This disorder is primarily characterized by distinctly inflammatory, defiant, disobedient or malicious behavior.  Developmental negativism is a natural phenomenon in the behavior of children between a year and a half and two years of age. It however becomes pathological if such behavior persists at a later date.

Oppositional behavior aims to strengthen the child’s autonomy. It is often based on the child’s belief that through this behavior they will receive more of a parent’s attention, to fulfill their needs. Such behavior can also serve as protection against low self-esteem and a sense of inferiority. Oppositional behavior is often provoked by emotionally immature parents who compensate for their immaturity with an authoritarian parenting style. Defiant behavior is often a learned reaction to the blame-exerting attitude of parents who believe this is the way to reduce the intensity of the opposition. This is their way to control the child’s behavior.

This disorder can be diagnosed after the third year of the child’s age, but is usually noticed in children between the ages of 9–10. Such children often use non-direct means to demonstrate aggression. They focus their aggression primarily on parents and teachers. The behavior is markedly defiant, provocative, but severe anti-social and aggressive actions are not present (in the sense of physical assault or destruction of property). Children with this disorder often break rules and limits placed by adults. They are unusually negativistic, have a very low frustration tolerance, react aggressively to ordinary instructions and requests.

All these difficulties are accompanied by low self-esteem. Children with this disorder often project their sense of guilt on others.

• • We should focus on determining the cause of the difficult behavior – what is the child trying to achieve (gain attention, avoid some activity, finish something)? If we know the goal behind the behavior (such as gaining attention), we can teach the child other acceptable means of achieving it. In cases of avoiding certain activities we try to discover why the child is avoiding them (for instance if they were once laughed at by the other children when carrying out this activity and don’t want to experience that again).

  • We try to determine the triggers of the problem behavior and take care to observe what happens directly after the difficult behavior (how the child behaves, what the other children and the teacher do), we also try to discover what could have been the cause for an absence of that problematic behavior under usually critical conditions.

  • We should support desirable expressions of behavior and coping for a child in emotionally challenging situations through praise (“It was really good of you to lend Peter the toy.” or small reward.

  • We should schedule our time and activities so that the children know what to expect and how to proceed. To achieve this structure we can make use of various tools to visualize the daily schedule and various activities requiring multiple steps.

  • During directed activities with children with attention deficit disorder, we should reduce the number of stimuli in their immediate surroundings.

  • To prolong the concentration of children with attention deficit disorder we should make use of motivation from the child’s interests, divide tasks into smaller periods and provide immediate feedback (praise and encouragement – “I really like the color you’ve chosen for the car, I can’t wait to see it finished.”).

  • We should not attempt to stifle psychomotor agitation, but rather try to guide it in a direction so that it does not distress the child or others (for instance by offering a suitable tool or allocating a particular space for the child to find release through exercise).