Lost connection with my 7yo

[StartsAgain]

My DC1 (just turned 7) seems to have picked up a lot of unpleasant behaviours (I assume at school) recently.

He’s started using sarcasm in a big way, accompanied with horrible facial expressions. He’s never been a particularly compliant child but he has basically stopped doing what he’s told, and giving me lots of of backchat. He’s rude to me and others pretty much all of the time, to the point where I am not enjoying spending any time with him and just feel like we’ve lost all proper connection. I don’t know how to get it back while also making clear to him that his behaviour is not acceptable.

To give an example from the last 10 minutes - we are staying at my mum’s house and there is a room called “the dining room” that is never used as a dining room. DC has been here hundreds of times and knows this. I asked him to put something in the dining room and he said “there is no such place as the dining room (said in nasty singsong voice), why you are all so stupid here, I can’t do that as that room doesn’t exist”. I told him that he couldn’t speak to me like that and I didn’t give him one of biscuits I gave to DC2, but I know that it’s not going to have any long term effect.

I imagined this kind of stuff might happen in the teen years, not now. Please help.

Here I would have said, "don't be wide, you know fine well what I mean" and carried on with what I was doing. It sounds like he's angling for attention or an argument.

When did this start? My kids are younger and sometimes I see glimpses of this but I try to nip it in the bud by communicating it is absolutely not acceptable. Usually the threat of a long lecture on behaviour puts a stop to it!

That would have precipitated a very firm/shocked ‘I beg your pardon?’ Did you just call me stupid? Don’t you dare speak to me like that. Do what I told you, right now!
Shut it down every time.
Nowadays I just have to do ‘the look’ at my 14 year old and she generally apologises!

My child became an insufferable know it all around that age too - they do grow out of it…slowly

Thank you. @Whyx the sarcasm has started in the last few months. The general disobedience is sadly a lifelong affliction but the backchat with it much more recent. I honestly don’t recognise him from my sweet little boy.

@Smartiepants79 my reactions are similar to what you suggest but they haven’t stopped it at all and it’s got to the point where I’m constantly telling him off and have very few nice interactions, which I know is probably a vicious circle. He will just make horrible faces at me when I’m telling him off, and he doesn’t seem to care about the consequences.

My 7yo is exactly the same OP, if I responded sternly as suggested above I'd just get ignored and/or the situation would escalate. Some children just work differently 🤣 the only thing that sometimes helps is meeting the situation with playful humour, if I get the tone right we can get some giggles and it resets her. I found the book 'playful parenting' by Lawrence cohen really useful. I also repeat the mantra 'it's just a phase' to myself many times a day 😆

You’ll regret the soft playful parenting shite when they expect to be able to do exactly as they want to throughout their adolescent years.