What do you think?

If your child seems to have his or her mouth set to automatic arguing and the safety is off, you're probably feeling pretty annoyed.  There is a distinctive sound that the automatic arguer makes that is clearly identifiable and lets you know, you are under fire. It is highly repetitive and staccato sounding.

But, but, but..., 

You may want to wait for the clip to run out before attempting a counter attack, or... you could change your tactic.  If  using "No if's, and's or but's," hasn't worked, you might try asking them to pick which of the arguments they just presented actually made sense. You might go back to doing time outs for arguing. You might try thanking them for their opinion but that you have already made up your mind.  You could remind them that not every argument is a good one.  You could even suggest that if the next word out of their mouth is a "but," you will ground them from electronic toys for a week until they learn a respectful way to disagree. You might start limiting them to 3 arguments a day. Put an empty tennis ball container on the kitchen counter. and give them the three balls that go in it.  Tell them they have to give you a ball if they are going to argue.  Once the jar is full, then they can review which of their arguments they want to take back.  Conversely, they can take the tennis balls and go argue with a wall. Maybe they will get good at tennis and can argue with the umpire, who knows?

The most important thing you can do is catch them making a good argument. Tell them, "okay, that was a good argument."  Ask them their opinion about something and then value it. That is to say, make their opinion a valued thing when it is requested.  

Those are some ideas..., what do you think?