Opposition and Defiance
Home page

(In construction)
General definition:
When the child:
· often refuses orders or instructions for his age;
· argues endlessly to be right, even to absurdity;
· does not hesitate to harrass in order to obtain satisfaction;
· reacts by disproportionate angers to frustration;
· becomes even more arrogant in the adversity and confrontation;
· rarel;y recognizes his faults ans blames others instead.

Other particular features:
· is unable to be make friends of his age, because of the need to control them;
· reacts rather badly to any changes, separations, which he did not decide himself;
· seems sometimes easier to control by the father than the mother (an authority more aggressive and intimidating that soft and supporting), by the foreigners than the closer persons;
· poorly finds the extent of his limits, in general.
    One of the most crucial  subject, the opposition often lends to confusion and become almost the equivalent of delinquent behavior. Without the concept of attention deficit desorder, which precisely supports the negativism, the confusing diagnosis becomes almost the rule. Instead of traditional " he acts before thinking ", familiar in the hyperactivity, here we will have " he opposes before thinking ".

Dr Claude Jolicoeur, child psychiatrist,
Montréal, april 2000