I read your column in The Times and need to ask you about my nearly 17-year-old son, who has the best manners to everyone - except me. He tells me to shut up and calls me stupid; he is never violent, but does have a short fuse. I thought it got easier as they got older! How should I react? I still do things for him because I am his mum, but maybe I need to pull back. Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.
Coleen, Australia

Your letter represents the preoccupation of many parents with older children today - the issue of manners. While I celebrate that children have a greater voice and presence today, that they are (generally) not subjected to corporal punishment and that we recognise that, like adults, they have rights, maybe the pendulum has swung too far. As I write my column, I am often struck by how old-fashioned and “un-hip” I sound. But I do feel that in this culture, in these times, where we are obsessed with youth and all things associated, we have lost some of the basic principles of how to behave.

I don't believe adults have all the answers - we often get things wrong. I do believe that children offer a simple, uncluttered and often very honest view of life that we must embrace. However, I also believe, very strongly, that there should be an automatic, almost instinctive, process of respect from the young to older people, even if it is based only on the fact that we've been around longer and may, occasionally, have some wisdom based on experience.

It makes me mad when I am on the Tube or the bus and a young person will sit, plugged in to their iPod, while an elderly person stands. I can't bear the arrogance of some young people who think it's all right to walk down night-time streets and scream and laugh at the tops of their voices. I become incensed by the miserable faces of stroppy young shop assistants, who behave as if they are doing us, the customers, a favour (as they plot and dream of their place winning The X Factor or marrying a footballer).

Maybe this culture of “obsessive parenting” in which we are apparently trapped is not related solely to the fact that children are more unhappy today - maybe it is that children are so spoilt, so overindulged, that they are rude, disobedient, bad mannered and not nice to be around. Maybe these factors are linked - children who are raised without clear behavioural boundaries show no respect for the authority of their parents, which leads to behaviour problems, which leads to angry and argumentative families, which leads to unhappiness for all.

Teenagers are toddlers with hormones and attitude, so my advice to you is not dissimilar from that which I would give if your son was a three-year-old - set a clear boundary around his behaviour with immediate consequences that you carry out every time he oversteps that boundary. It is completely wrong that your son tells you to shut up, calls you stupid and loses his temper - it shows a total lack of respect for you, as his elder and as his mother.

That he is this way only to you clearly relates to some unbalanced dynamic in your relationship with him - he dominates and you submit; there is almost something sado-masochistic about this. The problem I see in all this is that you collude with this behaviour: he is rude and you just soldier on being “mother”, doing what he wants. In some ways your lack of assertion in this relationship must, to a degree, fuel his lack of respect - after a while it is hard to respect the person who keeps turning the other cheek when abused. If he treats you without respect then I suggest that you stop “doing” for him - if you are so stupid, then maybe he'd be better off washing his own clothes, cleaning his own room, shopping for and cooking his own meals. If he wants you to shut up then do - don't talk to him when he's rude, ignore him just as you would a toddler in the grip of a tantrum. If he flares up at you, walk away, go and meet a friend, lock yourself in the bathroom and have a nice bath with a good book. Sometimes actions speak louder than words.

Once he gets the message (and he will, when he has no clean clothes and is sick of fending for himself) you can then, calmly, set out the rules of the home - the home that you provide for him. If he does not like the rules, he can move (there are many 17-year-olds who look after themselves). I doubt he will, but I suspect that a change in your attitude and a strengthening of your position and your resolve will soon get him thinking about his behaviour and reverse this unpleasant mother-son dynamic.

Your son must respect you, his mother, and I wonder whether his behaviour is linked to previous occasions when he has seen you treated badly by other men - you give no background in your letter, but it is worth thinking back over his experiences of you in relationships. Whatever the reason, it is vital for your son's future relationships with women (as partners, or friends, or even, one day, if he has his own daughter) that he learns to treat them with respect and without verbal abuse - and if you, his mother, cannot teach him that, I feel sorry for any future significant women in his life.

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E-mail: drtanyabyron@thetimes.co.uk Write to her at: times2, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1TT. Include your name, age, address and telephone number. Dr Byron cannot enter into personal correspondence

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