Parent-parent affection is one of the closest interpersonal ties of human existence. Yet family violence inhibition can be broken by a child who carries out parental victimisation during childhood, leading to estrangement during adulthood. Identification of the type of parental and family abusers and of the situations that introduce adult children to do so can be helpful information for improving family ties.
Types of Children Who Bully Their Parents
As written by Sean Grover, L.C.S.W., in his article, "The 3 Types of Children Who Bully Their Parents" published in Psychology Today these children can be divided into 3 clear types:
1. Defiant Bullies: These children are exceedingly confrontational and oppositional. They literally rebel against all parental attempts at behavioral control and do so very often in a reckless and impulsive manner. Right is always there to help them, but it is sometimes not a priority in order to cultivate polite, harmonious social relations. They can be abusive to the parents taken for granted until they meet the demands placed upon them.
2. Anxious Bullies: These children are highly sensitive and prone to anxiety. They may recourse to bullying as a means of kindling insecurity. Their behavior may be taken to be a literally embodiment of their own inner turmoil and they may respond, as an integral part of the power struggle over the environment, to a parent.
3. Entitled Bullies: Children in this presentation are characterized by extremely high levels of entitlement that demand their parents constantly cater to their every desire. They can develop to be destructive and malignant when their demands are not satisfied, when they feel they are being entitled to preferential treatment, and when there is a lack of reciprocity of respect and consideration.
Factors Contributing to Bullying Behavior
There are reasons that may cause the child to exhibit bullying behaviors towards his/her parents: Some of the factors influencing the child to develop bullying behaviors in relationship with the parents included.
- Parental Guilt: Parents with guilt based on such reasons as separation, disease, and loss of fortune may overreact by offering their children too much liberty and not enough limits, thereby positively facilitating bullying behaviour.
- Parental Anxiety: Parents who are constantly anxious may inadvertently communicate a lack of confidence in their children, leading to resentment and anger from the child, which can manifest as bullying.
- Low Self-Esteem in Parents: Parents who are low in self-value may not have the power to establish boundaries and consequently may be victimized by their own offspring.
Long-Term Consequences of Childhood Bullying Behavior
Children that bully their parents can continue maladaptive behaviours as adults if left untreated. More generally, they may have difficulty with formation and maintenance of effective interpersonal relationships, with emotional dyscontrol and with blaming others for their troubles. This may result in family stress and/or separation.
Reasons for Adult Children's Estrangement from Parents
But if these unprocessed childhood issues arise during the transition from childhood to adulthood, they can lead the family to be different from their parents. 12 Reasons Kids Who Can't Stand Their Parents When They Grow Old Usually Do" on YourTango lists a few psychological reasons as well:
1. Lack of Emotional Safety: Children who do not feel emotionally safe with their parents may distance themselves to protect their mental health. This sense of risk can be a product of feedback, of emotional outbursts, or of unpredictable parental behavior.
2. Boundary Violations: Parents, forever the iron bound constrictors of their children's boundaries in the world, can make their adult children experience a sense of violation and lack of visibility and, consequently, become alienated.
3. Emotional Manipulation: Families using guiling or manipulative control in regulating their offspring generate a toxic ecology that may lead some adult offspring to diverge and defend their approach to being.
4. Unresolved Childhood Trauma: It is a lasting unresolved bitterness and a wish to escape or reject the paymaster of such trauma in adulthood, that the experiences of neglect, maltreatment/other kinds of trauma early in life may cause.
5. Lack of Support for Autonomy: When parental lack of support of autonomy and independence is experienced during childhood, adult dependent children may end up trapped in the developmental rut and seeking distance.
Strategies for Parents to Prevent Bullying and Estrangement
To get along well with their children, and to prevent children's bullying behavior and the possibility of social exclusion, parents may consider the following tactics:
- Establish Clear Boundaries: Ability to set and keep boundaries for a childall relates to learning and the stakes of action (e.g., consequences).
- Promote Open Communication: Positive open and honest communication empowers children to express their feelings and fears which in turn reduces the risk for psychological complaints to build up over the years.
- Model Respectful Behavior: Respectful behavior is observed to be followed by children to be applied to other individuals in their social interactions).
- Seek Professional Help When Needed: If bullying behaviour continues, seeking counseling in a mental health practitioner can give parents an idea of what step they can take for their own condition.
Understanding factors in turns that are responsible for parental (parent)/adult child (child) bullying and adult child (child) distancing is very significant to foster good intergenerational family relationships. If these concerns are actually tackled and the parents implement the appropriate parenting approaches, then the families are all equipped to make some progress toward the creation of that mutual respect, transparent, and emotionally safe environment.
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