What Defiance Is—and What You Should Do about It

Seventeen-year-old Mark (mentioned in the Introduction) usually doesn't show up at home on weekdays until dinnertime, if then. So when he made a rare appearance at 3:00 one Friday, his mother, Sandy, looked at him suspiciously when he entered the kitchen, pointedly looked at her watch, and said sarcastically, "To what do I owe this honor?"

Mark just sneered and opened the refrigerator.

As she watched him pawing through the food on the shelves, Sandy became more and more irritated. She didn't want to start a fight. It had already been a long week. But she couldn't keep her silence.

"Mark, did you actually go to school today? Doesn't the last class end at 3:00?"

"Relax, Ma. My last class was canceled. Besides, what the hell do you care? You haven't asked me about school since, like, Christmas."

"Watch your mouth, young man," Sandy snapped. "If you miss much more school, you're not even going to graduate!"

"Oh, yeah, like that matters." Mark grabbed sandwich fixings from the refrigerator and plopped down at the kitchen table, where he started making three huge sandwiches.

"What do you need all that food for?" his mother demanded. "You get lunch money every week."

"Yeah, well, I spent it on cigarettes," Mark shot back, then leaned back in his chair and aimed an insolent grin at his mother. "Besides, I'm gonna be out for a while; I'm taking this with me."

Sandy spun around from the sink. "You're not going anywhere till you mow the lawn, like I asked you last Saturday—and the Saturday before, and the Saturday before that."

"It's Friday, and I'm going out. You want the grass cut so bad, you do it! All you ever do is sit around here anyway."

"Don't you talk to me that way! And don't you even think about leaving here without cutting the grass!"

"OK, I won't think about it," Mark said slyly. Then he stood up, went back to the refrigerator, grabbed a six-pack of beer, and walked out the front door so fast he didn't hear his mother yelling: "You get back here, Mark! Don't expect to waltz back in here whenever you feel like showing up! Everybody has to pitch in around here, you know!" Mark was thinking about his plans for the weekend and had already tuned his mother out.

This scene or one a lot like it has been replayed in this household dozens of times over the last year. When Mark started to act as if his parents' rules were negligible and their requests optional, his parents said nothing, hoping the phase would pass. When it didn't, they tried threats and removal of privileges. Mark just laughed at them. Now he comes and goes as he pleases and treats them with more and more disdain. Periodically he erupts into cursing and threats of his own. Frankly, both of his parents are a little bit afraid of him.

HOW WE DEFINE DEFIANCE

Pull this interaction apart, and you'll have before you all the elements by which we define defiance:

1. Failure to comply with an adult's request within a reasonable time. Believe it or not, a mere minute or so is considered a reasonable time within which to comply with an adult's request—that's about the same window in which you'd expect an adult to do something you've asked, and it's fair to expect a teen to do the same. Yes, if a teen is already busy with another project, then a longer time to comply is reasonable, but in those cases the teen should at least acknowledge the request and an intention to comply with it within a minute or so. Mark not only didn't mow the lawn when his mother asked him, he's totally ignored her request for 3 weeks!

2. Failure to keep doing what has been requested until the task is finished. Maybe this seems like it goes without saying. But many teenagers start out doing what they're asked to do and then don't follow through. They pay lip service—they do half the job and then switch to something they want to do, they do a sloppy job, or they drag out the task for so long that it doesn't get done when you need it done. Mark, obviously, never even got started. Of course in some circumstances it's clear that compliance with an adult instruction is not expected immediately. But in those cases it's up to you to state explicitly when compliance should begin.

3. Failure to follow previously taught rules of conduct. Mark has racked up quite a score on this one: His parents expect him to attend school; let them know where he is; come home when expected; speak to them respectfully and listen attentively; and spend the money they give him as they intended, not for cigarettes and beer. He defies them on every count.

Although we'll use the term defiance throughout this book, it's important to understand that we mean both noncompliance (passively not doing what is asked or expected or not completing it) and more active verbal or physical resistance such as Mark's arguing, swearing, challenging, and threatening. It may very well be the latter that has brought you to this book, although 14-year-old Lauren (mentioned in the Introduction) has driven her mother to seek help just by quietly breaking all the rules and generally making herself scarce.

WHY YOU NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT YOUR TEEN'S DEFIANCE

If your teen resembles Mark or Lauren or the other two adolescents depicted in the Introduction, you already know enough to justify trying the straightforward steps in Part II. You may not know enough, however, to get everything you possibly can from the program. First you need to know whether this self-help program is really what you need and whether it's all you need.

Is Your Teen's Defiance a Behavior or a Trait?

If we asked you to tell us what you mean by...