“For me, you will always be a child”: how to deal with parental manipulation

Like any dishonest gambler, the manipulator takes advantage of position to gain at the expense of the victim. Calculating it is always difficult: when we experience strong emotions, we lose the ability to think critically.

If parents play dishonestly, the situation is even more complicated: after all, we were brought up in this “game”. And although we have long been adults, manipulation is the norm for us. However, if you are uncomfortable in your relationship with your parents, it makes sense to understand the reasons for this. Stop manipulations, if they are, quite capable.

First you need to realize that they are trying to control your feelings. Emotional intelligence (EI) helps to recognize one’s own emotions and the intentions of others, to clearly define personal boundaries.

How do you know if your parents are manipulating you?

Start tracking your emotions after interacting with them. If you constantly experience feelings of shame or guilt, fall into aggression, lose self-confidence, then you are almost certainly being manipulated.

What are the most common types of parental manipulation?

• Manipulation of sense of duty and guilt

“If you do this (do not do what I want), you are a bad son (or daughter).” This is one of the most common types of manipulation.

In childhood, parents are an example for us: they show what is good and bad, what is acceptable and what is not. We feel guilty if we violate the boundaries set by our parents, and they condemn us.

When a person grows up, parents no longer control his choices and actions. And it makes them feel anxious. They are calmer if the son or daughter does what they think is right. Therefore, the elders again resort to a proven method: they impose a sense of guilt on the younger.

A grown-up son or daughter is afraid to hurt his parents and returns to the path that they approve of: he enters the university chosen by his mother or father, does not leave his unloved, but stable job. Guilt manipulation tends to make us make choices that are not the best for ourselves.

• Weakness Manipulation

“I can’t do it without your help.” This type of manipulation is more often used by single mothers of adult children, in fact, taking the position of a weak child. They need help in everything – from economic and domestic issues to sorting out relations with neighbors.

If requests to do something that is objectively difficult for parents to cope with turn into endless complaints, this is manipulation. Parents feel forgotten and unwanted and thus seek care and attention. That the child, of course, gives them, but often to the detriment of his own interests, the time that he could spend with his family.

• Manipulation through humiliation

“Without me, you are nobody and nothing.” Authoritarian parents who are accustomed to suppressing the child’s personality continue to do so even when he grows up. Thus, they assert themselves at the expense of someone who is a priori weaker. After all, a son or daughter is always younger, they will always have less experience.

Most likely, the child will tolerate disrespect out of a sense of duty. It is unprofitable for such parents that he really achieved something himself. After all, then you will have to admit that he is a separate independent person, and it will no longer be possible to humiliate him.

Therefore, parents criticize and devalue any achievements of the child, all the time point to his “place” and thereby deprive him of independence and self-confidence.

What to do if your parents tend to manipulate you?

1. See the real situation

If you realized that one of these scenarios is similar to your relationship with your parents, you will have to admit an unpleasant fact. For them, you are a way to solve their own problems. So they can get attention, get rid of anxiety or loneliness, feel needed, increase self-esteem.

At the same time, it is very important for you not to fall into resentment. After all, parents do not know how to communicate and achieve their own in a different way. Most likely, they do it unconsciously, copying the behavior of their own parents. But you don’t have to do the same.

2. Understand how the situation was beneficial to you

The next step is to understand if you are ready to grow up for real and separate psychologically. In many cases, the child’s secondary benefit in a manipulative relationship is so great that it overrides the discomfort and negative emotions. For example, an authoritarian parent humiliates a son or daughter, but at the same time helps financially, allows them not to take responsibility for their lives.

You can manipulate only those who allow it to be done, that is, they knowingly agree to the role of the victim. If you leave the game, you cannot be manipulated. But freedom also means that you can no longer shift responsibility for yourself and your decisions to your parents.

3. Let go of expectations

If you are ready to fight for freedom, first allow yourself not to live up to anyone’s expectations. As long as you think you should conform to your parents’ ideas of what is good and right, you will try to get their approval. So, again and again to succumb to manipulation and live a life that is not your own.

Imagine a parent who is manipulating you, and mentally tell him: “I will never live up to your expectations. I choose to live my life, not yours.”

When you feel strong negative emotions after communicating with a parent, also mentally say: “Mom (or dad), this is your pain, not mine. This is about you, not about me. I don’t take your pain for myself. I choose to be myself.”

4. Stand up for boundaries

Have you given yourself permission to stop living up to expectations? Keep analyzing how you feel when you communicate with your parents. Is there any real reason to experience them?

If you understand that there is a reason, think about what exactly you can do for parents. For example, to allocate a convenient time for you to talk or meet, or help with something that is really hard for them. If there is no reason, remember that you should not conform to their ideas.

Set boundaries and stick to them. Determine for yourself what you can do for your elders without prejudice to your interests, and what you consider to be interference in your life. Let them know what is categorically unacceptable for you, and calmly insist on respecting your boundaries.

It is possible that a manipulative mother or father may not like it. And they will try to bring you back to the usual scenario. It is their right to disagree with your freedom. But just as you don’t have to live up to your parent’s expectations, they don’t have to live up to yours either.