In the grocery store one day, you spy a mother and her two unruly children. she consistently threatens that she is going to spank them when she gets them home. they ignore her threats. finally, she swats one of them on the butt, making the other child laugh, suggesting that she has lost control of the situation. this could be seen as:

This could be seen as paradox of authority.
According to Max Weber, a famous German sociologist, paradox of authority occurs when the ruling class is excessively using its authority to a point where nobody is even afraid of it anymore. In the case above, the woman must have swatted her children so many times that they now find it funny, instead of being afraid of it.