Ok, I know 7 is an important age for boys to start asserting some independence, but this has gotten to a ridiculous level. The talking back has to stop!

Let me give you some background. We've always raised our little guy to know he can counter a comment with his own thoughts and feelings and express himself without fear of being reprimanded for "talking back" as my mom would say. We always taught him to say things in a polite manner, not snotty, but simply state things like "I'm not really tire yet mommy, can I stay up maybe 5 minutes more, please?" or "when you said that to me like you did it made me feel sad" and things like that, which I don't perceive as backtalking, but just him being able to talk with us in a rather rational fashion.

So now I'm getting attitude thrown into the mix, and getting comments like "no!! I don't want to!" and "No, I'm watching a movie, I'm NOT going to bed"........well.......gone are the days of him being as polite as he used to be. It could be that I'm not taking the time to be patient and talk like we used to and so on and so on.....but no matter the reason, grrrrrr! I'm getting tired of the smack attitude he's gotten started with and I'm not sure how to rope it in without using mom's old line of "don't talk back to me"..........waaaaaaahahahaha......I'm at my wits end!

Help!