Expert: Jaycie - 7/14/2010

Question
I am 15 and my little brother is 10. He constantly tells me to shut up and that im a stupid idiot and he has almost no manners at all hes extremely disrespectful to me my mom and anyone who doesnt do excatly what he wants exactly when he wants it. I know I should just ignore it because he's 10 but I cant stand it anymore my mom does absolutely nothing about it but when I retaliate she tells me im being mean and i must have anger issues. I try to be a good older brother i try to teach him how to act like a nice person and that he should clean up after himself and other things that polite people do but everytime I try he reacts by screaming at me and yelling for my mom who then says that im being bossy and bratty. I cant take it anymore what should i do?

Answer
Ignore him. He's doing it for attention so don't give it to him. He also might be doing it to get you in trouble so if you can talk to your mom about that, it might help too. But ignore him first when he acts out and don't try to fix it. Leave the room if you have to. He'll eventually feel bad and want to know why you aren't talking to him. Then you can tell him what's up and why you're ignoring him. But talk to your mom about it once more just to see if she'll help you at all. And so you don't get in trouble for ignoring him.