Are You Raising a Narcissist?

Last week I talked about the online quiz you could take to determine how narcissistic you are and I mentioned that after I took the quiz my husband took it and when the kids saw us hovering over the computer they wanted to take the test too.

Well it proved to be a great conversation starter and became the germ of a teaching moment. First the kids wanted to know what narcissism was, and then after they saw their scores (and I don't know how accurate a score for an eleven year-old can be) they had questions about what "entitlement" and "vanity" and other words meant. It opened up a great discussion on what it meant to be narcissistic and why that might be a bad thing and how hard it is not to be narcissistic during those young years when you're so sure everyone in the room is staring at you and criticizing.

I do agree with Twenge's research though, and people are becoming steadily more narcissistic, though I don't think the trend began suddenly in the 1990s. As our standard of living grows it's human nature to expect--no, demand--more comforts and if those comforts are taken away we feel a sense of loss even if we hadn't even known that particular comfort ever existed.

So today I'm mentioning a few ways where parents can help their kids avoid the narcissism trap (assuming, of course, that they themselves aren't already stuck). I could probably write posts on each of these but for now we'll be brief.

Stop Being a Personal Secretary
Every time I've gone to a Back-to-School Night I've had to laugh at the parents taking notes. What are they writing? All the responsibilities their children have for schoolwork because apparently the children haven't learned how to write things down for themselves. When parents take these kinds of responsibilities from their children it just reinforces how important the children's lives are over their parents' lives which equals--you guessed it--narcissism.

If your child has to be somewhere or do something set those expectations that it's their responsibility to see if you're available and to do all the reminding. It's their life isn't it? So shouldn't that be their responsibility?

Stop Being a Bank
I've written before about how I don't think children should have allowances so I won't go into that here, but I'll just say that if you act as the private financier not only are they not learning about how money really works but they just learn that anytime they have a need you will be there to provide it. Just like that.

Seems rather self-centered to me. Though wouldn't that be nice if we all had magic lamps that gave us all our wishes, no questions asked? Yea, that's a nice thought.

Stop Being Paparazzi
Going back to the parents at school . . . it's always a treat to walk into a school event like a play or assembly and not be able to see the stage through the tripods. The entire first row, and usually most of the second is set up with cameras aimed at the stage, ready to capture every sniffle and smirk. If that's not a lesson on how to produce a vain child I don't know what is.

While I'm all for taking pictures and mementos am I the only one who thinks the whole "capture the moment" thing has gotten WAY out of hand? Seems like it would be rather hard for a child to learn humility when every moment of their life they have a camera pointed at them and people cooing over how cute they are constantly. Take some pictures but let's not go overboard people. The child is, after all, still a mere mortal.

Show Them You Love Your Spouse More Than Them
The best thing you can do for your child is to show them you love your spouse. Not only does it teach them about proper, loving relationships but it's also entirely appropriate that they know that as much as you love them (the child) that you love your spouse more.

The parent-child bond is wonderful and amazing but it pales next to the marriage bond (or it should). No child should take precedence over a marriage and no child should think that they are more important to you than your spouse. Keep your Friday night activities with the kids to a minimum and instead go out with your husband (or wife) and show the kids how important you are to each other--it will be good for all of you.

Let Them Fight Their Own Battles
Life is a tough thing and no child learns much from having their mom or dad step in to deflect life's pain. Yes, they may not get along with the teacher that well (I've heard most educators are human beings, after all), they may have disputes and fights with other kids and while those things are hard to witness it's much better to let your children figure out how to deal with those things without you stepping in to absorb the impact.

Of course I'm not advising you encourage or allow abuse--of course not--but if you're always there to tell them how they're right and everyone else in the world is wrong they're guaranteed to grow up thinking that their opinion is the only one that matters. And it's not.

Let Them Fail
I've heard that there are a growing number of young adults who haven't learned how to fail. They've been cheered and coached and pushed through success after success so that when they finally get into the real world and something doesn't go their way they break down, unaware of how to actually handle failure.

Children need to experience failure--not constantly of course--but healthy competition is a good experience, and dealing with not being number one is a critical lesson to learn. Have you even noticed how many valedictorians each graduating class has nowadays? I think most are up to, like, 75 or 76 by now. Because heaven forbid anyone should actually perform at anything but perfection. Don't get me started on grade inflation. . . .

Avoid the "Renaissance Child" Syndrome
I've had conversations with friends who insist that their children need to learn how to play at least one musical instrument and participate in one sport at all times (whatever is seasonal). Some even go so far as to include a foreign language and time abroad in there but it can't be good for a child to be raised to think that they have a right to experience all that the fine arts and athletics has to offer.

No kid should be raised to be good at everything, sure let them find something they like that helps them succeed, but really now, does a well-balanced, non-narcissistic child need to speak three languages, be all-state in both football and wrestling, while also playing first violin in the junior youth symphony? Give them and give me a break--it'll go a long way to keeping them level-headed and not big-headed.

Keep Them Wanting
No human being should ever get to the point where they have all the material things their heart desires. Now I don't mean that we shouldn't find satisfaction with our surroundings--that is actually pretty important--what I mean is that we should never accumulate so much stuff that when your child asks you what you want for Christmas you have nothing to say. It's good to not have so much there isn't anything on earth that you wouldn't like and children--most definitely--should never get to that point.

Kids should always have things that they want that they can't ever have and if your children are complaining about what they don't have then you're probably doing a pretty good job as a parent.

Don't fulfill all their desires, don't buy them the latest gadget or the expensive jeans. Tell them it's okay that they don't have a computer or a television or whatever it is that puts them at the bottom of the social hierarchy in their little world and then let them learn how to deal with it. Or teach them how it's normal to not get everything you want because there are things you want but can't have too--that they're young and have to learn how to work for what they want and that no where in Life's Contract does it say that we all deserve to have our wants supplied.

Learning how to say "no" is the first step to keeping the narcissism away.

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