[Children's oppositional behaviour, practice of parental authority and temporal anomie]

This article examines the relationship between children's oppositional behaviour and the exercise of parental authority. It seeks to explore the value of a heuristic approach to psychic temporality in exercising parental authority. The study aims to better understand the role of psychic temporality in operations producing symbolic law. It goes on to describe a disorder of temporality, known as temporal anomie, which may be involved in a child's oppositional disorders.

Psychiatric or psychological consultations motivated by oppositional disorders in children have increased steadily in the past fifteen years in France. The primary reason for consultation is in the form of difficulties for children in accepting the social rules or constraints, but also the difficulties of parenting while coping with the opposition of their children. This increase is made in connection with the works analysing the social and psychological effects imposed by modernity and its acceleration. Correspondingly, we find that some parents do not prioritize their educational requirements, do not know when or how to frustrate their child, or even if it is legitimate to expect from him/her a certain type of behaviour. They seem more preoccupied with the fear of not being loved by their child more than their duty to educate. A general trend suggests an alteration of psychological time, characterized by: a) a disinvestment of links between present and past for the enjoyment of the moment and its extension in the immediate future ; b) a difficulty in supporting educational responses causing frustration for the child ; c) a lack of continuity and constancy in educational requirements. The author proposes to define temporal anomie as the psychical time that weakens the consistency of educational responses. A link between psychological temporality and the symbolic law is discussed. Specifically, the study notes that: in intersubjective relations, mastery of psychological time by parents is an integrating factor of the law for the child. In this sense, temporal anomie can affect the child's development of superego. Anomie time is the result of a weakening of the transitional temporality. Transitional temporality provides legitimacy for educational interventions. This allows parents to support conflicts and opposition of the child. To this end, transitional temporality promotes links between past, present and future, between tradition and innovation.

Psychic temporality offers a new perspective, particularly heuristic because it is undoubtedly an essential dimension involved in the process of subjectivation and socialization. The concept of anomie time enables one to better understand the fragility of parenthood frequently encountered in child psychiatric consultations and allows one to link this to the evolution of society.