My teenager just called me a f£&ing bitch

[Bookishworm]

Things are not good in the family as my husband and I have separated. My son has always been rude so this isn’t new behaviour but tonight his behaviour was particularly bad.

When he came home he sat on the stairs on his phone - due him being with his Dad this week I asked him if everything was okay and he said yes fine then said I hate you by the way. I told him to speak to me properly then he called me a “dribbler” multiple times. Things were tense and later in the evening when we were talking about him seeing his grandparents tomorrow (they haven’t seen him for a while) he called me a fucking bitch 😔 I said don’t you dare call me that etc.

I’ve only recently got back from a holiday with him which wasn’t cheap and he had a lot of treats. He could be lovely and affectionate one minute then if I made a mistake abroad like not being sure of where something is he would call me a dumb ass and stupid or say he was the adult not me.

His rudeness and disrespect is extremely difficult to deal with. He had ADHD and ASD, I also suspect ODD. I do correct him but he smirks and doesn’t seem to care.

He can be very loving and affectionate too but also extremely rude.

Yes but you can’t say that on here… cuddles and a podcast about feelings are the way forward!

OP, I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Did you do a thread a little while ago? I seem to remember a similar dynamic.

You'd punish a disabled child for being disabled?

(To be fair I would have said the same before I had a disabled teen and know that we were working very hard on behaviour management from toddler hood as an experienced nursery and KS1 teacher)

Sadly it doesn't work with ND kids. Need a different approach to raise them to self regulate.

That's because wiping a child clean off their feet is abuse.

So it’s perfectly acceptable for a teenager to speak to their mother in that way? I stand in my child’s playground and watch 8 year olds punch their mothers on a regular basis. They drop to their knees and calmly tell them not to. Guess what? They do it again the following morning, and the morning after that and no, there isn’t any extra needs, just unruly children.
Absolutely no way would that happen with mine.

Meant to rephrase it as would have said "no child of mine would behave like that and get away with it." It's easy to judge from the outside . I did (at least questioned why) . Thankfully silently. I until you get a child like it and know what effort you have put in, and how school can make it worse. And what ADHD and autism do.

I have a child with both and a painful chronic illness.
She doesn't behave like this. Not an excuse

It’s interesting how many parents on MN have zero idea how to discipline their children. Lots of lovely well meaning people raising rude entitled kids because they’re terrified of traumatising them with clear boundaries and consequences.

To be clear, I’m not talking about hitting. I would never advocate violence. Or yelling, or any such nonsense. Just discipline and consequences.

I suspect the issue is that previous generations of many (not all) families in the U.K. ONLY employed physical punishment and/or threats as consequences. So, when you remove those options, their kids (the most recent couple of generations of parents) are flailing and have no idea what to replace them with when raising their own families.

We are human so imperfect by definition, including as parents. I say that because I'm not trying to have a go. I guess there is a chance that what I wanted to type below might be useful...

I wouldn't tell my kids to "speak to my properly" because those words would function as escalating the argument. I try not to tell them what to do because ordering someone around who is angry at you, just escalates things.

I have found it doesn't seem to escalate things to at least partly communicate how I feel and more importantly, point out facts that matter to THEM, so a more productive response (to OP's starter sitiuation, the convo in OP) would be saying something, with some emotion, like "I wouldn't speak to you like that so why do you think it's ok to say that to me?"

And if things still escalate I'd want to move to "I hope we can have a nicer conversation later" and walk away, to shut down the bad moment. It's a waste of my time to be their punching bag, anyway.

They are allowed to be grumpy, heck they are allowed to hate me (hopefully won't be forever), but I won't facilitate opportunity to be abusive.

With teens, young adults, I believe it helps to remind them of what they believe, what they care about, to help nudge them towards better decisions. Throw in comments in the right kinds of moment, about how they deserve a good life if they are struggling with poor self-esteem. Low self-esteem is root of many bad decisions.

This. This is what you do when he deigns to come back to your house.

I did have similar with one of my children. When there has been abuse in the domestic relationship you do have to carry your responsibility for that. You see you are doing the child a service - other people will not tolerate it or get upset. They put in consequences - which can involve losing a job, losing a relationship or even worse. Part of raising a teen is to say to them “the world will not revolve around you and your needs”, such that they understand behaving like this tends to hurt them in the end. Abusers never learn that of course; they are just entitled.

And the way he speaks to his mum is abuse. And the way he’ll continue to behave to women will also be… abuse.

Sounds similar to my DS, now nearly 16. And I'm afraid to say that I DO disengage and give him the silent treatment, when he talks to me like that. I used to respond, but I would end up getting drawn into arguments and screaming at him, so it was the lesser of two evils really. I also shut his WiFi off and won't do anything for him- no lifts, no dinner cooked- until he apologises and behaves cooperatively.

Therapy would probably help, but there are a couple of issues here: first, as PP have identified, there's no guarantee that teens will cooperate. Secondly, there is no family therapy available in our area for less than £100 a session.

Any form of physical chastisement is a terrible idea. When something is frowned on by society at large, it loses its power. Plus, whacking somebody who is probably bigger and stronger than you and struggling with anger and impulse control issues already is quite obviously a really really bad idea!

I also take issue with the "being really really nice and understanding he's suffering" school of thought. We are mothers, not verbal punchbags. We are not some safe space to unleash all negative emotions upon. Sure, he's suffering, but the ABSOLUTE FUCKING BASELINE is to treat the person who has given up so much for you and is enabling your easy, comfortable life with consideration and respect. Sure, listen to him, try to help him engage support, but abuse? You've crossed the line buster.

You will need to talk to him about this . I found the how do you feel when people call you names? How do you think your girlfriend (boy friend) would feel if...? Why do you think dad says this? (Working on his theory of mind) These brought more changes than traditional NT discipline. It's the change you want.

Help him recognise his feelings by naming them. Talk about yours..."I feel frustrated when.., I feel annoyed that, I feel hurt when..."

He has a social and communication disability and teaching him these things is very hard work. There were programmes for children of abusive relationships when I left mine but they might not be available or he might not be open to that.

Inappropriate autistic face.

Face does not match emotions. He probably can't read yours either.

Social and communication disability. It's shit.

Yes because physically attacking people when they say something you don't like it absolutely fine.

I don't think escalating the situation is helpful ,even though it seems really unfair because there are a lot of names you could call them, and a lot of home truths you could give them if you so wished. I get "You're a total weirdo and everybody in the village hates you". Nice. Also completely untrue. The times I have been itching to respond "Well, you don't seem that popular either, given that you're the only one of your friend group that hasn't been invited to Billy's party", or similar!

However, I know full well that he would harbour that comment well into adult life. Which is why I disengage and go on "strike" instead. Lesser of all evils.

That said, yes I did lose control and call him a little shit the other week. Not proud 😳

‘Don’t like’ - you mean sustained verbal abuse? Why are you downplaying abuse?

You and many others have said it on here. Repeatedly. You’re just wrong and therefore people disagree. Which is exactly what you’re doing to people. So I don’t know why you’re so sarcastic and unpleasant when disagreeing is allowed. Beating your children is illegal though so there’s that. It also doesn’t work. You may think prisons are full of permissively/softly/gently parented children. I’ve worked in many prisons and they are full of adult men who were children who were raised in abusive homes with parents who hit them. And the statistics say the same thing.

As for ‘cuddles’ it’s been mentioned twice by my count. Both by the ‘I’d wallop them’ parents and precisely zero times by the parents like me. You might interpret it as ‘cuddly’ parenting but that’s just a misrepresentation of what many of us are suggesting. Misrepresenting makes the person calling it ‘cuddles’ look stupid. Not the person suggesting parenting podcasts and therapy.

My child with ADHD almost never swears. If she does, she will ask if she can first. And then says something like, “bloody annoying”. She’s a delight, great report cards, wonderful relationships. My friend’s boys call her a fucking bitch. She has an abusive ex who she just left and she is a very very strict and traditional parent. It doesn’t work. Because the boys are following their training by the ex.

And hitting an angry child would just be another abusive anger-inducing thing. But by all means say it. It’s a free country.

My teen boy used to be awful as we suffered a bereavement as his dad died. Sometimes he was vile. Year 7,8 and 9 he had incidences of being awful or the flip he could be amazing. I am happy to report that he is now 95% amazing and is my bestie. Even when I think he’s about to flip about something he ends up catching my eye and then we just start laughing. We got there with strict parenting, each time he was vile he got a consequence. I had to re teach
him the respect. Now he’s one of the most respectful teens I know . Hang in there it will be a rough ride but remember you are there to mother him not be his mate just yet .

I don't think you're doing them any favours by tip toeing round this though. Out there in the real world he's going to find himself excluded / fired / beaten up / very brutally dumped & identified as an abuser if he behaves like that. Or he'll find some other poor woman to treat like this. Take the expensive holiday with "lots of treats". What were the consequences for his abusive behaviour? Why were you on a holiday "with lots of treats" at all when he's "always been so rude"? What were the consequences for the controlling abusive behaviour during the holiday? I'd have been on the first plane home personally.

And you and many others have said your POV, including attempting to shoot other people who hold my views posts down. What’s the difference? I believe that you’re wrong - hence my (and other people’s) posts. How come you’re the only person allowed an opinion?
Obviously prisons are generally full of people from troubled backgrounds. That’s quite well documented. I’m not proposing battering a child daily. I merely agreed that a teenager speaking to me like this would get knocked off their feet. If you think that you can then try and liken that to people who are raised in actually abusive homes (mine included) then that is really quite offensive.
There is somewhere in the middle between allowing your child to verbally abuse you and raising them abusively.
For the record, I’ve never hit my children but by god do they know if they spoke to me like that they wouldn’t be doing it again (and that doesn’t make them abused or likely to end up in prison!).

I merely agreed that a teenager speaking to me like this would get knocked off their feet

A teen boy, in puberty, will be stronger than you. You won’t be able to knock him off his feet.

Again, I’m disagreeing with you, you’re disagreeing with me.

But you say things like ‘not allowed’ ‘shoot down’ and ‘only one to be allowed an opinion’. Can’t you see that pretending that your embattled position is being unjustly attacked, when it is just people disagreeing, makes you look hyperbolic?

Why is you disagreeing with me not a case of ‘shooting down’ ‘not allowing an opinion’ and (weirdest of all) ‘not allowed to say on here’?

You’re allowed to say all manner of stupid things. MN only deletes things like personal attacks. But if you advocate beating children, people are allowed to correctly name that abuse.

I’d have snatched that phone off him and tossed it out the window if my kid spoke to me like that. They know it too and wouldn’t dare speak to me that way.

I have two young adult children with autism, the younger also has ADHD. We have had our moments but there is an obvious difference between a distressed and overwhelmed autistic child who has lost control, and one who is being smug, abusive rude & nasty. It is not helpful to them or the family as a whole to justify all unwanted behaviour as directly resultant from their disability.

Its hard to deal with a teenager. I know and experienced it myself. I was most rude as a teenager, i am a holy man. I ddint swear at people though. The parent and child need to draw the line somewhere, and the child should always be respectful.

I just think there's a line, due to respect that shouldn't be crossed. Ds1 swore at me once, as a late teen, and I told him it was totally unacceptable. But he has pushed me, to breaking point and is a different child to ds2, which I've had to accept.