As teens age, their needs evolve and change. In order to get what they want, some teens may use negative behaviors, such as emotional manipulation, which can leave parents feeling dejected, frustrated, and confused. The aim of emotional manipulation by teens is to try and get their way. Your teen may manipulate you to get out of trouble or get something they want.
If you let your teen’s emotionally manipulative tactics go unaddressed, they can have disastrous effects on their lives. This article aims to help parents understand how and why teens use emotional manipulation tactics. It will also equip you with the necessary skills to deal with an emotionally manipulative teen.
As a parent, it is vital that you seek professional help for extremely manipulative teens. If you are looking for immediate assistance, contact NexStep Teen Academy today for outpatient support. We offer a number of different teen outpatient programs in Arizona that can help your son or daughter with their struggles.
Understanding Emotional Manipulation in Teens
Emotional manipulation is a calculated way your teen uses to ensure their needs are met. It is a form of control where your teen tries to influence your decision-making through direct or indirect tactics. If your teen is manipulative, they make calculated decisions to exploit your vulnerabilities for their gain. Teens who manipulate their parents know their parents’ weaknesses and leverage these weaknesses to get what they want.
Teen manipulation can be done in various ways, including gaslighting, guilt-tripping, playing the victim, and emotional manipulation.
Reasons Behind Teen Manipulative Behavior
Manipulation is an unhealthy way of ensuring their needs are met. Sometimes, teens use manipulative techniques when they do not think they have a choice. It is the only way they have learned to get what they want.
Teenagers use manipulative techniques when they feel powerless in a situation. They use manipulation to gain some sense of control over those around them. Manipulation in teens begins at a young age. If your teen used to throw temper tantrums as a child to get something they wanted, the behavior might have stuck. During adolescence, they may use the same manipulative techniques but with more sophistication. They know how to push your buttons to get what they want.
Another reason your teen is manipulative is that they have poor communication skills. Teens who do not know how to ask for what they want can resort to manipulation to get their needs met.
Identifying Signs of Teen Emotional Manipulation
As a parent, you need to learn how to recognize signs of teen manipulation. Sometimes, it can be hard for parents to realize they are being manipulated. Manipulation is not always negative. It can be done through flattery or compliments. Some signs of emotional manipulation include:
Telling half-truths
Throwing temper tantrums
Threatening self-harm or suicide
Using the silent treatment
Being overly flattering
Manipulating facts or taking facts out of context
Lying and shifting blame
Love bombing
Guilt-tripping
Emotional extortion
Guilt induction
Pitting parents against each other
Types of Teen Emotional Manipulation
Emotional manipulation can take many forms. These include the following:
Emotional Blackmailing/Extortion
Teens who use this type of manipulative tactic use guilt to make their parents do something for them. They use your past actions to guilt you into getting them something. They can also act like you have neglected their needs to guilt and manipulate you.
A common way teens emotionally extort their parents is by comparing themselves with their siblings. For example, your teen may say, “You won’t let me go out because you don’t love me as much as my brother/sister.” This statement may guilt you into letting them go out so that it does not seem like you are playing favorites.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is an emotional manipulation tactic where your teen makes you feel irrational or confused. You may have asked them to do some chores; when they fail to do them, they will act like you have never asked them to do anything. They make you question whether what you are experiencing is real.
Teenagers who gaslight their parents insist that an event never occurred, which causes their parents to become confused. They may also twist the facts in their favor and insist that the parent is wrong.
Crisis Manipulation
The most frightening form of manipulation is crisis manipulation. Teens who use crisis manipulation often threaten suicide or self-harm to get their way. As a parent or guardian, you should always take suicide threats seriously. Do not brush it off and think it is a manipulation technique. If your teen threatens suicide, whether or not they are manipulating you, get help immediately.
Effective Strategies for Parents to Handle Manipulation
You might be wondering what you can do to handle teen emotional manipulation. Some strategies you can utilize include the following:
Setting Boundaries and Maintaining Consistency: If you set clear boundaries and consistently apply consequences, your teen’s manipulation will not work. Manipulation is about control. Clear boundaries communicate that you have all the control, and they have none. Apply the rules you have set consistently to prevent situations where your actions will be used against you. As a parent or guardian, clear boundaries help control certain negative behaviors.
Do Not Take the Bait: When you recognize that your teen is manipulating you, do not negotiate with them. Your manipulative teen will try to twist your words in their favor. Stay firm in your decision not to negotiate.
Improving Communication Skills: Sometimes, your teen may develop manipulative tactics because they do not know how to communicate effectively. As a parent or guardian, you should foster open communication in your home. Teach your kids how to communicate assertively and positively. Good communication skills teach teens that there are other ways of getting their needs met other than manipulation.
Teaching Emotional Intelligence: Emotional intelligence teaches teens how to manage and regulate their emotions. It also gives them a different perspective as they learn how their actions affect those around them. It is important to foster skills like self-awareness to allow your teen to identify their negative behaviors and work on changing them.
Modeling Positive Behavior: Be the change you want to see. As a parent or guardian, you should model positive behavior at home. When communicating, be direct and assertive. This teaches your teens about effective communication skills.
Treatment for Teen Manipulative Behavior at NexStep Teen Academy
If you are worried about your teen’s manipulative behavior and require additional help, do not hesitate to seek professional help.
At NexStep Teen Academy’s teen PHP and IOP, we offer high-quality mental health treatment for teens with manipulative behavior. Our highly qualified staff ensures your teen’s needs are met during treatment. We tailor our treatment programs to meet your teen’s needs.
Tucked away in the desert of Arizona, NexStep Teen Academy offers a 5-day-a-week teen intensive outpatient treatment program to assist teens in overcoming their negative behavioral patterns. We utilize the following treatment options for manipulative teens:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is an evidence-based psychotherapy approach that assists teens in changing their negative thoughts. It is based on the idea that negative thoughts cause negative emotions and, in turn, lead to bad behavior. CBT teaches teens to isolate their negative thought patterns and reframe them into more positive ones. By reframing negative thoughts, teens can better control their feelings.
For example, manipulative teens think they should always control the narrative. CBT will help them understand that controlling others is not the goal of communication. Open communication aims to allow them to communicate their wants and needs. Your teen can stop manipulating you or their siblings by learning to recognize negative thought patterns.
CBT utilizes three core components to help manipulative teens. These include the following:
Guided Discovery: This principle of CBT can help your teen discover how their manipulative tactics are bad for them. It helps them understand how their actions affect their family and friends. Through guided discovery, your teen will be asked to discuss why they have such negative thoughts with the therapist. For example, if your teen often makes assumptions, they will be asked to defend their position. This offers them a new perspective on their negative feelings and thoughts.
Cognitive Restructuring: Thought reframing can be useful for teens who manipulate their parents. They will be taught how to identify and change their negative thought patterns. If your teen can learn how to change negative thoughts, it will ultimately affect their behavior.
Cognitive Journaling: Journaling is an effective tool for teens with manipulative tendencies. It helps them record their progress and set targets for therapy. Cognitive journaling helps teens identify triggers and record how they should respond differently. When your teen has the urge to revert to manipulative tactics, they can write down these thoughts in their journal and choose a different path.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT is a psychotherapy approach tailored to help teens become more aware of the present.
DBT is useful for teens whose manipulative tendencies stem from emotional dysregulation. For example, if your teen lacks the skills to deal with difficult emotions, they may manipulate you to ensure you deal with their problems. This is often seen in teens who have undergone a difficult emotional time. They find themselves manipulating you to make you feel sympathetic to them.
DBT utilizes four main tenets to assist teens in overcoming their manipulative tendencies. These include the following:
Mindfulness: This technique helps teens become more present in the moment. It allows them to appreciate how they feel internally and externally. Mindfulness assists teens in slowing down their thoughts, analyzing the situation, and making better decisions. If your teen is manipulative, they rely on racing thoughts to make quick and manipulative decisions. When they slow down their thoughts, they understand how their behavior is harmful. This enables them to choose the appropriate response for the current situation.
Emotional Regulation: If your teen is experiencing emotional regulation issues, their behavior may be instinctive or calculated. Manipulative teens have a goal in mind with every action they take. DBT teaches teens emotional regulation skills crucial in helping them make better, more conscious decisions.
Distress Tolerance: If your teen keeps hoping they should not be experiencing certain problems, their manipulative tactics may worsen. Through distress tolerance, they are able to accept their current situation and understand that some things are out of their control. This prevents them from reverting to manipulative tactics to get their way.
Interpersonal Effectiveness: This technique helps teens value their relationships rather than seeing every interaction as a bargaining chip. Manipulative teens often have negative interactions with others. Through interpersonal effectiveness, teens learn values that guide future interactions. They learn how to maintain these values and beliefs without reverting to manipulation.
Family Therapy
This type of group therapy is crucial for manipulative teens. It helps rebalance family dynamics by addressing power struggles and breaking negative patterns. Teen manipulation can strengthen relationships by ensuring teens rebuild trust with their parents. Broken trust can be difficult to mend, but NexStep’s family therapy is here to help.
Another reason why you should enroll your teen in family therapy is that it improves conflict resolution. When you come to therapy with your teen, you will be taught how to address conflicts arising from manipulation. You will understand how to deal with issues constructively and collaboratively to build healthier bonds.
Group Therapy
Teens rely on their peers for emotional support. Group therapy helps manipulative teens gain a different perspective on their actions. Seeing how their peers handle similar situations fosters self-awareness and emotional growth. If your teen participates in group therapy, they will learn how to deal with their negative thoughts more effectively by learning from their peers.
Group therapy also offers accountability. Your teen’s peers can help them remain accountable as they overcome their manipulative tendencies.
Call our team today to learn more about our offerings and how we can help your son or daughter.
Teens use manipulation to gain the upper hand and control the situation they are in. Manipulation aims to help teens benefit from a negative situation or meet their needs.
Teen Emotional Manipulation of Parents
Table of Contents
As teens age, their needs evolve and change. In order to get what they want, some teens may use negative behaviors, such as emotional manipulation, which can leave parents feeling dejected, frustrated, and confused. The aim of emotional manipulation by teens is to try and get their way. Your teen may manipulate you to get out of trouble or get something they want.
If you let your teen’s emotionally manipulative tactics go unaddressed, they can have disastrous effects on their lives. This article aims to help parents understand how and why teens use emotional manipulation tactics. It will also equip you with the necessary skills to deal with an emotionally manipulative teen.
As a parent, it is vital that you seek professional help for extremely manipulative teens. If you are looking for immediate assistance, contact NexStep Teen Academy today for outpatient support. We offer a number of different teen outpatient programs in Arizona that can help your son or daughter with their struggles.
Understanding Emotional Manipulation in Teens
Emotional manipulation is a calculated way your teen uses to ensure their needs are met. It is a form of control where your teen tries to influence your decision-making through direct or indirect tactics. If your teen is manipulative, they make calculated decisions to exploit your vulnerabilities for their gain. Teens who manipulate their parents know their parents’ weaknesses and leverage these weaknesses to get what they want.
Teen manipulation can be done in various ways, including gaslighting, guilt-tripping, playing the victim, and emotional manipulation.
Reasons Behind Teen Manipulative Behavior
Manipulation is an unhealthy way of ensuring their needs are met. Sometimes, teens use manipulative techniques when they do not think they have a choice. It is the only way they have learned to get what they want.
Teenagers use manipulative techniques when they feel powerless in a situation. They use manipulation to gain some sense of control over those around them. Manipulation in teens begins at a young age. If your teen used to throw temper tantrums as a child to get something they wanted, the behavior might have stuck. During adolescence, they may use the same manipulative techniques but with more sophistication. They know how to push your buttons to get what they want.
Another reason your teen is manipulative is that they have poor communication skills. Teens who do not know how to ask for what they want can resort to manipulation to get their needs met.
Identifying Signs of Teen Emotional Manipulation
As a parent, you need to learn how to recognize signs of teen manipulation. Sometimes, it can be hard for parents to realize they are being manipulated. Manipulation is not always negative. It can be done through flattery or compliments. Some signs of emotional manipulation include:
Types of Teen Emotional Manipulation
Emotional manipulation can take many forms. These include the following:
Emotional Blackmailing/Extortion
Teens who use this type of manipulative tactic use guilt to make their parents do something for them. They use your past actions to guilt you into getting them something. They can also act like you have neglected their needs to guilt and manipulate you.
A common way teens emotionally extort their parents is by comparing themselves with their siblings. For example, your teen may say, “You won’t let me go out because you don’t love me as much as my brother/sister.” This statement may guilt you into letting them go out so that it does not seem like you are playing favorites.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is an emotional manipulation tactic where your teen makes you feel irrational or confused. You may have asked them to do some chores; when they fail to do them, they will act like you have never asked them to do anything. They make you question whether what you are experiencing is real.
Teenagers who gaslight their parents insist that an event never occurred, which causes their parents to become confused. They may also twist the facts in their favor and insist that the parent is wrong.
Crisis Manipulation
The most frightening form of manipulation is crisis manipulation. Teens who use crisis manipulation often threaten suicide or self-harm to get their way. As a parent or guardian, you should always take suicide threats seriously. Do not brush it off and think it is a manipulation technique. If your teen threatens suicide, whether or not they are manipulating you, get help immediately.
Effective Strategies for Parents to Handle Manipulation
You might be wondering what you can do to handle teen emotional manipulation. Some strategies you can utilize include the following:
Treatment for Teen Manipulative Behavior at NexStep Teen Academy
If you are worried about your teen’s manipulative behavior and require additional help, do not hesitate to seek professional help.
At NexStep Teen Academy’s teen PHP and IOP, we offer high-quality mental health treatment for teens with manipulative behavior. Our highly qualified staff ensures your teen’s needs are met during treatment. We tailor our treatment programs to meet your teen’s needs.
Tucked away in the desert of Arizona, NexStep Teen Academy offers a 5-day-a-week teen intensive outpatient treatment program to assist teens in overcoming their negative behavioral patterns. We utilize the following treatment options for manipulative teens:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is an evidence-based psychotherapy approach that assists teens in changing their negative thoughts. It is based on the idea that negative thoughts cause negative emotions and, in turn, lead to bad behavior. CBT teaches teens to isolate their negative thought patterns and reframe them into more positive ones. By reframing negative thoughts, teens can better control their feelings.
For example, manipulative teens think they should always control the narrative. CBT will help them understand that controlling others is not the goal of communication. Open communication aims to allow them to communicate their wants and needs. Your teen can stop manipulating you or their siblings by learning to recognize negative thought patterns.
CBT utilizes three core components to help manipulative teens. These include the following:
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT is a psychotherapy approach tailored to help teens become more aware of the present.
DBT is useful for teens whose manipulative tendencies stem from emotional dysregulation. For example, if your teen lacks the skills to deal with difficult emotions, they may manipulate you to ensure you deal with their problems. This is often seen in teens who have undergone a difficult emotional time. They find themselves manipulating you to make you feel sympathetic to them.
DBT utilizes four main tenets to assist teens in overcoming their manipulative tendencies. These include the following:
Family Therapy
This type of group therapy is crucial for manipulative teens. It helps rebalance family dynamics by addressing power struggles and breaking negative patterns. Teen manipulation can strengthen relationships by ensuring teens rebuild trust with their parents. Broken trust can be difficult to mend, but NexStep’s family therapy is here to help.
Another reason why you should enroll your teen in family therapy is that it improves conflict resolution. When you come to therapy with your teen, you will be taught how to address conflicts arising from manipulation. You will understand how to deal with issues constructively and collaboratively to build healthier bonds.
Group Therapy
Teens rely on their peers for emotional support. Group therapy helps manipulative teens gain a different perspective on their actions. Seeing how their peers handle similar situations fosters self-awareness and emotional growth. If your teen participates in group therapy, they will learn how to deal with their negative thoughts more effectively by learning from their peers.
Group therapy also offers accountability. Your teen’s peers can help them remain accountable as they overcome their manipulative tendencies.
Call our team today to learn more about our offerings and how we can help your son or daughter.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Teens use manipulation to gain the upper hand and control the situation they are in. Manipulation aims to help teens benefit from a negative situation or meet their needs.
Manipulative tactics are more calculating compared to genuine emotional reactions.
Progress varies from one teen to another. It may take weeks or months to see positive changes in your teen.