When kids talk back or meet us with pushback, parents often want to disconnect from them. Yet what our kids need most in these periods are efforts to reconnect. Deep down, a child in a stage full of rudeness and defiance is screaming out: “I don’t think you understand something big inside me. I need you to try to understand, to want to be around me, to see me as a good kid inside. This doesn’t mean allowing me to behave in any way I’d like; it means wondering with me about why I’m acting this way and trying to find ways to reconnect.”
