Question
Our college student, who holds down a full time job in the summer and a 20-hour part-time job during the school year when she lives on campus, seems incapable or unwilling to follow through on the simplest instruction without mouthing off the entire time. When we see her on an occasional weekend we can be having a perfectly pleasant time until she feels it necessary to spout off. Case in point, on Friday she ask to borrow a piece of equipment from the house. We agreed with the stipulation that she returns it in good shape, washed and ready for its next use which would take all of 10 minutes. Saturday evening, there it sat, so we reminded her that this needed to be done before she left out of town Sunday. Then when she started to leave, a final reminder. She did comply begrudgingly, but the entire time she hurled insults and snide remarks which is par for the course with her. I realize ideally we should have stated this once and given her consequences but now that she followed through albeit with a bushel full of backtalk, how do we handle the next time we encounter this situation? Do we ever address the backtalk?
