Four reasons why you should stop allowing your children to manipulate you

All children are a blessing from God. When they are shown love and nurtured the right way, they grow up to be responsible adults which is every parent’s dream.

At the same time, something that’s not talked about enough is manipulative behavior in children. Kids are smart and sometimes, they actually use temper tantrums and other methods to manipulate their parents to get what they want.

This form of psychological and emotional extortion is dangerous and it actually creates many problems for both parent and child.

Here are some of the reasons why you should never allow your children to manipulate you this way.

i. You lose your confidence as a parent

The habit of emotional and psychological manipulation can actually affect your esteem and make you doubt your parenting skills. A parent may end up feeling weak and powerless when they have been falling for their children’s tricks for too long. Gradually, you lose your authority as a parent and become a slave to your children’s demands.

ii. You feel guilty all the time

Generally, kids deserve their parents love. There is no child that deserves to be mistreated and abandoned by their parents at any point. However, manipulative children use the fact that their parents adore them for their own personal gain. If their parents are disciplining them and they don’t like it, they make their parents feel guilty for trying to correct them. In a way, these children make them (parents) feel wrong for setting boundaries and this has long term consequences.

iii. It affects your children’s development

Manipulative children often develop some personality problems as they grow up. If a child is nurtured to get what they want, when they want it, their sense of reality becomes distorted in many ways. They develop a selfish attitude which will ultimately also affect their outlook on life. Children that aren’t taught to outgrow their demanding and selfish traits generally have a hard time fitting in anywhere.

iv. It affects your parent-child relationship

Psychological and emotional manipulation also causes some distortions in your parent-child relationship. When there are no healthy boundaries between you, your child is bound to disrespect you by taking your boundaries lightly. As a parent, you’ll feel like your child doesn’t genuinely love when they do certain things to get what they want. It becomes difficult to have a healthy trusting relationship with your child when you notice that that they only treat you well when they want something.

Parents also need to receive genuine love from their kids so you should never allow your child to constantly manipulate you.

How to avoid being manipulated

It’s important for you to first accept that you are being extorted by your children. It is only then that you’ll be able to recognize the manipulative trends in their behaviors.

Also, work on building your assertiveness. This will empower you to resist the guilt traps, tantrums and other forms of manipulation.

Stand firm and set boundaries no matter how angry they may get. At the end of the day, you’re doing so because you care and love them. As you do this, let them know it’s for their own benefit.