Question
I home school my 7-year-old son. We are working on obeying and being respectful. Often when I tell him something he responds disrespectfully. He will yell back at me or say something mean and then doesn't do what he was told. He will get an "X" in one of his boxes, but usually ends up losing all boxes because of the meltdown he has when I "X" one box. My husband and I feel that if he spoke like this in school he would receive a consequence immediately. Also, sometimes he says he doesn't know what he did that was disrespectful. So we are thinking that maybe he needs an immediate reaction/consequence when he yells or says something disrespectful. Would something like making him stand in the corner for 5 minutes be appropriate? Or what other consequence would be good? Usually, when he is overly disrespectful I send him to his room for 10 minutes to cool off. That often works well. But I need something immediate that sends him a message, "Oh, THAT ACTION is what is disrespectful. And one more thing, can I implement this "cold turkey?" Can I say, "This is going to be what happens EVERY time you are disrespectful" and then do it? I do make him go to bed after dinner on those bad days. But that doesn't stop the behavior.
