Abstract
ABSTRACTPurpose: This study explored the phenomenon of children’s nonconforming behaviours from the perspective of parents who sought clinical services for children’s severe noncompliance. Method: Mothers from 25 families who accessed clinical services were interviewed about their relationship with their children aged 8–13 and their experiences of their children’s challenging behaviours. Results: Mothers distinguished two different types of challenging behaviour: normative resistance and extreme aggression. Mothers described normative resistance as an expected part of children’s developing autonomy and treated resistance with behavioural management strategies. Mothers also described occasions when children displayed emotionally dis-regulated extreme aggression, which were consistent with clinical descriptions of children’s difficult to manage behaviour. Conclusion: Contrary to clinical recommendations mothers used relational strategies to reconnect children with their agency. The distinction between two different child behaviours, and strategies for each challenging behaviours have theoretical and practical implications.
Highlights
The distinction between two different child behaviours, and strategies for each challenging behaviours have theoretical and practical implications
To ensure the trustworthiness of the analyses first and second author met regularly to review the emerging themes, discuss alternative interpretations, and to ensure rigour in the constant comparison process. All mothers in this clinical sample reported that their children displayed two qualitatively different kinds of challenging behaviours at different times: normative resistance and extreme aggression
Normative resistance referred to nonconforming actions that mothers interpreted as a developmentally expected expression of children’s autonomy that was intentional and well-regulated; extreme aggression referred to nonconforming behaviours that mothers interpreted as reactive, out of control and emotionally dis-regulated
Summary
The distinction between two different child behaviours, and strategies for each challenging behaviours have theoretical and practical implications. In their review of the socialization literature, Kuczynski and Hildebrant (1997) identified multiple conceptions of children’s nonconformity including: willful defiance (authoritarian perspective), noncompliance (behavioural perspective), cognitive non-acceptance (internalization perspective) unresponsiveness (attachment perspective), and resistance (developmental perspective). Each of these theoretical constructs offer different ideas about the aetiology of children’s resistance, different views about the role children’s resistance in children’s health and well-being, and different directions for parents regarding how to interpret and handle children’s nonconforming behaviour. Children are considered to be agents in this theory, child agency is conceptualized in the limited and unconstructive sense of evading compliance and contributing to reactive mutually noxious patterns of behaviour (Hollenstein, Granic, Stoolmiller, & Snyder, 2004; Patterson et al, 1992)
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