Q: How early in life is a child capable of making a strong-willed stand in defiance against his or her parents?

Depending on the temperament of the individual, defiant behavior can be displayed by very young children. A father once told me of taking his 3-year-old daughter to a basketball game. The child was, of course, interested in everything in the gym except the athletic contest. The father permitted her to roam freely and climb on the bleachers, but he set up definite limits regarding how far she could stray. He took her by the hand and walked with her to a stripe painted on the gym floor.

“You can play all around the building, Janie, but don’t go past this line,” he instructed her.

Dad had no sooner returned to his seat than the toddler scurried in the direction of the forbidden territory. She stopped at the border for a moment, then flashed a grin over her shoulder to her father and deliberately placed one foot over the line as if to say, “Whatcha gonna do about it?” Virtually every parent the world over has been asked the same question at one time or another. That’s the way some kids are made.