Backtalk: 4 Steps to Ending Rude Behavior in Your Kids (Paperback)

by Audrey Ricker (Author) "Case History #2: A twelve-year-old girl, Sandy, comes home from school and finds her mother in the home office, talking to a friend..." (more)
Key Phrases: backtalk program, disengaging from the struggle, enacting consequences, Four-Step Program, New York, Chet Junior (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Imagine this scenario. You pick up your son at school, and ask him how his day went. He says, "You always ask me that. Get a life, Mom." You feel hurt, insulted, frustrated. Silent, you drive him to band practice. In this scene, experts Audrey Ricker and Carolyn Crowder would argue that both of you lose. What is a better response? Tell Billy matter-of-factly that his comment was inappropriate, and that you aren't going to drive him to band practice. When he, suddenly more polite, tells you he has to go to band practice, you tell him he can practice the next day at school. You stand your ground, without arguing with him.

Backtalk--fairly easy to recognize--may be wrecking your family life. As flip or relatively harmless as it may seem, verbal rudeness gets in the way of real communication between parents and kids. It may be holding your children back at school, and ultimately in life. Ricker and Crowder have teamed up to create a four-step program--simple but not easy--to create a backtalk-free home. Through a large number of all-too-familiar-sounding sample "backtalk scenarios" and bullet-point lists, this book explains how to recognize backtalk for what it is, how to choose and enact a response that will make sense to you and your child, and when to disengage from the struggle and move forward. Whether your preschooler is saying "Bad Mommy" or your teenager is saying, "That's lame, Dad," Backtalk suggests ways for you to regain a sense of balance in your relationships with your children.

From Publishers Weekly
Ricker, a teacher, and Crowder, a psychologist, present a compact plan for dealing with backtalking kids. The authors define their topic as including such phenomena (common among teenagers, but quite likely to strike much earlier) as sudden rudeness, nasty tone, inflected syllables, hostility and bullying control of the conversation. They make clear that their advice pertains only to mentally healthy children and not to those with serious neurological or psychiatric disabilities. While allowing that respectful disagreement or assertive communication in kids is appropriate, the authors suggest that parents nip backtalk in the bud. Their four deceptively simple steps include recognizing backtalk when it occurs; choosing a logical consequence; enacting the consequence; and disengaging from the struggle. If a child is rude at dinner, for instance, one "logical consequence" is to remove that child's dinner. They claim that if parents refuse to give in to backtalk, their homes will soon be characterized by positive communication rather than by sullen faces, eye rolling and angry sarcasm. Peppered with realistic dialogues and case histories, the book, while hardly eye-opening, will be useful for parents who want to maintain a mutually respectful dialogue with their growing children.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Fireside; Later Printing edition (March 10, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068484124X
• ISBN-13: 978-0684841243
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #302,107 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

109 of 110 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Help!, September 12, 2000

By	Quaker Annie "reader" - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

If you have young children (under 14) who 'talk back' to you, you may find this book to be of some help in undoing what can feel like a hopeless battle. My own 9-year old began talking back when he got into first grade, picking up snappy statements from TV and peers. I tried to excuse it at first as just the way modern kids talk to modern parents (I have offspring as old as 32, all boys, who never talked back this way).

After deciding this really was unacceptable behavior, and recognizing that left unattended it was getting worse, I started taking steps to stop it. This book has been one of the aids (not the solution). It doesn't expect the parent to make a friend or equal of the child (rationalize, debate, etc.), but it also doesn't encourage setting up a dictatorship. As with many things, the solution to problems is sometimes in the difficult to maintain moderation arena, which actually requires more work by the parent.

I like this book because it worked - despite being difficult to do at first, once the child gets the message, repeat performances are rare and easy to stop. The book itself is short and to the point, with just four simple steps to follow. They are common sense - I suspect most of us who have this problem will recognize them - but busy, often-stressed parents will appreciate the gentle support and reminders this book offers.

1) Recognize what is and isn't backtalk. (if it hurts, embarrasses, annoys you, its backtalk. If the child is just relaying his feelings about something, its an opinion) 2) Choose an appropriate consequence (unlike 'punishment', a consequence is a result that makes sense to the child) 3) Enact the consequence 4) Disengage from the struggle with the backtalker (don't take it personally, or you're doomed).

Sounds so simple you want to click the "this review wasn't helpful button?" It IS simple -- so simple we forget, so simple it seems to good to be true. The hard parts of these steps are #3 and #4. No book can give you the solution, but books can offer help and reminders.

There are details in the book that I still find helpful -- the backtalk has pretty much stopped -- all I have to do is remind my son now that "backtalk isn't allowed" and he immediately stops.

In addition, there are short chapters for backtalk from Adult Children (!), from Children in College, for Single Parents specifically, and Backtalk in the Media. There is a bit of information on support groups and other resources (not a lot), plus ideas on starting your own support group, as well as a chapter dedicated to responding to people who disagree with the methods in this book.

63 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous techniques, December 28, 1999

By	Amy J - See all my reviews

This book teaches adults how to teach children in their lives not to speak rudely to others. It is amazing to realize how early some children learn to backtalk, and how quickly you can break them of that habit (the sooner the better!) The book tells you how to recognize the difference between rude backtalk and requests for topics of conversation (sometimes the difference can be hazy.) It also shows you how to immediately enact a consequence so that the child is told unequivocally that their behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. This book has no room for "IF you do this again, I will do this..." It jumps right in with both feet - "BECAUSE you were rude and that makes me feel bad/sad/angry, I don't feel like doing this nice thing that I had said I would do for you." When the child sees immediate consequences, he learns very quickly and the behavior can be eliminated within a few weeks. This book is straightforward and exceedingly helpful for adults who interact with children of all ages.

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars VERY helpful book and easy to read! However,, June 28, 1999

By	[e-mail] (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

it is very rudimentary. I would like more emphasis on what's needed beyond insisting on respect. If the parents don't model respect for others and themselves, the child won't have any idea what it looks like.

I have used the methods in this book successfully, but slightly modified for my 5 year old daughter so that she won't feel broadsided by consequences before she knows what's expected of her. I tell her first when she's nearing a boundary, and she's eager to learn the rules.

This book DOES give concrete advice about what to do when it feels as if there's nothing you can do. I recommended it to any thoughtful parent who feels guilty about having to set limits.