Emotional Blackmail Of Parents: A Strategy As Sad As It Is Harmful For Children
Emotional blackmail is unfortunately part of the education of many children. By resorting to guilt, fear, intimidation, threat and often also with patience and tenderness, many parents are successful in getting their children to do what they want. However, they are not aware of the consequences that the way in which they decide to influence their behavior can have on their children’s education and on their relationship with them.
Emotional blackmail by parents is a very tempting form of manipulation aimed at conditioning children’s behavior. Blackmail is learned behavior; in other words, the little ones can also learn to use it. On the other hand, it is about a form of influence for which one seldom chooses in a conscious way, but whose use results in a certain way reinforced by the effectiveness which emerges from the situations in which it is applied. for the first time.
On the Internet, you can find thousands of articles that talk about the emotional blackmail that children make to their parents, the tantrums and threats made by children in order to get what they want from their parents. In reality, it is a learned behavior, which begins learning at home, when parents say things like: “if you don’t get good grades, we won’t love you anymore”, “ if you are not good, Santa will not bring you presents this year ”,“ if you do not tidy your room, we will not buy you any more toys ”, etc.
Often, we resort to blackmail because it can allow us to regain control that we would not have been able to recover otherwise, or to make sure that the children obey without protesting. But be aware of one thing: control is not synonymous with education. Telling our children what to do, how to do it and threatening them if they don’t immediately reduces their decision-making capacity to a minimum. By adopting such behavior towards them, we are only preparing a ground which, later, will make them dependent or very rebellious.
As parents, having emotional blackmail with children can be the worst solution, one of the worst ways to “protect ourselves” from the questions of the little ones. It may also indicate that we do not have the sufficient and necessary patience to respect the time that children may need, and / or the sufficient and necessary tolerance to accept that they can do things in their own way, namely in a different way from ours.
Emotional blackmailing of children can perhaps help us tire less, make decisions for them that are more convenient for us, or make them do whatever we want. Certainly. But, what about in the long run? As we have clarified earlier in this article, this strategy can have very dangerous consequences.
Emotional blackmail carried out by parents with children is a form of manipulation which places them in a position where their capacity for choice is very limited, or even non-existent. They will obey us, probably. But probably also that this strategy will soon cease to be effective and that they will quickly use it against us, since by using it, we instill it indirectly in them. On the other hand, as with all blackmail, this is a strategy from which it is very difficult to see any kind of positive feeling emerge.
Even more, if you opt for emotional blackmail, your children will feel overwhelmed by a resentment that they cannot explain, but which over time will increase. Children are usually able, and much sooner than you might think, to identify when we are trying to manipulate them. And nobody likes to be handled, do they? Thus, they may come to view the presence of people who blackmail them as a threat, and see these people as people they don’t want to be with because they make them feel bad.
In this sense, many parents blackmail their children emotionally in order to have expressions of affection. An affection which, although existing spontaneously, will then be manifested precisely thanks to this strategy. In addition, as we said before, children will quickly learn to use this strategy in their favor; they will consider it valid since people who love them have recourse to it with them. It will then be very difficult for them in the future to forge relationships with others that are not superficial or instrumental.
Most of the time, blackmail is useless, because it is only a threat that is not carried out in the short or long term (“no parent stops loving his child because he he didn’t tidy up his room ”). Psychologists have proven (and tried to pass it on to parents, with varying degrees of success) that this type of threat has a very short path, and a very sad ending.
When confronted with this type of blackmail, the child will have a hard time learning and understanding that it is better for their room to be tidy, as this will make it easier for them to clean and find their belongings. It will also be difficult for him to learn and understand that brushing his teeth, while not always fun, is better for his teeth. Therefore, when the blackmail disappears or ceases to have an effect, the behavior sought to be implanted in the child will probably also disappear.
Blackmail does not educate our children, it does not teach them to be able to solve the problems they may encounter, or to do the things that are best for them. On the other hand, when we blackmail them and do not carry out the explicitly presented threat, if they do not obey, we will lose credibility.
If we want our children to do something, and especially when they are small, the best solution to choose is help or accompaniment, not orders given from the couch. If the children are older, the most effective tool at our fingertips that can get them to do what we want is to be able to imitate us. Our children are not machines, and only machines respond and do things immediately; thus, it is likely that they need to repeat things more than once for them to do them, and that this delay is not the product of carelessness, or even established voluntarily on their part. in order to annoy us. They have a different pace… and in most cases, they are learning.
It is also important to negotiate, to offer them options and to listen to what they have to say. When we want them to do something, first we have to ask ourselves if that something meets their needs or ours, and if it is a need that concerns us, we have to offer them alternatives, time and above all explanations of why we want them to act or not act in a certain way. When it comes to something related to them, their well-being or their future, the most effective is to explain to them the benefits they can reap by doing so.
When we put aside blackmail in the education of our children, we optimize their chances of being able to adopt on their own behaviors that favor them, but which also favor those around them. If we allow them to be smart, they will have the opportunity to be. Maybe we will need to work a little more, negotiate and be more present in their education, but this will allow them to grow up being more independent, having better self-esteem and realizing the value of their education. effort and work. It’s worth it, isn’t it?
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