Is My Kid Oppositional? Office Hours

The arguing. The flat-out refusals. The kid who digs in harder the more you push, and turns a simple request into a standoff. When it happens day after day, it’s natural to wonder if your child is just oppositional, or if something else is going on.

Here’s what’s often true: what looks like defiance is frequently something else underneath. It can be anxiety, sensory overload, a need for control when the world feels unpredictable, or a nervous system that reads demands as threats. Sometimes it really is a pattern worth looking at more closely. Knowing the difference changes everything about how you respond.

In these office hours, Lily Baiser, MS, OTR/L, and Jill Gitten Aloia, PhD, ABPP-CN, take your questions live. Bring the specific moments: the morning meltdown over shoes, the homework refusal, the “you can’t make me” that came out of nowhere. Lily and Jill will help you sort out what’s driving the pushback and what to try next.

You’re not raising a “bad” kid. You’re raising a kid who’s telling you something. This is a space to figure out what.