There's more narcissism that people are dealing with than they've ever recognized before.
But what effect does a narcissistic parent have on a child? I'm Nicholeen Peck. I'm
a parenting expert and an author. And today, we'll be talking about just that.
I often meet with families who are struggling through relationships. Many parents tell me that
they've finally broken away from a narcissistic spouse or parent of their children. And they
struggle with some of the after-effects of that narcissism. And specifically what
affects that narcissism has on their children. In this video, I'm going to be talking about
what effects a narcissistic parent has on a child. The best way to produce a narcissist is to have
a parent who is a narcissist. Narcissistic tendencies are trained by other narcissists.
Because the child is trained in narcissistic ways, soon they start attacking other people. They pick
their victims. Sometimes their victims are a sibling or a friend or sometimes even the
other parent. Maybe one of the parents is a more humble parent. Well, then soon that narcissistic
child starts to dominate or be aggressive over the more humble parent as well. That's probably
one of the hardest things to deal with is when you see the narcissistic spouse that you have
have that effect on your children and have a hard time trying to counter it. There are ways
that you can counter it but it does take stepping outside of your comfort zone --choosing to create
some concrete boundaries and expecting that they will push harder before the problem actually goes
away. I teach Self-Government. Self-Government is being able to determine the cause and effect of
any given situation and possessing a knowledge of your own behaviors so that you can control them.
That means that a person analyzes themselves and chooses to change themselves. The way
that they learn that is by a parent analyzing them and teaching them how to change themselves
through their corrections, praises, and teaching correct behaviors. Narcissistic parents parent
with emotion, drama, intrigue, manipulations, changing their minds all of the time. They're very
hard to figure out. Sometimes, they even get other people to do their bidding for them. What happens
to a child when they feel tossed to and fro by a narcissistic parent's emotional manipulations
and psychological manipulations? Well, let me tell you. Number 1, lots of drama. When they
experience the psychological abuse that a narcissistic parent inflicts upon them or upon
other family members whoever they happen to be targeting at the time, that child experiences
more drama in their lives. So, they see things as more serious. They see people's emotions as things
that cannot be conquered but have to be dealt with in ways where you figure out how to get away
or how to fight back. They think those are their only options. So, they often becomes fighters
or they become victims. Another result of being raised by a narcissist is lies.
Lots of lies. In fact, children get trained to lie because they're afraid of the narcissist.
They don't want that person to come down on them and psychologically abuse them again so they come
up with more ways to get out of the problem that they see themselves in. The way they get out of
it the survival skill that they choose to adopt is usually dishonesty. Children who are raised
by narcissistic parents have higher levels of anxiety. They stress, they become depressed,
and they don't think that they are valuable people. They don't get the normal signals and cues
from that parent that they are just valuable for who they are despite the way they behave.
Most parents naturally give those cues to their children so children continually strive to improve
and accomplish their goals even if they mess up from time to time. But a child who's been raised
by a narcissist who does not get those cues that they're valuable outside of the actions that they
perform in behalf of the narcissist worries that they might not be valuable intrinsically just for
who they are. You see, a child who's been raised by a narcissist has a single focus --to please
the narcissist. If that narcissistic parent can be pleased then the child feels like their life will
decrease in its drama. Their problems will go away and they'll be able to have the happy times again.
There's one thing about a narcissist. They keep vacillating between the drama, the intense,
"that you've disappointed me" and "oh, wow. This is so great and so fun and so happy" and then
boom back to the other side. The child wants to keep the narcissist on the good side so that child
does everything within their power to please that narcissistic parent. Because narcissistic
parents are so controlling, children often have a hard time making their own decisions. They're
worried they'll make the wrong decision and then that narcissistic parent will come after them
in some psychological or emotional way that will make life difficult for them. So, in order to not
make the wrong decision and incur the wrath of the narcissistic parent, they oftentimes don't make
any decision at all. This gives the narcissistic parent complete control. The problem is the
narcissistic parent gets bothered by the fact that the child won't make a decision that pleases them.
They expect often times the child to know exactly what will please them. And so, they put them in a
situation of increased stress while the child does not dare make a choice for fear that it could be
the wrong one. I hope you can see that this type of parenting is very abusive and it stops children
from progressing. In fact, one characteristic of children that have been raised by narcissists
is that they won't step out of their comfort zone very often. They often don't launch into
life very well. In fact, they allow the narcissist to usually control which steps towards launching
into adulthood that they can take. They let them control everything to try to keep the peace.
Children raised by narcissists are easily controlled and manipulated. So, that means
other people in their lives can also control them. In fact, when other people in their lives
start expressing counter views to the narcissist, that child becomes very confused. Because they've
been taught that that parent is never wrong. And they have to always do what that parent says.
So, as soon as someone brings a counter view that child then feels like they don't know what
to do with their life. In fact, especially if they find a truth that goes against something
that that narcissistic parent has taught them, they don't know how to stand up for it. In fact,
they're worried if they even know anything. And that's what a narcissist wants. They want everyone
to think that they know nothing so that then the narcissist can take control of everything.
Because of this confusion that results from the psychological attacks of a narcissistic parent,
the children sometimes can struggle following a line of logic. You might tell them this is
what is true. Teach them a principle even show them multiple proofs of it but they don't want
to see it if it goes against something that the narcissist has already told them. They become
completely close-minded and worried that changing their mind could create conflict in their personal
lives. So, because they don't allow themselves to see a line of logic through, they can't often
times recognize truth in its other forms. Another thing they don't recognize very well
is emotional cues in other people. This is because their sensitivities to emotional cues are so
heightened because of living with a narcissist that they think everything means more than it
does. This means that a person is constantly looking for where they've gone wrong. They lack
confidence. They usually bond to people that end up controlling them. Narcissism always leads to
more bondage. Narcissism is all about emotional control. If you have liked this video, I'm
pretty sure you're going to enjoy my next video which is "How to improve emotional intelligence
in children" Children need to be emotionally intelligent so that they don't fall victim to the
next narcissist around the corner. Sadly, we have more and more narcissists than we've ever known of
before. Maybe it's because we finally can identify it or maybe we're just breeding them. We need to
be careful and teach our children how to not be emotionally controlled. We do this by creating
emotionally strong and intelligent people. Watch that next video. I know you'll enjoy it.