The biggest smack you can give `em is let them see just how well you`re doing despite their lousy treatment of you.
First thing a sulky kid wants is attention-you don`t give it-they go into tantrum-you still don`t give attention, beyond setting boundaries for you-eventually they wear themselves out and realise their nastiness isn`t working.
Well, um, that`s the theory.
If the going gets really tough you leave em to it,get your head out of there and go have fun.
And if you really must have revenge after that be really subtle about it. A long phone call with lots of laughter to a mysterious friend can truly p them off.
Mind you if you`re at the boundary stage just set them. I never regretted putting my fingers in my ears when I wanted H to stop ranting, and stopping his bad language too meant we`ve better convos now (when they happen).
Don`t try reason and logic though. That software has been deleted from the MLCer`s brain(In fact there`s not much left there at all...)
Its enough to say "That`s not acceptable to me" Why? "Because it just isn`t" Prepare to repeat ad nauseum.
