I've read more books about teens and their troubles in the past 6 months than I can imagine but the one I'm reading right now called: Why Do They Act That Way? A survival guide to the Adolescent brain for you and your teen by David Walsh Ph.D is one of the best.
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.