We get a lot of requests from you --the viewers of Live On Purpose TV. Here's a
new one: "Dr. Paul, will you make a video on how to deal with a child with
narcissistic personality disorder?" I've got you. I think I understand where this
question is coming from. Because I've worked with children for my entire
career. I've worked with parents for almost 30 years now as a psychologist.
And the place we need to start with this particular question is to clear up the
difference between narcissism or narcissistic traits and narcissistic
personality disorder. First of all, the roots of this name goes clear back to
Greek mythology where Narcissus was so taken with his own reflection. He fell in
love with himself and that's where narcissism comes from. Where you're so in
love with yourself that you ignore other people or their needs or the impact that
you have on them, children do this as part of their natural development. I
don't want to confuse today narcissistic personality disorder, which is a very
specific diagnostic category, with narcissistic traits or tendencies which
are common and expected really in a normal course of development. So, let's
talk about both. And then toward the end, I want to give you four specific things
that you can do as a parent if your child is showing a lot of these traits.
I'm going to read to you from the diagnostic system what narcissistic
personality disorder is. So, listen up. Narcissistic personality disorder or NPD
is a personality disorder with long term pattern of abnormal behavior
characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance an excessive need for
admiration and a lack of empathy. People affected by it often spend a lot of time
thinking about achieving power or success or about their appearance. They
often take advantage of the people around them. Okay,
sounds like somebody you know, probably, right? This only becomes a disorder if it
is more than we would normally expect to
see in typical human behavior. The things that I just listed for you,
self-importance, okay? A need for admiration from others, a lack of empathy.
We're going tO see that probably even in ourselves from time to time. So, don't get
worried about having narcissistic personality disorder or someone that you
know having this especially if they're young. Because I want to hit this next
part with you as well. Check out this part. Narcissistic personality disorder
usually develops in adolescence or during early adulthood. It is not
uncommon for children and adolescents to display some traits similar to those of
NPD. But such occurrences usually are transient and do not meet the criteria
for a diagnosis of NPD. Translation: Your child doesn't have NPD --narcissistic
personality disorder. There are traits and characteristics. Again, I'll come back
to those in just a minute. Let's not make the error of diagnosing children with
NPD. It's something that happens in later adolescence, early adulthood and then
it's characterized by a long-term pattern. So, when we see those patterns
emerging, there's things that we can do. And I think I'll shift the focus of this
video over to handling narcissistic traits or behaviors rather than the
disorder. Which I personally would reserve for older people, not children.
What I'm saying here also applies to the other personality disorders like
antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder,
histrionic Personality Disorder. These are things that develop into a
characterological pattern. And we don't even really call it a disorder until at
least late adolescence, if not, young adulthood. I did another video on
what is "Antisocial personality disorder?" you can link to that right up here in
this corner of the frame. Cue it up. You'll get some more information about
the personality disorders as you watch that video. Now, what can we do about it
if we see some narcissistic traits? Here's what I would suggest: I've picked
out four from a blog post by Christine Hammond that appeared on psych Central's
website. In this blog post, she hit several different points. These are the
4 that I liked the best. Number 1, minimize entitlement.
Entitlement is that feeling or sense that the world owes me something. And in
our kids, it's often that the parents owe me something. Entitlement is a
destructive thought pattern because it puts people in a position where they
don't understand the value exchange that's necessary to receive something
that you want. I like to teach kids, "Yeah you can have anything you can afford." Now,
I put it in those words because there's an exchange necessary. The world doesn't
owe them anything. And your kids... Let's just talk about your kids for a minute.
Your kids have more than they deserve. Now, I believe that every kid deserves a
good life with parents who love them no matter what and even if. When I say they
don't deserve it, I mean that under their own power, they don't have the resources
to live the kind of life that you are providing for them. Is that true? Yeah,
that's true if you're providing a place for them to live. Because kids don't have
the resources to do that on their own. Do they? No. Well, because kids are
receiving all of this stuff from you for free, they can develop entitlement. That's
what we need to watch out for. There's a lot of ways to help kids with this. And I
think some of the other videos here on the positive parenting playlist will
give you some ideas about that. Let's move on to the second
one that I got from the blog post. A troubling aspect of narcissistic traits
or characteristics is a lack of empathy. So, the next thing we want to do as
parents is to teach empathy. Empathy has 2 important components to it that you
understand and care how someone else feels. I think both of those components
are really important. The understanding obviously helps you to connect with
another person. And caring is probably the main thing that's lacking in
narcissistic personality disorder. Let's give our kids opportunities to
connect with other people in ways that they can see understand and care how
they feel. The next tip that came from the blog post is to avoid rescuing. This
is something that I like to teach a lot. I remember having a conversation years
ago with Jim Fay when I was doing a special podcast just for parents. And Jim
was my guest on the show. He's one of the founders of the love and logic approach.
And Jim shared with me that there's 3 R's of parenting that we need to avoid.
The 3 R's of parenting? What are those? He explains rant, rave and rescue. This is
where you ball them out and you bail them out. Narcissistic personality disorders
are characterized by a lack of appreciation about how our own behavior
impacts the world and others around us. When we don't rescue our children from
the natural consequences of their choices, it actually empowers them to see
the world in a more truthful way. When we rescue them, it sends the wrong message.
It sends the message that, "Oh, well you're probably not capable of handling all the
stuff in your life. Let me as the all-powerful parent come in and just
save you from all that." Now, I exaggerated it so that you would be a little
repulsed. Did it work? You don't want to be in that
position as a parent. You want your kids to
understand that their behavior matters. So, when they make a mistake and there's
a consequence that is forthcoming, don't rescue them from the consequence. Let it
fall. You know as we come to the fourth point that I promised you. I'll put a
little context around this as well. Narcissism is basically an unhealthy
level of self-love. And it's not even really love. It's based in insecurity.
It's based in trying to always obtain external approval for what's going on
inside. So, this fourth tip is probably the most powerful one. Show unconditional
love. You remember your job as a parent is to love your children no matter what
and even if. That's your job. Showing your child unconditional love means that they
don't have to earn your love. And this is one of the risk factors for a
narcissistic personality problem. In other words to depend on the external
validation from others. It's really a conditional acceptance approval or even
love that they desperately are trying to avoid. And that's what develops into a
personality disorder quite often. So, show that unconditional love. That's your job
to love them no matter what and even if. Parenting can get kind of
tricky. Especially when it comes to topics like these. If you would like to
have a free breakthrough call with me or one of our certified coaches, go to the
description and click on the link that will take you to DrPaul Jenkins.com
/breakthroughcall. We look forward to having a personal
conversation with you.