Infantalizing and Control

"Infantalizing" is when someone is treated as if they are incapable, as if they are much younger and less knowledgeable and experienced than they are, or than others are. This very disrespectful practice can have severe effects on the emotional and even mental well-being of a person if it is done for a long enough period of time, and especially when done to a child by family members. Narcissistic parents are notorious for infantalizing. The youngest in a family is a frequent target, and often for no other reason than falsely inflating the egos of the rest of the family; just to have a permanent person who everyone can compare themselves to and say they are less capable than themselves. Sometimes it is simply whoever has an easygoing personality, whoever has the smaller physique, whoever is NOT a bully in a group of aggressives, whoever a "leader" of a group wants to target, or whoever has been groomed not to stand up for themselves.
Infantalizing goes beyond immediate family as well; it is frequently practiced in society at large by those with inferiority or superiority complexes, those who seek to be seen as a Leader, those who desire control over another individual, and those who seek to sabotage another person. Treating a person as if they are "less than' oneself, or "less than" others, serves an agenda. It diminishes the person's image to others as a capable, intelligent, experienced individual. If a control freak can convince not only everyone else, but the person they have targeted as well that they are not as capable or intelligent (happens ALL THE TIME), then they can simply push them aside, and not have to worry about the person standing up for themselves anymore, or proving them wrong, or outshining them.
Condescension, judgment,dismissal, criticism, comparison, unsolicited advice, oppositional language and shunning are all tools that controllers use to infantalize a person.
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