Son is abusive to mother
Why Children Are Verbally Abusive
Verbal abuse and intimidation by children and teens isn’t just a phase that goes away—it doesn’t just happen. It often has deep roots that begin early in a child’s development. And it often begins as a way for kids to try to get power through controlling their parents.
In this article, I’m going to show you how your child’s abusive behavior may have evolved. In a companion article, I’ll show you what you can do now to stop your child’s abusive behavior from continuing.
It should be noted that this article is about abusive children who cross a line when they start attacking people verbally, demeaning others, or threatening to harm themselves or someone else. The verbalization of threats, name-calling, and intimidation is common, and aggressive behavior usually begins at an early age.
When parents change their rules because their child throws a tantrum or verbally abuses them, they’re teaching their child to have power over them through inappropriate behavior.
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This article is not about typical kids who, as a normal part of development, get mouthy at times due to stress, chaos, or adolescent changes. They can become testy in their answers to you, and their tone may become defiant or condescending, but the behavior does not cross the line into verbal abuse. For these types of behaviors, I recommend my article Sassy Kids: How to Deal with a Mouthy Child.
Why Does My Child Swear at Me?
When you’re standing in your kitchen, and you’re fighting back tears and rage as your son or daughter is calling you “bitch,” you don’t have time to do much of anything but react. But when they’ve stormed out the door or up to their room, the question arises in your mind yet again:
“Why are they like this? Why do they talk to me this way?”
Kids Verbally Abuse Their Parents to Get Power
Why do kids threaten and verbally abuse their parents? One reason is that these children feel powerless. In other words, they lash out in an attempt to gain more control.
Another reason is that they don’t have the problem-solving skills necessary to deal with frustration and disappointment, and they don’t know how to resolve conflicts appropriately.
Children may fail to develop social problem-solving skills for various reasons, including diagnosed and undiagnosed learning disabilities, family chaos, or individual temperament. Consequently, these kids often become overwhelmed, and they get frustrated that they don’t know how to solve social problems appropriately.
To compensate for their lack of tools to deal with these uncomfortable feelings, they resort to name-calling, threats, and verbal abuse of those around them.
Verbal Abuse is a Problem-Solving Tool
Let’s say you have a child who, for whatever reason, has poor problem-solving skills. They see the message of power in the media, their community, and their culture. They then learn how to use power in the form of threats and verbal abuse to replace their lack of problem-solving abilities.
Instead of dealing with their emotions and overcoming whatever given obstacle is in their path, that child uses acting-out behavior, aggressive behavior, and abusive behavior so that somebody else has to solve the child’s problems for them. In effect, their bad behavior becomes a way to solve problems. This is a dangerous pattern for a child to develop.
How Defiance Develops in Your Child
What parents don’t always understand is that chronic defiance in children develops over time. And it can start early on. It develops as the child learns lessons from interactions with their parents. Yes, our kids are learning from us, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, whether we realize it or not.
Let’s take the case of a child who was a fairly normal baby. They’ve achieved all the developmental milestones, were perhaps a little cranky at times, but generally behaved age-appropriately.
As they get a little older, they start having more problems. At about the age of five, they begin to balk at the idea of picking up after themselves, whether it’s their dirty clothes going into the hamper or toys with which they’ve been playing.
If they’re told to clean things in their room, they go to the living room instead of complying. When asked to finish the task at hand, they say, “I don’t want to,” which becomes their first battle cry.
Their parents have to stand over them to get anything done. As they get older, they start to challenge and defy, their voice gets louder, and their tone gets rougher. They get stuck in the loop of saying, “I don’t want to. I don’t have to. I’ll do it later. Why do I have to do it now?”
When pushed, they will do things grudgingly, but only when adults are watching them. And as soon as they leave the room, their compliance stops.
Children Need to Learn to Deal With “No”
Early in life, children have to learn to deal with the word “no.” They have to learn to deal with the feelings of frustration or anger triggered when they hear “no.” In a way, being told “no” is a social problem that they have to solve.
Most children learn how to deal with “no” reasonably well.
They learn to manage the feelings of anger and frustration of being told “no.” But when the children I’m talking about are told “no,” their behavior escalates until they have a tantrum.
Parents Lower Their Expectations in the Face of Defiance
Some parents will respond to this behavior by lowering their expectations. They don’t make their child pick up after themselves. Or they pick up their dirty clothes and toys themselves rather than dealing with their resistance and excuses. It is easier to do it themselves, they reason.
For the parents, this can seem like a good way to cut down on the fighting. After all, it only takes them 30 seconds to put the books away and pick up their child’s laundry. In contrast, a fight can ruin the evening. By the way, it is common for parents to do this, and, in many cases, the kids don’t end up defiant. Abusive kids are different, though.
Abusive Kids Have Learned to Take Advantage of Their Parents
Some kids figure out that their parents changed the rules and expectations out of fear of resistance and acting out.
These kids learn to take advantage of that fear. For these kids, capitulation on the part of the parents becomes a lesson. And the lesson is, “If I throw a tantrum and scream at my mother and father, I’m going to get my way.”
For these kids, what tends to happen is that they start throwing more tantrums, yelling more frequently, and using these inappropriate behaviors to solve their social problems. Their tantrums are a means to get their way.
Parents Give-In to Their Kids to Prevent an Outburst
What tends to happen over time is that parents learn to read their child’s signals. They see that the behavior is escalating, and they try to do something about it before the tantrum begins.
In other words, the parents begin to lessen their demands as the child gives them cues that they’re losing control. That lowering of expectations usually occurs by over-negotiating, compromising, or giving in to their child’s demands.
In this way, these kids learn to shape the behavior of the adults around them.
Let me be clear: when parents change their routine because their child throws a tantrum or verbally abuses them, they’re teaching their child to have power over them through inappropriate behavior. It’s a lesson the child learns quickly.
The Child Ends Up in Charge
During this back-and-forth process, parents and children are both learning to deal with one another.
The parents in these situations learn that if they indulge the child, the child stops acting out. This is a relief for most parents because tantrums are stressful, frustrating, and even embarrassing. Getting the current tantrum to end becomes their priority. The parents learn that if they do what their child wants, things will get easier, at least for the moment.
Likewise, the child in these situations learns that if they act out or threaten to act out, their parents won’t hold them accountable, and the child will get what they want.
Over time, this back-and-forth trains parents to be increasingly tolerant of inappropriate behavior and trains kids to use acting-out to get whatever they want.
Ultimately, the child ends up in charge.
The Future is Hard When the Child Is in Charge
Of course, as the child gets older, tantrums take on a different look. Older kids know that lying on the floor and screaming and kicking their feet makes them look ridiculous. So, the behavior evolves.
At a certain age, they learn various forms of verbal abuse, including name-calling, putting others down, and threatening. But this behavior, learned by interacting with mom and dad, begins to cause problems outside the home.
In particular, when these kids enter school, they often get in trouble with their teachers because the schools usually don’t tolerate the behavior.
And they have trouble getting along with other kids. This makes sense when you think about it. Take the sandbox, for example. The sandbox is a common-sense place. If your child is in the sandbox with other kids and yelling at them and calling them names or threatening to hurt them, they won’t play with your child anymore.
That’s all there is to it. Inappropriate behavior that works at home typically doesn’t work in social situations outside the home.
And if the other kids are forced to accommodate your child, once again, they will fail to develop appropriate social skills. The lesson that your child can get their way by verbally abusing others is thus reinforced.
So the intimidation between that child and their parents, and between that child and their peers, can start pretty early. And when the intimidation is tolerated, the behavior is reinforced, and it gets worse over time.
Final Thoughts
It is important to remember that there might be many reasons why a child is susceptible to being unable to handle life’s difficulties. They may have ADHD, an undiagnosed learning disability, a chaotic family life, or just a personal tendency to be oppositional.
In the end, though, I don’t think that it matters what started the issue. What matters is that the child begins to learn how to solve their problems appropriately.
The truth is, teaching our children problem-solving skills is a core part of our job as parents. To that end, we should teach them the lesson that tantrums, screaming, yelling, name-calling, verbal abuse, and intimidation will not solve their problems in the real world. And the best way to teach kids this lesson is to ensure that these behaviors do not work in the home. And to ensure that verbal abuse is never rewarded or indulged. Remember, verbally abusive adults usually started as verbally abusive children.
Related Content:
When Kids Get Violent: “There’s No Excuse for Abuse”
When Kids Get Ugly: How to Stop Threats and Verbal Abuse
Warning Signs and What to Do
If your teenager acts in an abusive way towards you, you’re not alone. Help is available for this underreported type of domestic abuse.
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Domestic violence doesn’t occur just between partners, or even just between adults.
If your child or teenager is abusive towards you — whether physically, emotionally, or financially — you may be experiencing a form of domestic violence.
If a child is violent or otherwise abusive towards you, you may hesitate to classify the behavior as abuse. Is your teenager just being, well, a difficult teenager?
Child-to-parent abuse (CPA) isn’t typical, though it’s likely underreported. This is in large part because of an ingrained cultural belief that anger, sullenness, and moodiness are hallmarks of adolescent behavior.
Experiencing CPA can also bring on feelings of shame, leading people to live longer with the abuse in secret.
You don’t have to live with abuse. There are resources to help you, outlined here.
Child-to-parent abuse occurs when a minor child (under age 18) or young adult (between ages 18–25) living in your home abuses you physically or verbally, emotionally, or financially in an effort to dominate or exert control in your space. You may feel powerless to do anything when it happens.
The abuse may be violent and physically aggressive, but may also be more secretive, involving threats or coercion. But the pattern of cruelty signifies abuse.
One study looking at 60 years of available research on CPA found that anywhere from 5–21% of families are affected by physical CPA.
In 97% of CPA cases, the mother was the person being abused, 83% of the time by a son, according to research. Daughters are more likely to use emotional or verbal abuse tactics than sons.
The different types of child-to-parent abuse
Abusive behavior can manifest in many ways, including:
- Physical: Your child may hit you, throw things at you, damage your property, or harm family pets.
- Verbal: They may taunt you or call you names.
- Emotional: Your child may threaten you with harm to you or to themselves if you don’t do what they want. They may intimidate you by following you around or relentlessly texting you.
- Financial: Your child may steal money from you or rack up credit card debt on your accounts, or they may demand a large sum of money if you don’t do something they want.
Risk factors
Domestic violence
Children exposed to domestic violence in their homes — often partner to partner — are more likely to be violent or cruel towards their parents as adolescents, according to research.
A 2017 study also found that CPA was more likely in study participants that came from families affected by domestic violence.
There was also an increased risk for CPA when a court or psychiatric clinic referred participants for a study, pointing to the correlation between CPA and criminal activity or mental health conditions.
Understanding that CPA is also a form of domestic violence may open more doors for intervention, both between adults in a household and between you and your child.
Antisocial behavior
Antisocial behavior or a lack of empathy towards others at home and especially in other situations, like school, can be an indicator that your child may also be violent toward you.
If your child’s teachers, coaches, or other authority figures report that your child is aggressive towards them or to their peers, or shows a lack of empathy in social situations, pay closer attention for signs of emerging or active CPA.
Mental health conditions
Some mental health conditions seem to coincide with CPA, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, and depression.
However, not all children diagnosed with these disorders will be violent.
Reactive attachment disorder and conduct disorder are also common diagnoses related to the phenomenon of CPA.
You may be experiencing CPA if certain factors are true for you:
- You’re changing your behavior to accommodate your child’s behavior or in response to threats.
- Your child is violent towards you. All children will act out, but violent behavior that puts your safety or that of others at risk isn’t normal.
- Your child threatens violence towards you if you don’t do what they want.
- Your child threatens suicide if you don’t do what they want. Take all threats of self-harm very seriously, even if you suspect that they’re a form of manipulation.
- Your child threatens others or is cruel to household pets, or both.
- Your child’s school reports that your child is rude to their teachers or has little to no social interaction with their classmates.
- Your child threatens to call in a professional — a social worker, a therapist, the police — if their demands aren’t met.
- You feel like you’re walking on eggshells to maintain the peace between you and your child, or between your child and other members of your household, like other children you may be protecting.
Living with and overcoming an abusive situation requires professional and sometimes legal support.
Individual therapy
Speak to a therapist about what you’re experiencing. Therapy may help you come to terms with what you have experienced in your own home and help you plan ways to stay safe.
If you need help finding a therapist, start here.
Family therapy
Family therapy focused on strengthening familial bonds and teaching non-aggressive disciplinary methods can help empower you to understand that your child’s abuse isn’t normal and to adjust your own responses to your child’s behavior.
Here are resources for finding a family therapist near you.
Support groups
The blog Raising Devon, written by a woman who experienced CPA, contains resources for finding a support group for other parents experiencing violence from their children.
If you’re interested in starting a support group, here are some tips for doing so.
Juvenile justice programs
Programs like Seattle’s Step-Up, which conducts teenage family violence interventions, exist in many cities and counties.
If your child’s violent or coercive behavior has led you to call the police and the court system is involved, becoming part of a program like this can help you and your family access individual and family counseling, create safety plans, and educate you and your child about what’s happening.
For legal and therapy purposes, discreetly document all the problematic interactions you have with your teenager.
Creating a safety planIf you’re afraid for your physical safety or that of other family members, try to leave your home and get to a safe place immediately, then call 911 or a trusted loved one.
If things haven’t escalated to that point, it’s still a good idea to have a safety plan. You can use this tool from the National Domestic Violence Hotline to create one.
A safety plan includes:
- where to go or whom to contact for shelter
- a list of important things to pack, like documents and technology
- how to get pets and children out of harm’s way
Remember that this situation isn’t something to feel ashamed of. Help is available, and this doesn’t have to be your reality forever.
Reach out to a few close family members and friends to let them know what’s going on. Acknowledging the situation is a good step forward, and your loved ones will also be a solid support system for you as you navigate next steps.
Aggressive, coercive, cruel, and violent behavior isn’t normal adolescent behavior and can be a sign of CPA.
You can access help if you are being abused by your child. If your child’s situation requires more than individual or family therapy, there are juvenile justice and even residential programs available to help them and to help you stabilize your home.
Raising Devon has many articles on CPA that you may find informative or relatable.
Don’t give up hope. While it’s normal to feel shame, know that this abuse isn’t an outcome of poor parenting.
You can feel safe in your home again, get your teenager the help they need, and eventually can work on building a safe and healthy relationship with them.
Get help for domestic violence
- Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 for free, confidential, 24/7 care and support.
- Visit the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), a domestic violence prevention advocacy group with a list of resources for relationship abuse help.
What to do if an adult son insults his mother?
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You raised your baby, supported him when he took his first steps, read fairy tales to him and brought him warm milk before going to bed… But today your adult son insults his mother, and when faced with the question of what to do about it, you were powerless.
The first reaction to such behavior of the son is incredible despair and resentment, as if the ground had gone from under his feet.
My head only throbs: why, how could he, what happened to my son, and what am I to blame for ?!
How could my baby, but already an adult son, raise his voice at me, cut me off in mid-sentence and throw insulting words? As a rule, without answering all these and many other questions that flew through her head at that moment of despair and resentment, the woman breaks down and starts screaming. The “second stage” comes - anger and anger at the son for his insults.
As a result of a quarrel that breaks out between relatives, a “split” is formed in relations, which, in the most gloomy scenario, will lead to irreconcilable enmity, when the fact that an adult son insults his mother, and she no longer knows what to do with it, becomes the norm.
Why does an adult son insult his parents?
Such a hopeless story is unnatural for a mother who loves her son, which means that every mother is simply obliged to immediately extinguish the anger that has flared up inside her and force herself to calm down.
By responding with an insult for an insult, you will only sow the seed of discord and anger, and thereby exacerbate the already difficult situation that has arisen. Therefore, first of all, you should figure out what are the reasons for such a boorish behavior of an adult son (or daughter)?
And for this you need to honestly answer yourself a number of unpleasant questions:
are you over it?
For a man, a woman's ridicule is always a trauma, and a mother's ridicule is a very deep trauma. Don't forget about it! Your little son could remember the taunt and unconsciously plant resentment inside him for years to come.
2. Kindergarten or school. Perhaps your son received a lot of comments and complaints from teachers, or outsiders tried to lecture your child in public. Have you always been on the side of your son, or did you support an outside woman and, in unison with her, in public resented your son’s hooligan act?
If your boy really did something wrong, don't pat him on the head for it.
But he must hear your indignation and receive a well-deserved punishment at home. And let the teachers, educators or the saleswoman of the neighboring store only know that you will definitely understand this situation. But you will never scold your son with them!
3. Did you yourself say hurtful and insulting words to your child (during a quarrel or for "educational" purposes)?
How to behave when your son insults you?
After analyzing the reasons for the son's aggressive behavior, you can develop a strategy for your future behavior. In no case do not react immediately and emotionally, even if the insult has stung you painfully in the very heart! Just keep quiet. A woman who has been stunned by a portion of insults will not immediately find the right words from shock. The golden rule here is to keep silent first.
In most cases, your son will almost immediately feel (although he does not show it outwardly) that he has hurt his own mother very much and will see suffering in your silence.
During the period while the son is thinking about his act, you should also think hard and remember how you could hurt your son at one time!
We are all human and it is natural for us to make mistakes. The trouble is not in the mistake made, but in the fact that we are not aware of it! Perhaps, having found the reason for your son’s rude attitude in your early communication, you yourself decide to apologize to him. And don't be afraid to ask for forgiveness first in your situation. After all, I respond with kindness to the anger that has seized your son, you will show him a good example. And only your love and wisdom will return your son and your family relationship.
Published: October 14, 2016 Like this article? Share with friends:
Son insults single mother. What to do?
I don’t even know why, but for some of my acquaintances (both men and women), I have already become like a reference book and a guide to life.
Everyone asks me for something, they ask for advice. Sometimes it even becomes strange, adults, but behave like children, they see only what is on the surface of events. They are too lazy to do a deep analysis. Or maybe they just can't do it?
They don't know how, for example. I don’t know how to play the piano, but they can’t analyze events and situations.
In this post, I unified the standard complaints of women who are over forty and who at one time, having thrown their husband out of the family (as if it were unnecessary to live with him, women are free now), pulled, like barge haulers on the Volga, raising their child alone . Well fools, what to take from them.
But nevertheless, I have quite a lot of such acquaintances, where can I go from them?
And to help them, at least with advice, in general, it’s not hard for me.
So, a single woman complains to me that her son constantly insults her.
Her words: "He's being rude to me. Can offend in every possible way, even say a foul language.
As a mother, this hurts me a lot. hear.
- How do you feel about yourself? I ask her.
- Terrible. I don't love myself. Is always I put myself last in my life. Considered everything to blame, scolded, criticized. But she always said the opposite to everyone - the ex-husband is to blame, bad circumstances, anyone, but not me.
- How do you feel about your son?
- I worry a lot about him. He didn't work out personal life and bad work. I feel sorry for him. I don't sleep at night, that's all I think about him.
- But you know that pity is an aggressive feeling. In addition, you constantly scroll negative thoughts about him in your head.
- I know this, but I can't help it. Bad thoughts so and get in your head.
And a lot of other things the poor woman told me...
Here are my generalized advices to such women:
You have a lot of aggression in your subconscious towards for himself and for his son. It's been building up for years.
And now in your head a whole dump of mental garbage. And all this negativity through pity and one-sided maternal dominant in education is now out in front of you.
The son feels it and shows you everything this is his boorish behavior.
And for some reason you take offense at him. But in fact, your son is treating you. Try to see him as your teacher and doctor.
First of all, he is a man and you are a woman. He is smarter, and you are more emotional.
Raising him from early childhood in unquestioning obedience to your maternal desires, you pressed him, consciously or not. He is tired of all this, has risen, and now he is driving his anger at you.
No man likes to be taught by a woman. Even if it's very, very good.
Subconsciously, every man is waiting for advice from other men, even bad advice. He will decide for himself whether to follow the advice or not.
By keeping your son's life under constant control, you thereby weakened his will.
He understood this with age, realized and begins to hate you.
