According to experts, the most important symptoms of pathological stubbornness are attention deficit, crying too easily and aggression, and if not intervened in time, it can lead to bigger problems, especially during adolescence.
Üsküdar University NPISTANBUL Hospital Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit Specialist Clinical Psychologist Leyla Arslan said that stubbornness in children is acceptable to a certain extent and that this should not be confused with pathological stubbornness.
Pathological stubbornness is a disease
Stating that pathological stubbornness is a diagnosed disease, Leyla Arslan said, "Pathological stubbornness is when the child does not want to do something and tells you the opposite of every word you say. We call this a defiance disorder. This is a diagnosed disorder in psychology and family attitudes usually play a role in its development. For example, if the child gets a reward for everything he does, if he doesn't get anything when he doesn't do it, he doesn't want to do anything spontaneously. In some cases, the family reinforces the unwanted behavior in the child without realizing it. The child stops doing something spontaneously and does the opposite, and the family rewards the child for not doing the unwanted behavior. This reinforces the unwanted behavior. When the family and the child face a challenging situation, the wrong behaviors are reinforced."
Defiance behavior occurs when attention deficit is not treated
Stating that the wrong attitudes of the parents pave the way for this disease, Arslan said, "The mother makes every action of the child dependent on a reward, even though there is no demand from the child. The child always shows resistance not to do the behavior as a secondary gain. The mother's wrong reinforcements make the emergence of this disorder more frequent. Defiant behavior occurs if the child actually has an attention deficit or learning disability, that is, if there is a disorder in their perception. When you cannot detect a disorder in the child's perception beforehand, it becomes another problem. A child with attention deficit is a child who sees things differently from us. For children, not being able to sit patiently, crying a lot and starting to walk without talking are symptoms. Such a child is likely to have attention deficit. When you don't treat this, you create pathological stubbornness without realizing it. Defiant behavior develops in addition to attention deficit," he warned.
Major problems arise during adolescence
Stating that if defiant behavior, i.e. pathological stubbornness, is not treated early, bigger problems may arise during adolescence, Leyla Arslan said the following:
"If you do not see this as a disease and see it as a simple stubbornness, you can see that communication with that child becomes increasingly difficult and conflicts increase during adolescence. For example, at the age of 15, you witness that if his father does not give him a car, he may kidnap it. You witness that he resists not going to school. You see that he resists not to study. There are other signs of pathological stubbornness: These children cry very easily, they can be aggressive. They can swear and shout, they don't do something for a long time. They don't stay in one place for more than 20 minutes, so they also have attention problems. They also defy other members of the family, for example they can kick a teacher. We see that the number of such children has increased a lot recently, and the individuals who come in not only have attention deficits, but also develop defiant behavior. This is a very thought-provoking situation, because the child who kicks his mother and father has no one to respect in society. The situation we see in clinical practice is that a child who kicks his mother at the age of 7 is hospitalized when he is 17. There is no measure for this, the conflict needs to be resolved. The family needs to stop and think about whether this is stubbornness, resistance, defiance, illness or attitude error."
Pathological stubbornness stems from family attitudes
Leyla Arslan pointed out that pathological stubbornness is mostly caused by family attitudes and said, "The mistakes we see in attitudes are indifference, excessive interest or wrong reinforcement, not being able to fully understand the child, not being able to empathize with their feelings, not being able to solve problems that arise within the family and not being a positive reconciliatory model. The reason for the increase in these is that parents are not able to watch their children and notice their emotions too much, and are unable to extinguish the negative behavior in the child," he said, advising parents to pay more attention to their children and not to reward wrong behaviors.