recalcitrance
noun - formal

- the quality of being determined not to do what other people, especially people in authority, want or expect to be done

- resistance authority or control; not obedient or compliant; refractory

- hard to deal with, to manage, or to operate

Cambridge Dictionary / Dictionary dot com

—
ORIGIN

Refusing to submit, not submissive or compliant, 1823, from French récalcitrant, literally “kicking back” (17c.-18c.), from Late Latin recalcitrare “to kick back” (of horses).

—
CURING THE RECALCITRANT SON

The great psychotherapist, Milton Erikson, was once visited by a woman whose 12-year old son was still sucking his thumb. Erikson confounded, and ultimately cured, the boy by suggesting that he suck his other fingers too.

(See also Paradoxical Injunction Therapy, Paradoxical Intervention, and Paradoxical Directive = therapeutic techniques in which a client is directed by the therapist to continue undesired symptomatic behaviour, and even increase it, to show that the s/he has voluntary control over it.)

—
SYNONYMS

apostasy, back talk, brazenness, breaking the rules, bull-headedness, contrariness, defiance, disobedience, dissidence, effrontery, impudence, insolence, insubordination, insurgence, insurrection, lip, mutiny, non-compliance, non-conformance, obstinacy, obstreperousness, pig-headedness, rebelliousness, RECALCITRANCE, refusal to obey, stubbornness, temerity, transgressiveness, truculence, uncontrollability, unmanageability, unruliness, revolt

—
SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, discuss something like:

“If it's any consolation, adolescent RECALCITRANCE is found in all societies and ages of history.”

—
HERZLICHEN DANK to all readers helping me keep OWAD alive with single or monthly donations at:

https://donorbox.org/please-become-a-friend-of-owad-3

Paul Smith