A developmental interpretation of young children's noncompliance.

Abstract

This study examined developmental changes in maternal control strategies and children's responses to maternal directives and associations between the interactive strategies of mothers and children. The subjects were 70 dyads consisting of depressed and nondepressed mothers and their 1 l h-to 3'/zyear-old children. Data on parent and child behaviors were coded from videotapes of spontaneous interactions in a naturalistic apartment setting. Developmental analyses of maternal control strategies indicated a shift from the physical to the verbal modalities with age. Maternal explanations, bargaining, and reprimands increased with age and distraction decreased with age. Developmental changes in children's responses to control were consistent with a social skill perspective on children's noncompliance. Passive noncompliance and direct defiance decreased with age, whereas negotiation, the relatively more sophisticated form of resistance, increased with age. Mothers' use of reasoning and suggestion were associated with the children's use of negotiation as a form of resistance, whereas relatively direct maternal strategies were associated with the children's defiant responses. Girls were more compliant than boys, but only in families with well, rather than depressed, mothers.An influential conception of children's functioning in parent-child interactions is immediate compliance or noncompliance to parental directives. "Young children comply with approximately 60% to 80% of the commands and requests of their parents (Forehand, 1977). Compliance has been used to index self-regulation (Vaughan, Kopp, & Krakow, 1984) and is associated with secure attachment (Stayton, Hogan, & Ainsworth, 1971) and successful adaptation to family stress (Hetherington, Cox, & Cox, 1982). Serious noncompliant behavior is the most frequent reason for psychiatric referral of young children (Bentovim, 1973;Forehand, 1977;Wolff, 1961).A limitation of compliance and noncompliance constructs is that they inherently reflect conceptualizations of the child as a passive recipient of parental influence. Despite increased emphasis on bidirectional influences, the principal focus of research has remained on parental strategies for controlling children's behavior and on children's susceptibility to parental influence. As descriptive categories, compliance and noncompliance offer little scope for describing how children actively function as agents of influence in their own right.

Child Disobedience and Noncompliance: A Review

“…However, for a number of parents, noncompliance continues to be of concern or later resurfaces as a problem. Kuczynski et al 12 found that direct defiance decreased with age and similar findings have also been reported in other studies. 15,16 Kuczynski et al 12 also reported that more elaborate forms of disobedience (eg, negotiating with the parent to perform the desired behavior at a later time) increased with age, and that 5-year-olds who used more elaborate forms of noncompliance were more skillful in persuading their mothers, suggesting that some forms of noncompliance such as negotiation constitute positive forms of social problem-solving.…”

“…23,25 Gender and Age Differences Girls display significantly lower rates of noncompliance in laboratory observations than boys. 12 Likewise, for every epidemiologic study examined and for almost all groups, 20 boys showed either equal or higher rates of noncompliance as compared with girls. Few of these studies statistically evaluated gender differences specifically for noncompliance, and of those that did, only 2 9,21 found significant gender differences, with boys receiving higher ratings.…”

“…For instance, one cross-sectional study with a sample of 1-to 3-year-olds found that maternal control strategies shifted from physical to verbal forms of control with age. 12 Furthermore, maternal reprimands also tend to decrease from toddlerhood to 5 years. 13 As children progress from infancy and early childhood into middle childhood, parental requests become increasingly more complex.…”

Predicting Growth Curves of Early Childhood Externalizing Problems: Differential Susceptibility of Children with Difficult Temperament

“…All maternal discipline strategies were coded, whether or not they concerned the forbidden treat (e.g., they could also concern the toys). Coding procedures were based on Kuczynski et al (1987), and Van der Mark et al (2002). The following negative maternal discipline strategies were observed: prohibition, physical obstruction, and giving in.…”

Early Parenting Intervention: Family Risk and First-time Parenting Related to Intervention Effectiveness

“…All maternal discipline strategies were coded, whether or not they concerned the forbidden treat (e.g., they could also concern the toys). Coding procedures were based on Kuczynski et al (1987), and Van der Mark et al (2002). The following positive maternal discipline strategies were observed: Distraction was coded when mothers redirected the child's attention by giving an alternative to the present situation or the child's behavior.…”