What Fresh Hell: Laughing In The Face Of Motherhood

Sometimes it seems like our kids are actually out to make our relationships with them worse. This week's question comes from our Facebook group: I think my 9-year-old is "soiling the nest." Is it normal at his age to try to get me to hate him? "Soiling the nest" is a term psychologists usually apply to kids about to leave home for college. Rather than deal with their ambivalence about leaving their childhood home, they "trash" it, making the departure easier. Basically, it's a "this place sucks anyhow!" attitude that is self-fulfilling. A 9-year-old is probably not doing this, exactly, but he could definitely be dealing with some anxiety about pandemic school, soccer tryouts, or other things that are less immediately obvious. Or maybe he's just being 9. Dr. Arnold Gesell's child development theory posits that children develop in a cyclical, spiral pattern, from periods of calm equilibrium to unsettled disequilibrium and back again. These sequences are similar and predictable for all kids, and although each de