Tell Me Again About How Much of a Victim You Are

"It's non off-white! You're always yelling at me, even when it's not my mistake!"

Sound familiar? The minute you say no, or gear up limits, or try to enforce the rules, your child immediately says that you're non existence off-white and that yous ever pick on him. He overreacts constantly to routine requests and takes no responsibility for his behavior. No affair the circumstances, he is e'er the 1 who has been wronged or unfairly put-upon—in other words, the victim.

If this is a design—your child'southward typical response—she is displaying a victim mentality. And she does so considering information technology gives her an excuse for her bad beliefs that works for her.

When children take on a victim mentality, information technology becomes a form of defiance, used to avoid taking advisable responsibility and being held answerable. And when it plays on our emotions as parents—getting us to question whether, perchance, we have been also tough or unfair, or making united states of america experience guilty almost whatsoever limit we try to set—rules are forgotten, limits ignored, and we lower our expectations.

If left unchanged, the victim mentality can eventually impact your child'due south ability to have healthy relationships and to adequately function as an adult. It is vital that your child learns new skills in lodge to manage responsibility in the real earth. To start that procedure, it'due south helpful to wait at the behaviors that lead to the victim mentality.

Thinking Errors That Back up a Victim Mentality

Thinking errors, simply put, are patterns of thinking that are inaccurate or irrational; they influence our feelings and behavior, oftentimes in negative ways. In other words, when your child thinks like a victim, he will begin to feel and act like a victim. Below are some of the common thinking errors that fuel your child'south victim mentality and its related behaviors.

• Victim Opinion sounds like: "Why are you lot always on my back about the lawn? I work at a job later school and never take any time for myself! I don't take any time to mow the lawn!" Its related behaviors include:
  • Blaming others (often you lot, the parent) when he doesn't run across his responsibleness
  • Always having an alibi ready
  • Fighting for the correct to be a victim
• Injustice sounds like: "You never made my older brother clean his room when he was my historic period. It'due south considering he's a male child and I'm a daughter. You always treat me worse than him. Information technology's not fair!" Its related behaviors include:
  • Viewing normal expectations every bit unfair
  • Refusing to follow what are perceived every bit unfair directions
  • Lament that consequences for misbehavior are unfair
• Uniqueness sounds like: "Yous don't empathize, and you never will because you don't care near me as much equally you lot care most my sister! Just considering I don't like the same things yous exercise!" Its related behaviors include:
  • Challenge that she is unlike and thus needs unlike rules
  • Accusing others of non agreement her
  • Focusing on that "lack of understanding" rather than the real issue
• Acrimony with an Angle sounds like: "Yous started screaming at me for no reason so I went crazy and smashed the vase. Y'all demand to stop screaming!" Its related behaviors include:
  • Losing control of beliefs and claiming he couldn't help himself
  • Training others to avoid making him take responsibility
  • Using anger to have power over people and things

Over time, parents hear these excuses, see these behaviors and go pulled into assertive that it must be true. Then yous start responding to your kid'southward unhealthy behavior in unhealthy means. Yous tiptoe effectually your child because you can conceptualize the response y'all're going to go. You know your daughter is going to start yelling the minute you remind her she needs to babysit. You wonder if you should just stay home; it might even be easier than having the big fight and the take a chance that she'll take out her anger on her petty blood brother.

These thinking errors can also lead to a sense of fatalism on your child's part: he actually begins to believe he tin't alter, that your expectations are beyond him, and that he is unable to take responsibleness for his actions. He then becomes unable to encounter his role in making things better. It'due south important to avoid this fatalistic trap past reminding yourself that alter tin can happen at any time.

4 Steps You lot Can Take to Help Your Child Change

1. Kickoff with targeting one behavior at a time. Identify something that is making life difficult for you, but also something that you recollect can really modify. For example, you could start with a reasonable wake-up time and morning routine, or follow through on a chore, or expectations that meals will exist civil, with no screaming allowed.
2. Sit down and talk with your child when you're both calm. Fill them in on the modify you desire to focus on. "I'd similar to accept a word about following through on your chores. This is a problem for me, as I need you to do your part effectually the house. We all have our responsibilities in this family and doing the dishes is yours. If you want to go on to utilize the machine, y'all volition demand to practise the dishes each night. If you tin can't or won't do that, you'll need to take the bus."

Exist at-home and matter-of-fact in your delivery, as your child is so used to overreacting to any expectations or limits. Think of what you're doing equally all business. The limit setting parent role works best when you lot are non-emotional. Don't expect that your kid volition have kindly to this, though. In fact, they may be quite resistant, only stay calm and focused through the initial challenges.

3. Don't give upwards on expectations and consequences—and don't give in to bad behavior. It takes a long time to relinquish the victim mentality and supervene upon it with a more responsible fashion of thinking and behaving. Information technology's become a addiction for your child, and parents frequently develop habits in response. It's easy to fall back into these habits and to recollect that rather than setting this limit and dealing with my child'due south defiance, I'll back off this one fourth dimension and allow it go. This is natural. Nosotros all endeavour to avert things that feel like work, just in this instance the work is worth it.
4. Provide positive reinforcement when your child takes responsibility and makes good choices. The changes may be subtle at first, but the minute your child starts taking responsibility for his actions, he's beginning to shed the victim mentality. He'll need encouragement to go along changing his thinking and taking on healthier problem-solving skills, and yous can provide this.

Call up: change doesn't happen overnight. Once your child realizes that there is actually going to be a change in expectations, they volition slowly begin to run across those expectations. And once the change begins, boosted behaviors can be addressed and expectations added.

Keep in mind the goal of all this work: to enhance our kids to be responsible adults, able to function in life and to solve the problems that come up along the mode. Feeling and acting like a victim will not pb to the kind of developed life nosotros desire for our kids. But once your kid has learned to take responsibleness for their behavior, they will feel better about themselves, be amend able to solve problems and make the most of their life.

Related Content:
How to Create a Civilisation of Accountability in Your Home
Parenting Truth: Y'all Are Not to Blame for Your Child'south Beliefs

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Source: https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/does-your-child-have-a-victim-mentality-4-steps-to-turn-it-around/