Back Talk

Well, she's testing your boundaries. If it's, "I won't pick up my toys," you can inform her, calmly, that any toy you pick up will be stored for a month. She'll pick them up. If it's, "I won't eat my green beans," establish a "eat something new" mean during the week where the expectation is for her to try a small quantity of the item. I often say something like, "Huh. Really," or, "Tell me about that." Sometimes I toss in wants vs. desires. Sometimes I begin a heart to heart talk when I feel the topic warrants attention. Remember not to take her choice to disobey you personally. Your goal is not to "win" the argument; your goal is to get her to know what the expectations are, and that you expect them to be met. Kindly keep consistent with the expectations.

For the sassy tone, tell her to say her remarks in an appropriate tone. Add, "Try it again," as many times as necessary. It even works in the high school classroom. Best wishes.

I have a 6 YO girl with attitude of a teenager! I tell her I will
Not answer her until she can ask nicely...I then model tone of voice and what she should say. Or, she gets a warning and will lose a privilege or a special toy.

We started a sticker chart and put on it the behaviors that we want to see as opposed to what we don't want to see. We change this on Sunday's based on what we have seen the past week.

Example of our current chart:
-Do what is asked quickly the first time
-Say thank you when I do something nice for you
-Talk in a nice tone of voice to me
-Talk calmly when you are upset
-be helpful
-do your chores without being reminded.
-put on your seat belt without being reminded

We bought a few hundred stickers...we go over the new requests on Sunday nights after we change them. Then everytime that he does something on the chart he get to go put a sticker on the paper. First week I think he got about 100 stickers because he really wanted to put the stickers on and "win".

In our house if he gets over X # of stickers per week - he gets to pick an activity to do on Saturday. So on Friday night we have the big count up and if the criteria is met he gets to pick what to do. We have ground rules...can't be more than 2 hours, can't be dangerous, can't cost more than $50. Some weeks he hits his target (we have been to chucky cheese, he had a play date with a friend, we went to an arcade) Besides chucky cheese these are things that I would have done with him anyway so it is not a big deal for the reward.

Key thing is that we hold to if you don't get enought stickers you don't get to pick what we do. When that happend the kid had to run errands with me on Saturday....terrible for me...but made a point for him. This has really turned around the behaviors to what we do want. Yeah!!!!

You could also say that they get to pick what game your family plays on Saturday, pick a prize from a grab bag, etc. The family that gave this idea to us has the rule that activity picked can't cost any money...so they usually pick going on a bike ride, playing in the snow, playing trouble or some other game with the family.

good luck

my almost 5 year old does this. i send her to her room to cool down and for me to cool down. then i go in and talk to her. i ask her if that behavior is ok, if she is aloud to talk to mommy like that. she appologizes and we agree to make better choices. there are times where i count to three to get her to go or i have to actually pick her up and put her in there.

Add a discipline for the back talking. Say she has to go to her room to think about her behavior and come talk to you when you tell her she can come out, or she loses a privilege like TV or going somewhere. Tell her that when you discipline her or ask her to do something you get the last word, not her, and if she persists follow through on the additional discipline. Explain to her that it is OK to get angry, but that she needs to learn to control it. And model proper tones for her to use along with the ones you don't like.

Sounds like my 13year old! As her therapist pointed out to us, taking things away as a consequence has not changed the behavior at all. So as long as the chore gets done we ignore the comments and give as little attention as possible to the negative behavior, but when she is being kind and respectful she gets much praise for that behavior. At 5 you might want to just tell her that you don't like to be talked to that way, it's not nice, you don't talk to her that way. But I would really engage as little as possible until she's calm and praise positive responses.
The other issue is her feelings of anger. Once she's calm you might want to demonstrate ways of handling anger, it's a strong emotion that is difficult for even adults to learn to control, so that much harder for kids - and everyone has a different way that works best for them in managing these emotions.
Being a mom is a hard job as we all know. Good luck!