The language of emotion is often expressed nonverbally, especially in conflict. As one psychologist writes, “Nonverbal communication behaviors reveal much about people’s affective responses to conflict, perhaps more than verbal communication.”
Starting when their children are as young as four of five years old and through adolescence, parents can find themselves under powerful emotional onslaught when the boy or girl finds that being reasonable will not prevail.There are a number of common emotional tactics that a young person may put into play when explanation or argument is causing conflict to go the parent’s way. Sometimes the son or daughter will act so loving that a parent cannot resist pleasure from this show of consideration and approval, and relents on that account. Sometimes the young per-son will act so angry, loudly or silently, that the parent will give in to relieve painful feelings of rejection.
Sometimes criticism from out of control teenagers will sway a parent who cannot bear appearing incompetent or inadequate in the young person’s eyes. Sometimes a young person’s display of suffering (sadness or tears) will be more than a guilty parent can withstand. Sometimes seeing a son or daughter act like a helpless victim of the adult’s decision can cause a parent to take pity on the young person and relax a rule they were contesting. Sometimes having a son or daughter express apathy can influence an insecure parent who fears abandonment of caring in their relationship. And sometimes a young person’s explosiveness can create a sense of physical threat that intimidates the parent into giving in.
Susan Forward defines emotional blackmail as “a powerful form of manipulation in which people close to us threaten, either directly or indirectly, to punish us if we don’t do what they want. At the heart of any kind of blackmail is a threat, which can be expressed in many different ways: If you don’t behave the way I want you to, you will suffer. . . . Emotional blackmailers know how much we value our relationship with them. They know our vulnerabilities. . . . When they fear they won’t get their way, they use this intimate knowledge to shape the threats that give them the payoff they want: our compliance.” You need to know what your emotional vulnerabilities are, because your child knows them well. She knows just which emotional strings to pull to get her way.
By being clear about your particular emotional vulnerabilities, you can prepare and protect yourself the next time emotional extortion comes your way. You can respond like the parent who refuses to be bullied by her loud, angry teenage son: “When you are through acting angry, I am willing to discuss with you, calmly and reasonably, what you want. Not before.” Always turn emotional extortion into rational discussion. And of course, parents must resist using emotional extortion themselves.
There can be gender role differences. Men may use anger to elicit fear, while women may suffer to elicit guilt. The man’s manipulative expression of anger implies a threat: “If you don’t let me have my way, there is no telling what I will do!” The woman’s manipulative expression of suffering is an attempt to evoke compassion or guilt: “You are hurting my feelings. I feel sad, and it’s your fault. You owe it to me to give me my way!” But not succumbing to emotional extortion does not mean that you should ignore feelings in conflict. On the contrary, feelings should be declared in order to communicate about your emotional state, but they should never be used for manipulative gain.
How can you tell whether the child’s expression of strong emotion in conflict is a true expression of feelings and not a manipulative ploy? If the child’s emotion subsides in response to your empathetic listening, his feelings were probably honestly meant. One danger of emotional manipulation is that it can corrupt the true meaning of honest feeling by creating distrust. So a parent to whom a child repeatedly says “I love you” to motivate parental permission can come to distrust the child’s expression of love when it is truly meant. Tired of being softened up this way, the parent asks, “What do you want this time?” Or the parent who continually expresses suffering to manipulate his child with guilt can generate similar distrust when honest suffering is expressed and only empathy is wanted. Now it’s the child’s turn to ask, “What do you want this time?” The more an emotion is used to manipulate, the less authentic value others place on the expression of that emotion.
And beware the strong-willed child or prickly mid-adolescent who uses emotional bluster to get parents who are bringing up an issue the child doesn’t want to deal with to back off. The protective belligerence conveyed by irritability or a dramatically displayed bad mood should not deter parents from discussions and encounters that need to occur.