Meanings of recalcitrant child in English

Totsin frowned, disappointed, as if he were dealing with a recalcitrant child.

Eventually he spoke to her as though she were a recalcitrant child.

She spoke like a grand lady admonishing a recalcitrant child.

She was three years his senior, but she treated him as a teacher would a recalcitrant child.

May and the detective constable yanked him to the other side like parents controlling a recalcitrant child.

Like she was a recalcitrant child.

How could he make her feel like a recalcitrant child when he had been the one who was way out of line?

Mitch glanced across the Chevy's cab and shook his head like a weary father trying to make sense of a recalcitrant child.

"Eliza, then." Exasperated, put upon, as if Eliza were a recalcitrant child.

"I see a billboard for a casino," I said, feeling like a recalcitrant child.

This is a world where the mega-rich use philanthropy to bring respectability to their shady dealings and who treat law-enforcement like recalcitrant children.