5 Ways Your Struggling Adult Child May Be Manipulating You

KEY POINTS

• Adult children struggling with substance misuse, depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem can become overly dependent on their parents.
• Guilt can convince parents that their child's struggles are their fault, but genetics, peer influences, and personality also play a part.
• A parent who accepts disrespect from their adult child as being "normal" is likely being manipulated.
• Pushing back on an adult child's manipulations requires a firm, yet non-controlling demeanor.
• As a psychologist working with children and teens for over 30 years, I have counseled many troubled, overly dependent adult children. It is heartwrenching to see these young adults in a self-defeating holding pattern with little motivation. Further unfortunate, as I have seen as a coach for parents of struggling adult children, is how emotionally and financially draining this can become for their parents. Common among this adult child population, the parents, and consistent with the myriad of comments from my readers on this topic, are stories of substance misuse, depression, anxiety, and very low self-esteem. Troubled adult children often are master manipulators of their frustrated, desperate feeling parents. They know the guilt-triggering painful comments to say to their emotionally exhausted, vulnerable parents such as, "Okay, great if you are not going to help me, then I will just end up on the street and die!" Or, "All you do is tell me to get a job, stop pressuring me, or I will kill myself." Sadly, your guilt, which in most cases is not justified, makes you vulnerable to the manipulations of your troubled adult child. It has felt good to see some readers of my previous posts on this topic respond to one another's comments and offer mutual support. This empowering social support often takes the place of coaching one another to feel empowered by setting limits Yet, sadly, a few readers have responded with hostility to one other due to the polarizing effect this topic seems to produce. That is, parents of struggling adult children often go "all or nothing" in looking at their situation: Either the struggling adult child needs to be let sink or swim or the parents are okay nurturing the struggling adult along. The answers are not always so black or white.
• Guilt muddies the waters for parents of troubled adult children. Guilt plays tricks on the mind. It can convince you that your child's struggles are your fault. But given the role of genetics, negative peer influences, and personality characteristics that come into play, parents would do well to serve themselves some healthy doses of self-compassion.
• As my best friend from kindergarten says, "The only perfect people are in the cemetery!" So, if you've done something about which you're ashamed, apologize to your adult child and move on. Do your best not to dwell on it, otherwise, it can continually serve as a manipulation tool by your adult child