My oldest would get confrontational with me...very hard headed and short fuse.
I told him I would jack him up and he said I could not because he could call the police....I told him, don’t bother I’ll call and I did. Put it on speaker phone, explained to the detective I had a wise-ass teenager who thought they would come to his rescue.....reply.....Body shots ma’am, nothing to the face. That shut him up real fast.
At 18 I slapped his face silly when he got mouthy to me in front of his friends...Told him he was lucky because he was still in HS, otherwise I would have knocked his teeth out, the only thing that stopped me was the thought of the dental costs.
Those are the only 2 times things really got ugly. At 19 he was still illing at times, I wrote him a letter and told him in no uncertain terms what I thought of his attitude and where it was taking him and that I would not sit back and enable his behavior. I also told him that I will not respond to the letter for a week. He was livid but....it did sink in.
He decided not to go to school and joined the military instead....in one letter from Basic, he brought up things in that letter and understood what I was trying to tell him. Oh boy, did I cry.
Hang in there, be strong, be firm and stick to your guns. Some just have a harder time than others but all is not lost.
Wow, you are a great, courageous mom. And in future years, your son will only grow in his respect, loyalty, and protection of you. I was raised in the 1950s and 1960s, and my mom did not hesitate to smack our mouth if we sassed her. Dad used the belt routinely (with restraint, of course); actually, the mere THREAT of the belt kept us in line. That era’s mantra was “Spare the rod, spoil the child” and “Children should be seen and not heard.” To this day, I monitor how I speak to my mom, and I’m pushin’ 60! I and my four siblings were saved from many a heartache by parental discipline.