? None of my friends have to do that.”

C) “Can’t Suzie do it? I’ve set the table every day this week!”

D) I’m one tough cookie, so all of the above.

E) This is a trick question, right?

Actually, yes, it is.

The truth is that all parents have their own definition of what constitutes back talk. But most would agree that “attitude and lip,” eye-rolling and general sassy behavior is happening more often among younger children. Simply put, it isn’t just for teenagers anymore.

“It’s clearly happening with younger kids,” says Michele Borba, author of Don’t Give Me That Attitude! “I’m constantly in the schools as an educational consultant, and teachers, who have the upper hand on seeing the new trends with kids, can tell you that it’s escalating. We’re not talking about just being impolite, but swearing and flippant behavior. It’s like pollution; it didn’t happen over night.”

Etiquette trainer Michelle Powell says she’s now working with kids as young as 4, but it didn’t used to be that way. “Rudeness, tantrums, being uncooperative … People I’ve talked with over the past five or six years say it’s gotten worse,” she says.

Yet why should we be surprised when kids give us “that attitude?” asks Adele Faber, the renowned Long Island-based parenting lecturer and co-author of the popular book How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen and Listen So Your Kids Will Talk. “Our culture is becoming cruder and there are more and more examples of disrespectful behavior, with all these sitcoms and commercials we’re seeing these days,” she points out. “Why wouldn’t the kids pick up what’s going on around them?”