While certain behaviour is a preferred response to parental directives, directive-response sequences in parent-child interaction are routinely infused with resistance. Children might resist by challenging the grounds on which parents request the modification of their behaviour or they might simply ignore the request. However rather than these actions being organised around a binary of compliance or noncompliance, examination of expanded conflict sequences between children and parents reveals that there is constant negotiation around the relevant boundaries in the here and now around some action and possible resistance through ‘fudging’ between the request and judging the action required has or has not been completed satisfactorily, which may include the child not doing what was asked. Drawing on 36 hours of video-recording of parent-child interaction, the analysis uses conversation analysis and embodied analysis to examine extended sequences where a parent and a child are engaged in pursuing conflictual action trajectory concerning a required behaviour of the child. The analysis begins from preliminary findings concerning a ‘standard’ rule of behaviour within the family (e.g., you have to sit at the table until other people finish), and examines how far and how strictly the rule is pursued or flouted/resisted in particular instances. Through this, the analysis highlights how, even in conflictual sequences, there is an orientation to the boundaries (i.e., how far they can resist) both by the parent and the child but also how a particular sequence of actions of resistance is subject to negotiation by both parent and child in situ. In examining the in situ interpretation and articulation of a behaviour ‘rule’, the analysis demonstrates how boundaries evolve, are worked out, oriented to and fudged through forms of interaction and embodied action.