7 year old arguing

[happy44]

How do you handle this...

My 7 year old DS will argue black is white! I am all for him having an opinion and expressing himself but this is exhausting.

He argues over anything I ask him to do, bedtime, shower, picking up after himself etc

He corrects any detail like make sure you know what you want so we can give the lady at the till your money. He will reply 'it's not a lady!' Just being 'smart'

He will argue over facts when he is wrong! Like a simple maths question he will go and go and go

And also lies to make a point 'you didn't ask if I wanted a wee.!' When I did.

He will just carry on constant until he cries

I am losing my patience

Advice please super mums...

Often if my child is being like this I just make a non committal noise to indicate that I've heard her but I'm not responding/getting into it.

Or 'oh right'

Cos there's no point getting into this back and forth is there

But it depends what works for your child

How is he at school? Is he coping socially there?

Thank you!!

The non committal noises may be an option sometimes but getting him to brush his teeth before we leave the house needs to happen

He is fine at school, he knows his own mind and is confident. He can take instruction from teachers and his dad when he goes there

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It's really good that he's ok at school.

I wonder if the arguing, especially the example you gave of "give the lady the money" is him taking things a bit too literally?

How does he score on this simple speech & language progress checker?

Some kids are just very argumentative. I've had to literally tell DD that she doesn't get to speak to me that way - I've shut down a conversation when she gets rude by saying "The way you are speaking to me is rude. It's not ok to be so rude to me". It took a long time but she gets it now (11).
I'd pull up the lying as well at that age, before it gets worse. Eg "Just because you can't remember doesn't mean it didn't happen" "if you'd listened, you would have heard me properly" "we always have a tactical wee before leaving the house". Also I would work on stopping the blame transference that creeps in, eg it's mum's fault that I didn't have a wee. I'm still working on this. I call it out directly though, eg "You knew we were going out. I asked you to have a wee/brush teeth etc. You know you should but you didn't. This is on you. You can't keep blaming others when you are responsible for doing it." Or some variation (ie not all of it all at once lol).
It's hard work. If you let it slide it will be harder later on.
Hang in there!

My son was like this, and still is. He’s now 21 and definitely on the spectrum although he’s never been formally diagnosed. He will pick me up on anything that doesn’t sit right with him, like the lady example. He doesn’t get “figure of speech” it has to be 100% accurate.

I pick my battles although that’s bloody hard to do! What worked for me is asking him to repeat back what I said if it’s something I wanted him to do, like brush his teeth.

He’s not like this at work, and is in fact a really hard worker and very reliable. He also wasn’t like this at school/college but he would come home and complain about what wasn’t said correctly, in his mind. So he can control it if he wants to.

The only advice I can give is to gently confirm what you’ve said is in fact correct and just say we have different views. If I don’t say anything it would always feel like he was bullying me or being disrespectful so I had to say something once but not go on about it even if he did. I’d often walk out of the room to save having a full blown argument with him.

I also think that he’s like this at home because it’s his safe space? At school/work he knows he has to conform and let’s out all his frustrations when he gets home.

My 13 year old is on the spectrum. And is exactly like this. It’s exhausting. I play her at her own game when I can now. The tooth brushing thing…. “You will have really smelly breath if you don’t brush your teeth, but that’s up to you”. I find picking my battles here works. Huge sympathy

Unless he has additional needs then this is completely unacceptable. My DS is 7 and if he dared to argue back at me he would loose his tablet for a week, if he complained about that then the PlayStation would go. I do not tolerate it at all and never have and this seems to have worked as he is actually a lovely and extremely polite little man who gets compliments on his manners everywhere we go, the thing is he knows I'm not bluffing when I threaten something as I always follow through. I find alot of issues with behaviour come because the child know if they stamp and scream long enough and loud enough the parent will give in. My child once (when he was about 4) rolled his toy car up the wall leaving a mark I told him if he did it again all his cars would go to the charity shop for other boys who deserved them, 20min later and a carrier bag of cars went to the British Heart Foundation hes never put a toy near the wall again.

Amend your tone of voice when you speak to him/instruct him. If you’re too song-songy he won’t take you seriously and lose respect for you.
You need to be firm with him, lay out your expectations of behaviour (including no back chat and doing as he is told) and then stick to it.

Perhaps look into some parenting classes?
If he is fine with everyone else, there’s something you are or aren’t doing that is holding you back. Better to get on top of this before he is too old for you to get a change out of him. xx

Think all 3 of mine went through this stage at about that age. I just agreed half time and most of the time they learn they are wrong xx

My daughter went through this, around about the same age as well. Hang on in there…! After a while I stopped arguing back and started questioning why it mattered so much to her. Was it that she needed to be right all the time? Was it because she was angry with me? Was it just to be a pain in the a$$? For context, it was just her and me at home so no siblings to argue with, so maybe it was just that. Testing conflict, testing boundaries. It was so wearing though! I don’t really have advice really, just try not to lose your mind and eventually it will stop 🤞🏻

Sounds exactly like my DS (6). He is being extremely challenging at the moment. He has also just started on the ADHD pathway.

Did you manage to do the progress checked I linked to @happy44?

My son is also like this he’s 12 now. It hasn’t got any easier. Currently arguing with me because I told him it’s bed time at 10 past 10. His argument is I’m 12 and when I’ve said exactly you’re only 12, he’s arguing that age has nothing to do with it . I just have to tell him not to argue with me and walk away 😩

Sounds like he needs some consequences for his actions. Be firm and follow them through. And don't fuss over him, he's 7 he can work out when he needs to go to the toilet and he should be capable of holding it for a little while if he made a bad decision not to go. Let him not organise the money until he gets to the till - hopefully the next time he will work out for himself that it would be better too. Let him work things out for himself and set crystal clear consequences for ignoring what you are asking him to do.