Jenny is no longer talking to anybody and has declined to eat dinner. Tommy is threatening to run away from home. Melissa is yelling out her bedroom window "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!!" Bobby is spray painting the screwdriver display in the local hardware store. What are these kids doing? They are frustrated, and they are attempting to use several of the Six Kinds of Testing and Manipulation to get their way from their parents.It is no news flash that, from the time they are toddlers, children will frequently try to "press their parents' buttons" in order to get their way. Surprisingly, however, many Moms and Dads act as if this phenomenon were a news flash. Some parents think kids should always want to cooperate-after all, it's for the youngster's own good!
The bad news is that our little ones will try to test their parents. The good news is that in "I Never Get Anything!!" clinical psychologist Dr. Thomas W. Phelan identifies the six kinds of emotional blackmail used by youngsters to get their way. These tactics include Badgering, Temper, Threats, Martyrdom, Butter Up and Physical Tactics.
How parents think about and manage these testing strategies is a universal and critically important problem. Parental responses to children's emotional blackmail have a tremendous effect not only on the parent-child relationship, but also on a parent's own mental health and marriage. Management of testing also strongly impacts the future welfare of a child. As Dr. Phelan points out, kids who don't learn the discipline of frustration tolerance early in life are going to be in trouble later in life.
Parents cannot wish their kids into a State of Perpetual Cooperation and Gracious Acceptance of All Disappointment. "I Never Get Anything!!" is a humorous, practical and down-to-earth guide that tells Mom and Dad what to expect from their frustrated children and exactly how to handle it-gently and firmly.
