Not respectful toward adults
Before You Begin
Pause and breathe. Even if this shouldn't be happening... accept that it is and embrace it with composure and calmness.
Calmness is the only way forward because without calm, there is no possibility for receptiveness and connection. Your child won't give to you any more than they see from you.
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Never forget that a strong connection is fundamental, as there will be no correction in them if there is no connection with you.
The Core Problem
There is not a strong and empathetic relationship between him/her and the adult, nor do they have the skills to manage their frustration, which is making it easy for the child to give into a disrespectful impulse.
What Will Make It Worse
Reacting with anger or modeling the behavior by using disrespectful/hurtful language towards the child will worsen the situation.
Ignoring disrespectful behavior or not responding with a constructive reaction will also not curb the behavior.
What The Child Needs
1a. To reflect on their triggers: Encourage the child to share their feelings and thoughts about why they might become disrespectful. Once key triggers are identified, provide guidance on how to prevent the triggers from happening between them and the adult in the future.
b. Improved emotional regulation: Teach the child skills, such as pausing to compose themselves before they respond, so they can manage themselves and not resort to disrespectful behavior.
c. Respectful communication skills: Discuss the importance expressing their feelings and needs in a less combative, more constructive manner. Show the child respectful/graceful communication in action through your interactions with them and others, especially when someone has done something to legitimately anger/frustrate you or you could be tempted to disrespect them.
d. To clearly understand expectations of them: Let the child know that being respectful towards adults is an essential part of life, so punishments and a continued focus on practicing respectful behavior will always follow if disrespectful communication occurs again.
2. To rebuild the relationship between themselves and that adult: Helping the child control their tongue is just one part of solving the problem. A calm and thoughtful resolving conversation between the child and any adult that they are being disrespectful towards must occur so their bond and mutual respect can grow to a point where the child won't feel good about speaking to them like that again.
How To Have The Conversation With Your Child
Your two-prong approach for dealing with this situation will be to understand why they do what they do, and resolve by improving their abilities.
To get the ball rolling, find a place free of distractions where the child will feel comfortable talking freely.
Begin the conversation calmly, addressing a specific instance that happened recently, or a trend in their behavior that you are seeing.
Tell them that you want this to be a two-way conversation because you need to understand where they are coming from as much as they need to hear what you have to say.
Talk through each point above (their triggers, emotional regulation, respectful communication, etc.) and share stories from your life of when you were pushed to your limit but you were able to lean on these skills and keep it together. The goal is not to show how great you are but rather have them put down their guard and let it sink in that many people have really frustrated you just as it has and will continue to happen to them. You just have to handle it and move on. Let them know that it is not easy, and they can always rely on you to help them navigate any situation.
Each of the points are high effort on both of your parts, so making specific plans to break out discussing/role-playing all of the skills across several days instead of right now might make for a better experience.
*Keep in mind that during this time and over their lifetime, how they are treated and what they see you do to others will become how they act, so modeling what you are saying to them is especially important in this case.*
The second half of implementing this solution, if possible, is to set up a resolving/restoring conversation between the child and the adult that they had the incident with. The child feeling a sense of forgiveness from the adult and being given the chance to show they are growing into a better version of themselves could have a really powerful positive impact on them; and prevent future blow-ups if the adult is a person they will have to interact with often.
If such a meeting can't take place, the mentality of leaving the past in the past, and the child moving forward now better able to handle frustrating encounters with adults is still a great outcome.