Monopoly of power through moral outrage

In My Humble Opinion
1

I love my teenage daughter a lot. But I feel that she uses my affections for her against me. I would appreciate any advice anyone could give. I’m looking for a solution.:smack:

My wife and I are divorced. My daughter from my previous marriage grew up with my wife. She grew up as a kid with her mom, who was prone to weak extremes. What I mean by that is that she was either a very permissive parent or wrecklessly authoritative. The result has been that my daughter has this deep sense of moral outrage. To gain power in dealing with her mother, she has learned to manipulate the situation in her favor. Now, my teenager daughter has become a master manipulator. She knows how to change the situation to her favor by hook or crook. I suppose that is good survivor skills to some degree, but it kind of comes with disadvantages. It’s kind of knowing how to survive in the prison system–yeah sure you surive the jungle, but you also become an animal in the process of surviving.

Well anyway, my teenage daughter has now come to live with me. And she tries to use all the same tactics that worked quite well with her mother. She tries to terrorize our household using moral outrage to bolster her power. It is really wild. She will call people a bully…and pose herself as a victim as a way to gain sympathy and power to launch her attacks. It gets a lot more involved but I can’t put a finger on it.

I don’t understand how someone can bully their way through a circumstance by calling other people a bully. I see it, but I don’t know what to do to stop it. And this is my daughter. :frowning:

Anyway, all her accusations just ruins the mood in the house. We all feel defensive. I shake in my boots as a parent. I am afraid to take a firm stance against her and impose my moral authority for I fear being what she accuses me of: unjust. I love her with my heart. And I feel she knows it. But I wonder if she uses it against me. I am looking for solutions.

2

Your daughter needed firm boundaries when she was younger, and she probably needs them now, too. Giving a kid age-appropriate boundaries isn’t being unjust - it’s being a parent.

Disclaimer - I’m not a parent, but I have watched my 16 year old niece grow up into a tantrum-throwing, mother-cussing teenager because of the spotty discipline she got from her parents.

3

Call her on it, every time. Let her know in no uncertain terms the consequences of selfish manipulative behavior. Make sure she knows that it applies to any situation, at home or elsewhere, and that you will respond when it comes to your attention whether or not it affected you and yours.

The trick is doing this in a way which is loving and supportive while being absolutely firm. And following through EVERY time.

You’ve only got two years until she can do what she wants anyway. Good luck.

4

Same disclaimer as CW – I don’t have kids, but these days I see an epidemic of parents trying to be a friend first and a parent second, and the results are not often pretty.

“I shake in my boots as a parent” sounds like exactly what your daughter is trying to accomplish. I realize there’s not a single simple answer, but maybe a lighter touch might be called for. By that I don’t mean giving in, but you don’t have to live in the extremes your ex does in order to get your point across.

Keep your reactions as drama-free as possible. When your daughter accuses you of being unfair, shrug and say “yeah, I guess I’m just a horrible tyrant that way, whaddaya gonna do?”

5

Do your best to stand firm and APPEAR uneffected by it. Pretend you don’t have feelings.

This is tough. I wish you luck.

6

My wife had been a teacher for years before she had her own children, so she had a handy stock of argument-breakers already worked out.

One of her favorites: “This isn’t about that.” Whenever one of our kids tried to cite whatever injustice they could dig up to change the argument, my wife would look them striaght in the eye and say “This isn’t about that,” and refuse to allow them to play that card.

7

Stop being a wimp. Whever she pulls that shit tell her, “Your emotional manipulation of me is not going to work.” and then tell her no to whatever it is you are too scared to say no to her about.

She’ll throw a tantrum and then you tell her if she is going to behave that way she can just stay in her room with the door closed until her attitude changes.

Seriously do you want her going out into the world thinking being a manipulative bitch is a good way to navigate through life? What’s going to happen when she gets her first job and they want her to work on a Friday night and she wants to go out with her friends? Is she going to throw a tantrum and claim they are being a bully and that she shouldn’t have to work on a Friday? She’s not going to be employed for long. And what about college?

I don’t have kids but my mom was an emotional manipulator. I learned to realize what it is that was going on and to tell myself that I would not be manipulated this way. Eventually my mom learned that she couldn’t manipulate me anymore and stopped.

My grandma is even worse than my mom was, gee I wonder where my mom got the behaviour from, but since she was my grandma and old and stuff and I would just go along with whatever she wanted.

A recent example:

I used to live within a few miles of my grandma and I would take her car in to get the oil changed. A year or so ago though I moved to a little over 30 miles away. When I would visit my mom and grandma would be there she would drop hints that she needed her oil changed. After a couple of times, and several months later, she just came out and said, “So when are you going to get my oil changed?” I told her she can take it in herself and to ask for so-and-so and he would take care of it. She came back saying she can’t possibly take it in because she is a woman and the auto-shop is going to rip her off. To which I replied, “Well I guess your oil isn’t getting changed.” I found out later she had gotten my brother, who lives only about 12 miles away from her, to start getting the oil changed for her.

8

Wheels, I appreciated this response, thanks.

The essence of her stance is that she can’t stand someone having a stronger moral stance than she does. But her morality is based on her own perceived victimization. It’s like if she can find a fault with you, then the focus is off of her.

I agree with you about being a parent first and a friend next. That is my goal. I’m trying. I think I need some classes. Maybe some verbal self defence classes. :cool:

I try to keep my language when I deal with her as “sanitized” as possible. She looks for every opportunity to ‘tip the balance’ and turn it into a shout-fest.
And I do my best to keep the mood calm, firm, “professional” (if you will).
I feel like a ninja at times trying to keep balance on top of a flag pole with someone trying to push me off :)Trying to find some humor in all this :stuck_out_tongue:

Thank you for your responses. Yes, you’re right. I am looking for guidance.

When you’re dealing with mature people, there is give and take and you come to an understanding. But when you’re dealing with an immature person…it seems you need to take a very different approach than one in which you deal with someone mature. They want to drag you down to their level so that they can justify being themselves. She’s a lot better at being immature and throwing a tantrum pushing buttons than I am :slight_smile:

I almost feel like she knows that if she were to engage in a mature conversation, that she has no grounds to act. So she intentionally creates this whole (fake) defensive front so that she can live in her self-justified victimization. This gives her the freedom she wants to live her lifestyle without being accountable to anyone else.

I suppose this is my own lacking. But I am afraid of being confrontational because of things escalating. She thrives in the yelling and screaming and chaos of it all. I don’t. When things escalate to yelling and screaming, she’s in her element. I’m not.

This is what she’s used to doing with her mom. She dragged her mom down to her level where they both resorted to yelling and screaming and saying whatever to push each others buttons and have a shouting match where anything goes.

I do not want to be reduced to that and lose the authority that I have. More than that, that is just not the kind of person I want to be. Nor play that game. And she knows that.

9

Thank you for your response. Yes, I have used this. Works quite well.

10

Drunky Smurf, That is really great that you figured out your mom and learned how to deal with her and your grandma gracefully. Really, I mean it.

As I’m reading your comments I’m realizing that perhaps this is a lot more about my fear of losing control and being reduced to engaging in the tantrums that she thrives in engaging in.

Does that make me a wimp?

Is yelling and screaming and throwing things around a sign of strength? Is that the example I want to set as a parent?

I think I need some help in being able to have a full on confrontation without losing control. Any advice? I’m not kidding. Verbal Kungfu classes sound really inviting right now. I would totally do it. :stuck_out_tongue:

11

If she gets loud, get quieter. Repeat yourself a few times if you have to, but if you do this, I think you’ll at least surprise her and might get her to listen.

Lower your voice, set your jaw, work on your best poker face.

12

At work we had to take Non-Defensive Communication classes based on a book by Sharon Ellison, “Don’t Be So Defensive!” and “Taking the War Out of Our Words.” The book has many examples of manipulation and how to defuse situations with quiet questions.

One example is the non-trapping, strictly informative question. The glass is broken on the floor, the child is standing there. Don’t ask, “Did you break the glass?” Cause you already know the answer to that question. “How did the glass break?” in a neutral tone with neutral body language is a better question.

The neutral tone is speaking as if the words coming out of your mouth are floating down like a balloon.

It takes a lot of time and effort to use the techniques. The one technique I use the most is the choices. I tell my kids, “As soon as you are ready for bed, you can watch a show if there is enough time. (The training suggests you should explictly describe the antecedent) If you take too long getting ready for bed, then you will not be able to watch a show. You decide if you want to watch a show or not. Do you understand?” This avoids the, “You didn’t say we couldn’t watch a show.”

i.e. for your situation, "If you slam the door to your room, I will remove the door for a week, if you don’t slam the door to your room, the door will not be removed. You decide if you have a door on your room or not.

Outside of the Ellison books I had some other training which stressed speaking from I. Say things like “when you yell at me I feel on edge.” Don’t say things like “when you yell the entire house is upset.” Cause you can’t know if the entire house is upset, but you do know how you feel.

Anyway, my kids aren’t teens… yet. So I know there is supposed to be a striving for independence, but they’re not there yet, you’re still in charge and responsible.

Good luck!

13

Single mom of a teenaged daughter checking in.

Silence works for me when TheKid has a random fit of stupidity (I am really lucky, and I am fully aware of that - we rarely have fights). Once I see she is starting to blow up, I shut down. You can’t argue with a brick wall, can you? Once she rails about how horrible everyone, everything is, I will repeat what she says, but in a calm manner (using the “I hear you say X, is that right?”, not “You’re saying X” manner of communication). If she starts her head back up, I stop. Wait until it passes, and start all over again.

Example: She became upset with me this past Friday. A friend had a party and we had agreed that I would pick her and another friend up at midnight. At 1130 I received a call from a different person asking if TheKid and her friend could spend the night, or if I would consider 1am/2am instead of midnight. I texted TheKid, stating I debated about the overnight thing, but that since the friend I was also picking up would have to lie to her parents about where she spent the night, I couldn’t in good conscious agree to that; however, I was okay with picking her up at 130am. Note: The girl who was having the party? I cannot stand. Her friend’s parents also dislike the girl. If they had asked me where their child spent the night, I would not lie and say she was at our house.
TheKid decided midnight was fine, as “everyone” had left to do somethings that are against the law in most states. When I picked them up, TheKid was obviously pissed. I explained my reasoning - her friend’s parents would not have been happy, and I have no desire to have them pissed at me.
TheKid started pissing and moaning about how I treat her like a child, she’s 17, dammit, and needed the night out, her last hurrah before senior year, etc etc.
Ok. So, I’m hearing that despite our initial agreement that I would pick you up at midnight, you’re angry that I briefly thought about allowing you to spend the night, right? Yes.
Do you understand why I changed my mind? No.
(Explained the whole Not Going To Lie bit). It’s not fair.
Were they doing anything that exciting that spending the night was a necessity? No, not really.
Were you going to be awake all night? (By this time her friend was snoring in the car) No, I wasn’t going to stay awake all night.
So, let me see if I understand all of this: We agreed midnight. Upon a request, I thought about changing it to overnight, but due to your friend having to lie about it and the possible negative outcomes, I changed my mind, still offering to pick you up later, which you declined. And you’re upset with me about all of that.
Well, if you put it that way…
:slight_smile:

14

Since you’re looking for advice, I’ll move this to our advice forum, IMHO.

twickster, MPSIMS moderator

15

Force her to fight your way. When I have arguments with people like this the moment something insulting or offensive comes out of their mouth I immediately stop talking and stare at them in silence for a good 30 seconds. This usually prompts either an apology for going too far or another insult, at which point I say quietly, “I will not fight with you like this. If you are going to be insulting I refuse to discuss this with you.” You usually only have to do this kind of thing once or twice before someone stops pulling the insults as argument behavior.

16

I REALLY like this advice. Will definitely try this! Thanks. :smiley:

Thank you moderator for moving it to the advice forum.

17

Thank you. You made me realize that I had not been exercising enough of the power of silence. I can be in control of the conversation at every step of the way. I don’t need to react to every stimuli she tosses in my direction, no matter how volatile. Love it!

Like someone said, if she gets more dramatic…I can goooo moooore caaalm slooowly. :slight_smile:

I am in control of the mood, tone of the conversation at every step of the way. Wow. That is a powerful realization.

In this fast world, who would have thought that going slow is sometimes a lot more powerful?

18

It’s not always the strength of the argument or how much you appeal to their heart that does it huh? You guys are really making me consider my assumptions. Learning a lot. Keep it coming :slight_smile:

19

I don’t have kids. I’m barely an adult myself. But I can tell you that when you’re in this type of argument with someone, like others have said, the louder and more emotional she gets, the quieter and calmer you need to get. She knows she’s acting like a nut and she’s going to be desperate to get you to justify that by goading you into responding with shouts or whatever. Don’t be a wimp, be firm. But remain calm and collected, even if you’re panicking inside. It’ll help.

Good luck.

20

I’d go as far as to say it’s never about the strength of the argument, and appeals to the heart only bring accusations of being emotionally manipulative.

Your daughter is playing a game. Moreover, it’s her game, and she makes the rules up as she goes along. The only way you can end the game is to refuse to play it.