I'm in agreement with the other commenters. I would've called that snot-nosed brat out on his attitude. It's your home. I don't generally do this, but I would've raised my voice and humiliated that kid to the point of tears verbally. I will not be disrespected in my home and you damn well shouldn't be either.

My sister's kids did that to her. My kid tried it with me every time she returned from a visit to my sister's. Absolutely unacceptable. I could stop it in my own house with just The Mom Look and maybe a stern "never talk to me like that again."

Are you able to discipline the skids when they do this to your DH behind his back? I wouldn't be able to tolerate such disrespect in my own house. And your DH needs to become SK's drill sergeant when this happens to his face. Immediate consequences.

it's called "pushing the boundaries"!!! all kids do it, some more than others!!

He has to be shutdown or he'll continue on and on and on and on.

Nothing a back hand pop from dad's hand to the 12yo's mouth won't fix.

Yup, Dad needs to smack the stupid right off his face. It will only have to be done ONCE.

Gotta wonder why this child's father isn't dealing with this situation.

DH needs to knock his ass out one good time . . . .bet he'd stop!

Kid needs a smack and the IPad taken away. Your DH needs to call him out one time and this shit usually stops....I don't condone smacking a kid, but sometimes that is the only thing that works. Usually one time in their life and they know not to do it again....

I think I smacked my BS18 one time around 10 when he called me something and he never pulled that crap again....Even now, he just called to tell me he is not working over the break because he is tired....Told him nice try, if you can get some hours you need the money for books in January, only thing he pays for...Conversation was whiny and finally agreed to do it if they needed him and ended the call with an "I love you mom"....Sometimes they just need to be called out on their crap....

Tell your DH to man up and handle this before the kid gets worse.

I am also wondering what dear ole dad thinks of the situation. He is the one who really needs to be dealing with the disrespect. The kid won't learn anything from you except SMs are evil. }:)

Take away all electronics!! I have been known to actually cut the power cords on TVs or x-boxs with scissors or a knife (cause I know how to splice them back together). It makes an impression. With the Brah - soap in the mouth each time it is said. It should stop.

All kids test their boundaries but if you don't explain quick and fast what won't be tolerated they will run with it.

NO doubt fear is not respect. Respect is derived when expectations are clearly set and consequences are applied for non compliance. If corporal punishment is not on the menu then don't swat him. But you have to do something.

The only way to fix this is for DH and for you to set the expectation and apply the consequences for non compliance. Smash the I-Pad, drag the kid by the ear to the corner and plant him there with his nose firmly pressed against the adjoining surfaces where he stays until he is allowed to move. Putting him where he can hear everyone else having a good time is a good tactic to ramp up the point. If he talks he stays longer, if he moves he stays longer. Consequences are the key to getting through to an ill behaved preteen.

Do something other than yell then not follow through. Actually DH is the one who needs to step up.

When my SS was a minor my DW and I struggled with discipline. I finally came to the point where she had a choice. Step up and get it done before I had to or I would handle it. Interestingly the Skid much preferred my methods which were incident related. I disciplined for a specific incident of inappropriate behavior then we moved on. His mom applied the very long and very arduous disciplinary model. After my DW finally stepped up and disciplined it did not take very long for SS to come to me and ask if I could step back in to the primary disciplinarian role. }:)

When he got too old for a swat to the rump we had other consequences to apply. We sent him to Military School, we turned him into our beck and call chore boy. We worked him incessantly. When he graduated from HS and decided he did not want to go to college or get a job he was our non stop toilet scrubber, window washer, landscaper, floor mopper, prep cook, fence painter, scrub the cobwebs off of the brick, car washer, etc, etc, etc,,,,,beck and call boy. When he figured out how to get his chore list done in a few hours a day his mom doubled, tripled and quadrupled the list until he finally asked us for a ride to the Marine Corps and USAF recruiter offices. He lasted from his 18th birthday 8mos until he reported for BMT. He was about to go crazy from the ever increasing chore list of his beck and call boy career.

He has been in the USAF for nearly 3 years and is doing well.

At 12 the best tool we found for consequences was sentences. Tens of thousands of them. He wrote sentences for years. They are a great disciplinary method. Select a message that focuses on the infraction and set the criteria that any messy sentence and the entire assignment zeros out and starts over. Set a quota. If he misses even one hour of quota he starts over. An assignment of 1500 perfectly neat hand written copies of .....

I will treat my father with respect and not make disrespectful comments or faces when he gives me an instruction.

Can easily turn in to 10,000 sentences and weeks of snarky kid free time while he sits alone in a room bare of any stimulation other than a pad of paper and a pen. We set 120-150 sentences per hour as a quota. If he needed a toilet break he had to write faster for that hour. He got 15mins for meals with the family.

The bonus is he will have amazingly beautiful hand writing. }:)

All IMHO of course.