ABSTRACT
Every parent facing an adolescent child who passively procrastinates picking up his room on Saturday morning and then wants to run off to the movies has experienced the frustrating presence of passive-aggressive behavior. This parent faces a teenager who most certainly did not want to pick up his room, but he never directly refused to do it. He simply delayed. As time went by he got distracted and “forgot” his agreement. We might imagine that he began with a vague intent to comply, but that as he became interested in whatever was distracting him, he easily rationalized that he could do the room later. When it was time for him to set off for the movies, he acted like there was no real issue and left without a word. He thought, after all, he could pick up his room tonight. When he returned from the movies, it was left to his parents to mention the broken contract, ask him why the job wasn’t done, call him in to account for his irresponsibility, and stand over him angrily to make sure the job got done. At that point, the resistant child who just wanted to go to sleep then got bullied by a furious tyrant — and in his own bedroom! He crawled into bed feeling powerless, defeated, and depressed. His parents crawled into their bed feeling manipulated, enraged, and powerless to prevent the scene from being repeated the next morning. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315811901/65bf8a11-1749-4820-87ae-6bbdb6ac4b0b/content/figu11_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
