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person complies because they don’t want to
hurt their kids or cause a problem. They’re
made to feel guilty if they don’t agree with beginning of the end.
what the manipulator wants. That can
happen with anyone occasionally, but if it’s 4. You Are Purposefully Being Excluded
a pattern then you are being abused. When your child interacts by giving you
the ‘cold shoulder’ or excluding you due to
2. Your Child Cracks ‘Jokes’ That Hurt a disagreement, it’s a form of manipulation.
You It can become abusive and is one of the
Jokes should be funny, not painful, worst types of abuse based on how it
humiliating, or degrading. It’s expected makes the person experiencing it feel about
that a joke will fall flat every now and then, themselves and their relationship. Very
but that’s not the same thing as ‘jokes’ often, one of the children may even bring
that are designed to hurt another person. some mithai and deliberately not offer it to
Being teased about things like intelligence, the older person. This is humiliating and a
clothing, a career, weight, or hobbies can common form of abuse.
really shake a person’s self-esteem. A child
should see that those things are hurtful 5. Stonewalling is Another Popular
and stop doing them. If they don’t, their Tactic
continued “jokes” could cross into the realm Stonewalling keeps the person being abused
of emotional or mental abuse. feeling off-balance and confused about how
to be on the abuser’s ‘good side’. When
3. You’re Ignored When You Try to Talk someone is using stonewalling, they ‘shut
There are few things that make a person feel down’ and stop interacting with the other
worse than being ignored when they are person. It can make the person whose being
trying to say something. Typically, the child abused feel like they’re talking to a ‘stone
or her/his spouse is doing something on the wall’, which is where the term comes from.
phone or laptop and if the parent tries to Often parents and children’s staying in the
say something, the child continues to work same home do not talk to each other. It can
pretending not to have heard them. When reach a low where the two cook separately
the person is trying to say something and from the same kitchen and the old parents
is constantly ignored or overlooked, it can are left to fend for themselves. Not only
feel dismissive and keep them from feeling do the children not talk to their parents,
close to their family anymore. They may but they also prevent grandchildren from
also stop reaching out, which could spell the mixing with their grandparents despite
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #50 | AUGUST 2023 21
