Let me tell you something that may surprise you. Disrespect rarely comes from just one place. It is usually a few things sitting on top of each other.
Sometimes a boy is testing whether he still matters to you, especially if something at home has changed, like a new baby, a busy season for you, or a house that suddenly feels full of other people's needs.
Sometimes it comes from fear he cannot name, fear about changes happening in his own body and mind, and the only way that fear knows how to come out is as anger.
“Most times, when a boy seems disrespectful, he is really just checking if he still matters to you.”
Sometimes it is copied behaviour, something he has seen from an older boy, a film, or friends, and he is simply trying it on to see how it fits.
And sometimes, honestly, it is a boy who has learned that being difficult gets him attention faster than being good ever did.
A father once told us his son started rolling his eyes and slamming doors, out of nowhere. When we sat with the boy at camp, it turned out to be two of these things at once, feeling forgotten since his younger siblings arrived, and having no words at all for that hurt, so it came out as attitude instead.
This does not mean rudeness is okay. But knowing there are usually several roots underneath it changes how you dig for the real one.
At camp, we get curious before we correct. We ask what is really going on, and almost every time, there is more than one honest answer waiting there.
At Boys to Men Mentorship Camp, we help boys name what they feel, so it stops leaking out sideways as disrespect.