We have seen so far what it is emotional blackmail and how this violence can be exercised using the child as a threat or turning it into an indirect victim of clashes between adults, in addition to being, on other occasions, himself, the direct victim of a blackmail that, repeated and normalized, used as a way to achieve Obedience, you can leave traces on the little one.
But now we will see in more detail how the emotional blackmail works and the resources used by the person who performs it, so that we identify the procedures used.
The fear in emotional blackmail
The fear It is the weapon of the emotional blackmailer: fear of not being loved, of being abandoned, of being rejected and not respected, fear of being "crap." The blackmailer himself, although we are not aware of that, is also very afraid, since his self-esteem is based not on himself, but on the image he projects and on what he gets from others.
I think that the blackmailers are often people who suffered this manipulation of children and their self-esteem was damaged, being replaced by this compensation mechanism.
She goes out without thinking, when we were lied to as children, repeating phrases like "if you don't eat everything you're going to be left with" or "so many children starving and you despising my food", "with the love I've prepared ..." or, more blunt "if you don't eat the fruit, mom won't love you" or worse "if you don't eat the fruit I'm going to give you".
Humiliation and guilt in emotional blackmail
The blackmailer, to instill that fear and be believed by his victim, stop talking, look with contempt, teases, is sarcastic in private or, worse, in public. That is, use the love of the other to hurt him and defeat him, humiliating him to fear more and be more easily manipulated, to obey.
If mom yells at you, or cries, or ridicules you in public for crying at the door of the nursery or peeing at night, in addition to what is already suffered by that circumstance, he adds the fear of not being worthy of the mother's love and being rejected. And if she threatens you ... but mom doesn't know what hurts you, she just wants the best for you, she just wants you to be better. Really, even if she uses blackmail techniques, she doesn't realize that she does something to her son that she wouldn't consent if her partner did.
But it is that the blackmailer over makes the victim feel bad, selfish, incorrect ... manipulating her to give up her freedom in order to keep the relationship in kinder terms. It is destructive and harmful. Makes the victim feels guilty for causing anger or rejection. But we can identify it and get out of that circle of fear, humiliation and guilt.
We can, but not children. Children grow up thinking that perhaps it is true that they are bad children, bad children, fools, that we will not love them if they do not meet all our expectations. Isn't it sad to do this to them without knowing that we do it and not remember that our parents could do it to us "for our good"?
Love in emotional blackmail
We all feel emotions. Love It is one of them, very powerful, and it is enormous both of your children towards you and yours for them. Another emotion is the need to feel accepted and loved as we are.
In adults that need is great, we need know that the people we love respect us and accept us as we areThey allow us to develop freely even if that does not mean, in any way, that we should be allowed to harm others or ignore their feelings and needs.
In children, in our children, the fundamental reference is their parents. We shape them, they look at us as mirrors to discover what they are. They admire us and their greatest desire is to please us and their greatest need is to know that they are worthy of our love. And it is precisely happiness and love the basis of a respectful education.
All that I am going to explain does not mean that we should let a child have aggressive behaviors or harm others, or leave their education in respect for drifting. It does not mean that, but the way we influence them and modify their behaviors, when we do it through emotional blackmail, is a harmful way of establishing relationships and does not favor healthy communication or children's self-esteem.
What a child fears most, all children, is not being loved by their parents, losing them, being abandoned or not be loved for them. That fear, that fear, is what we use when we blackmail them emotionally and threaten them to let them love them if they don't do what we want them to do.
Blackmail is not a healthy way to express love
As much as we are convinced that love our children and want their good It means that the media doesn't matter, it's not true.
Loving healthy It does not hurt and respect the other. Use the love of our children, their fear of losing us, to break their decisions, make them obey or achieve concrete things such as eating everything, studying or behaving calmly in social gatherings, what we do is harmful, since we are threatening, making them feel scared and without self-esteem, they obey us out of fear, not conviction and we teach them to do this kind of blackmail to other people. Having used emotional blackmail does not make us bad parents, only parents who can be better. And that is what we all want.
