Not much calmness here

Hi, i really appreciate you! I’m getting stuck and needing some more help today about my 12-year-old who is trying to create power struggles. I told him to put up his plate, and he started making sassy remarks, like pretending that I wasn’t really instructing him, but was rather making some suggestion and he’s making small talk. Sort of brushing me off with a smile and a shake of the head – real sassy.

After insisting on the rules for following instructions, and him refusing, I ended up trying to do the rule of three and his deep breaths weren’t the way I wanted them at first. But since he is always saying that I didn’t tell him something clearly enough, I gave him a few more chances. He finally did what I asked him to do. I don’t feel good about that though. He continued to be difficult and avoiding that chore and his new chore saying his feet are cold and he needs to go get some socks upstairs immediately. (I only asked him to do a 30 second task of putting up his plate and then also putting up my plate after dinner.) I told him no he could not get his socks yet because it was a quick task, and I asked him if he was trying to disagree appropriately. He held his ground and didn’t drop the subject nor asked to disagree appropriately. As the Conversation continues, I was not sure if I should do the rule of 3 again, or what. I was feeling myself losing control both literally and in my role as his authority. As I repeatedly told him, he was trying to create a power struggle, and that he just needed to follow the instructions or else would have to be more chores or we would have to be following the rule of three for him being out of instructional control. He started yelling at me that he needed to go get his socks and he was freezing. Of course, he was just trying to get me into a battle. Unfortunately, I finally fell for it, and when he yelled at me with such disrespect, I yelled back at him loudly. I sent him to his room, because I knew there was no other safe place for us to be at this point. Both of us needed to calm down.

After I said goodnight he texted me on his watch and told me he was sorry. Today he was his normal self and was fine.

What do you do about the sassy, joking thing? And then what do you do when they are yelling at you? I really didn’t know what to do when he started yelling at me. I was blank for what words to say. There were moments in our discussion when I thought to myself, what do I do? Thank you for your input!