Farah assumed her refusal to buy her 15-year-old son a new phone would blow over within a couple of days of sulking, the way it always had before.
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This time was different. The silence lasted a full week. Then came a sentence she hadn't expected: "If you don't buy it for me, I'm not going to school." Farah stood in front of her son unsure whether she was dealing with a spoiled child accustomed to getting his way, a teenager going through a genuine crisis he didn't know how to express, or whether she herself had gone wrong somewhere along the way, setting boundaries one moment and abandoning them the next.
A Fraught Space Between a Child's Wants and a Parent's Judgment
This scene, in its many variations, has become common enough in households that it now appears regularly in television dramas. As trends shift, products change, and requests pile up, parents increasingly find themselves caught between a genuine desire to make their children happy and financial realities that don't always allow every wish to become reality. Meanwhile, some children escalate their pressure tactics to get what they want, ranging from prolonged sulking and punitive silence to threats of slipping in school or refusing to attend altogether, and in more concerning cases, hints of self-harm as a final bargaining chip.
These situations don't leave parents with a simple "buy it or not" question. They force a harder one: how do you say no without turning it into a battle, how do you hold a boundary without making your child feel rejected or unloved, and how do you tell the difference between a passing want, pressuring behavior, and a signal that may be masking a real psychological crisis?
When a Child Resorts to Threats to Get What They Want
Psychological and educational counselor Raeda al-Kilani said the phenomenon is complex and cannot be blamed on a single party within the family. A child or teenager who resorts to threats to get what they want, she explained, doesn't do so out of nowhere they have learned at some point that this approach works, or that it's the only way to make adults listen and take their wishes seriously. Al-Kilani added that the digital environment has compounded the problem in two ways: first, by intensifying children's and teenagers' exposure to products, trends and advertising, making desires more frequent and more urgent.
How Teenagers View What Others Own
The second, she said, is that digital exposure has made comparison with peers constant and immediate. A teenager no longer has to wait to see what a classmate or neighbor owns they can see, at any moment, what others have, what they're buying, where they're going, and how they live.
"Today's teenager sees, at every moment, what someone else owns, and this creates a sense of deprivation even when no real deprivation exists," al-Kilani said.
Here, she explained, the phone, the shoes, the clothing or any other product stops being the only issue. What matters more is the feeling that takes hold in the child that they are somehow less than others if they don't have what those others have, and that not getting something means being excluded from the group or set apart from it.
Sociologist Dr. Hussein Khuzai, for his part, sees the phenomenon as reflecting a deeper shift in the nature of relationships between generations within the family. Today's parents, he said, largely belong to a generation raised on a culture of "you don't ask questions" and "parents decide," yet many chose a more open, dialogue-based approach in raising their own children, giving kids greater room to express their opinions and needs.
"This shift is good in essence, but it can sometimes create confusion around boundaries," Khuzai said. "The child understood that they have a voice and the right to express their opinion, but they didn't necessarily learn the difference between expressing a need and pressuring to get a want."
From Dialogue to Constant Bargaining
Khuzai noted that when boundaries aren't clear, dialogue that is supposed to foster mutual understanding can turn into a space for constant bargaining, and eventually into conflict between parents and children. He added that rising economic pressure heightens tension within the family, since parents already struggling with the cost of living find it doubly difficult to face endless requests, particularly when those requests are shaped by what children see among their peers and on social media.
In some cases, parents resort to flat refusal; in others, they give in to what their children ask for while feeling resentful or frustrated. Neither approach, Khuzai said, addresses the root problem. He explained that the issue doesn't begin at the request and doesn't end at the refusal it lies in the fact that many families lack a genuine space for dialogue before a crisis moment arrives.
Learning How to Express a Want
Dialogue that only begins once a child raises their voice, issues a threat, or withdraws from the conversation often comes too late, Khuzai said. The relationship between parent and child instead needs continuous space in which the child learns how to express what they want, how to hear the word "no," and how to handle disappointment without turning it into a battle.
Threats of Self-Harm
The picture becomes more sensitive when a child threatens self-harm. Al-Kilani stressed that this kind of threat should never be dismissed, even if a parent suspects the child is using it purely as leverage to get something.
"Whether the threat is a pressure tactic or a genuine expression of inner pain, the response should be the same: sitting calmly with the child and listening to what lies behind the words," she said. A phrase uttered in a moment of anger may be an attempt at pressure, she added, but it could also be an expression of distress or pain the child doesn't know how to articulate any other way.
Al-Kilani warned against extreme reactions in either direction, whether fully giving in to the threat or escalating into confrontation.
Deepening the Crisis and Closing the Door on Dialogue
Giving in to the threat, she explained, risks reinforcing the behavior and teaching the child that intimidation and pressure are the path to getting what they want, while escalation and confrontation can deepen the crisis and shut down dialogue altogether. A child who uses such words, she said, even if attempting to apply pressure, needs to be heard and taken seriously, not punished and not rewarded for the threat. If parents sense that what they're hearing goes beyond ordinary pressure tactics and reflects deeper pain or crisis, she advised seeking professional help immediately, without delay.
For parents facing these situations, al-Kilani proposed three core principles. The first is separating the request from the relationship, meaning parents should make clear to their children that refusing to buy something or declining a particular wish doesn't mean a lack of love or rejection of the child. The second is teaching children to express disappointment in a healthy way, through calm conversations held outside moments of tension and anger. The third is for parents to remain available to talk and listen whenever a signal appears that goes beyond ordinary pressure.
A Safe Space at Home
Khuzai added a practical dimension, noting that a family that builds a habit of daily conversation about feelings and pressures doesn't wait for a crisis to begin communicating. Instead, it creates a safe space at home that allows the child to express what they want, what bothers them and what frightens them, without needing to resort to threats to feel heard.
Khuzai agreed with al-Kilani that the real solution begins with shifting the conflict away from a material object and toward an opportunity to understand what lies behind it, and how to open the door to dialogue. A child doesn't always need to get everything they ask for, he said, just as parents don't need to feel guilty every time they say no.
What both sides need, he said, is for that word to become part of a safe, clear relationship one in which "no" means refusing a specific request, without meaning rejection of the child.
Source: Al-Ghad. Reporting: Dima Mahbouba
