Question
My 7-year old son has this habit of expressing his frustration, questioning me, or complaining about what I've told him to do or said, “no” to.
He asks, “Why not?” and I answer simply, “Because I said so”, but he proceeds to walk away saying things like, "I don't know what the big deal is", and, "We never get to/she never lets us sleep in the living room," which isn't true, since they get to on weekends sometimes.
He does this when I tell him to fold his laundry or do his chores as well, and at school when the teacher tells him to do (or not do) something. Many times, he questions me, tries to explain himself, or tries to tell me I'm wrong about something (not in so many words) as well.
He also has a lot of catastrophic/definitive words and exaggerates things: 20 minutes is a million years, “I’m in trouble now”, “I’ll never get to …”, “I’m grounded forever”, etc.
Do I ignore the things he says, or give him a consequence for it? Should it be a Ticket Method target behavior?
Brief history – he used to have an expressive delay and was in speech therapy (maybe I am using this as an excuse and am enabling his behavior?), so (?) now he expresses everything as though the “mind voice” is out loud instead of quiet.
P.S. I’m trying to implement everything I can from what I learned in Parenting by the Book.
Help?
