I told you yesterday how common and undetectable it is emotional blackmail towards children and I promised you some ideas to stop using it ourselves.
The point is to be willing to observe ourselves and make self-criticism, remember the feeling we had in our childhood to receive those emotional blackmail and above all, admit that our parents, who surely loved us madly, were wrong.
The chain of love blackmail
Perhaps that is the biggest problem we have for parents to overcome the mistakes of those who raised us: forgiveness. It is not necessary to forgive the errors avoiding recognizing them as such, but to understand that our parents could be mistaken, and that, to see it, is not to betray them.
Knowing how to see what our parents did wrong is to love them more, because they were wrong even though they loved us and possibly were wrong for love and they did that believing it was right. What better recognition than overcoming their mistakes and doing better to avoid the consequences of emotional blackmail?
My formula for stop using emotional blackmail towards children is simple. Every time you speak, think before you speak and think, when you have spoken, the hidden content of your words. Be self-critical, stop thinking that being an adult or father you are right or your mistakes are not important.
And little by little you will control the emotional blackmail , really, it is usually enough to admit that you use it to know how to stop using it.
And now I would like to ask you to tell us your memories about when, in your childhood, your parents made you emotional blackmail and, if you want, situations in which you know that you use it with your children.
