Manipulation

My first childhood friends were two little boys who lived on my street—Billy and Shawn.  We were all about three years of age, and we played together in each other’s yards.  One summer day, while we were playing on my swing set, I cut my finger on the ragged edge of one of the chain links.  (Children born after 1990 will not relate to this, but backyard equipment wasn’t always covered in protective plastic.  Times were hard, back in the day . . .).  My injury was pretty severe and required at least one Band-aid, as I recall.  After being treated with a little First Aid from my mom, I returned outside, gingerly favoring my finger, and settled back down onto my swing with the following announcement:  “Since I’m hurt, you have to pick me flowers.”   Neither Billy nor Shawn had a sister--and thus were not schooled in the wiles of a woman.  And so they picked flowers for me.  Poor little me, swinging carefully with one hand cradled so that my finger would not fall off, while they ran around the yard like slaves, grabbing dandelions and clover, bestowing me with bouquets to offer condolences for my suffering.  It was a glorious day. 

 

Manipulation is fun.  Not gonna lie.  Sometimes you just need some flowers. 

 

But manipulation is more than fun.  It’s a form of disrespect and deception, and unfortunately, it’s a temptation for all of us.  It’s the tool of victims, the badge of desperation that announces—more loudly than we realize—“The truth alone isn’t strong enough to accomplish what I want.” 

 

I wish I could tell you that I have never used manipulation on anyone since the Backyard Swing Incident of 1974.  But it’s human nature to dabble in areas that we ought to leave to God and others.  Maybe I’m not the only one who has been tempted to manipulate.  Sometimes we parents and teachers give in to our children's manipulative behavior, thereby reinforcing it.  Any behavior that tries to maneuver competent decision makers into doing what they would not choose to do is manipulation.  And it takes on a few disguises . . . 

 

1.  Victimization 

 

Victimization seeks sympathy or complements out of others.  I like the quote I heard recently:  “Whining announces to predators that there is a victim in the room.”  Coerced sympathy doesn’t satisfy—which is why it has to be repeated. All of us need to rise to our challenges and claim the promise of Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”  Parents, when we adjust the rules or the demands in favor of whining and pouting, we are rewarding selfishness and raising manipulators who will exercise their skill on others someday.

 

2.  Threats

 

“If you make me run that far, I will quit the team.” 

Older children know what is expected of them, and therefore they sometimes think they have a bargaining tool.  I had a boy at church once who refused to use a seatbelt in my van.  Of course, we could not leave the parking lot until he was belted.  When I reached across to buckle him, he growled, "I will bite you!"  Maybe he would; maybe he wouldn't.  I kind of like my skin, so I called his mom.  He rode home in her vehicle, in a seatbelt.  Threats of bad behavior should never be allowed to win the desired outcome, or Mom, you have just signed up for more of the same.  We need to ask the Lord to show us where there is truly an actual problem ("When I eat that food, it makes me feel sick.") and when we are being toyed with.   

 

3.  Anger and scenes

 

I once watched a mother at Dollar General, arguing with her pre-schooler over a toy. The little girl wanted a doll, and the mother kept saying, “No!”  Over and over the little girl argued, until finally she was crying and stomping her feet.  In exasperation the mother grabbed the toy and said, “Oh, fine!”  and put it into the cart!  Well played, Little Girl!   Had that mother simply marched her daughter out of the store and said, “You will never get anything you cry for,” a hundred battles would have been won that day.   

 

And a word of warning to parents of toddlers:  Two-year-olds are teenagers in training.  There’s a lot riding on the battles you wage today over toys, vegetables, and bedtimes.  Win lovingly.  Win well.    

 

4.  Falsehood

 

Presenting partial truths is a tool for altering other people’s perceptions and claiming victory.  Advertisers do this every day in the form of crafted commercials.  Sometimes it helps me to ask myself, “If this person knew more information, would it change their decision?”   Manipulation is subtle, and the Bible says that we don’t even know our own hearts completely.  “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” 

 

5.  Drama and comedy

 

 A common tool of the “class clown,” drama and comedy shift authority to the one who is getting the focus.  Making jokes when it’s time to be serious; creating conflict and drama when the attention ought to be elsewhere; crying over things that don’t call for tears—all of these are handy for distracting attention from the real issues at hand and affecting other people’s decisions. 

 

For those whose lives are filled with drama, Proverbs reminds us where “drama” finds its source:  “Only by pride cometh contention.” 

 

6.  Public Warfare

 

In my classes at church, I simply send children back to the adult service if they are determined to contest me publically, because I know that everyone is watching to see if they will win.   Sometimes we moms and teachers just need to say, “We’re done talking.”  Public warfare lures us into conversations that almost inevitably lead us to say more than we should say. 

 

I can’t really talk about public warfare without mentioning Facebook.  I think we all have made the mistake, somewhere along the way, of attending an argument we should have declined.   Publically chastising someone through a Facebook status—when there are usually at least 250 other innocent bystanders who will read that status and wonder what they did to earn the scolding—is not only unfair.  It’s unbiblical.  It draws outsiders into a personal dispute.  If it’s worth mentioning at all, then it’s worth mentioning in private (Matthew 18).  And if it’s not worth a personal confrontation, then it probably falls under the “forebear and forgive” category.    

 

7.  Silence and withholding relationships

 

It sounds noble, since it’s the polar opposite from the methods of our Public Warfare and Drama Queen manipulators.  But silence is not always golden. 

 

I love the cartoon I once saw of the husband and wife on each side of their bed:  with a fence of curled barbed wire dividing them.  The husband looks over and says meekly to his wife, “Apparently I have done something to offend you?” 

 

Poor Jason.  He has had to reach across barbed wire a few times in the last nineteen years to make restititution.  And when he did, I was the one in the wrong, no matter what he had originally done to make me upset.  To hold a silent grudge is to live in the assumption that the other person cannot change.   

 

 

 

God is in the business of changing people (most of all--me!), and He loves the person I may be tempted to manipulate.  To live by faith is to trust the Lord to handle my life without using deception and disrespect.  God is big enough for that task!