How Does Narcissistic Parenting Affect Children?

A Narcissistic Personality is a disorder where individuals exhibit a lack of ability to empathize with others and an inflated sense of self-importance. These people have a compelling need for admiration and are often self-centered manipulative and demanding. These characteristics become more evident in relationships where they can do a lot of damage. It is worse in a parenting relationship where a child is unable to defend themselves. When a parent exhibits narcissism, it often leads to a teen to lash out, only creating more issues. The Insight Treatment Center understands the difficulties of parent-child issues, while they can help with narcissistic parenting, they also help with teen treatment for behavior problems.

Impact of narcissistic parent on teens

A narcissistic parent is often very possessive or overly close to their child and may be envious or threatened by their child’s growing independence. These parents often live vicariously through the life of the child and are often in competition with them. The child constantly lives in their parent’s shadow.

As studies have proved, narcissistic parenting has a deep impact on offspring. A narcissistic parent will deny their child a sense of independence and the child serves the needs of the parent. A narcissistic parent will exaggerate their importance with respect to their child. A child will feel unheard and unseen, disappearing under the importance of the parent. Ultimately, teen treatment for behavior problems may be necessary.

A narcissistic parent will be so preoccupied with their own feelings that a child’s feelings will not be acknowledged. As an adult, the child will have problems with identifying and trusting their own feelings. They will often suffer from self-doubt. The child will feel used and manipulated, and their emotional development will be stunted. They often feel criticized rather than loved and accepted. A child of narcissistic parents will often grow up feeling not good enough and will often try to seek love and attention. These children will be taught that their image is more important than who they really are. They will often feel emotionally empty and not secure and nurtured.

Narcissism as a disorder and what is the help available for teens

Being in a child-parent relationship with a narcissist is like being in any other abusive relationship and can cause long-term effects. As professionals from the ”Teen Counseling Los Angeles ” group say, it is very easy to be misled by a narcissist, as they are charming with a perfect self-image. Children can feel frustrated and can struggle with loneliness and pain.

A narcissistic parent is always right, and this will lead a child to believe that they are the ones to blame. A child who has suffered narcissistic parenting will need huge helpings of empathy. Empathy is the antithesis of narcissism. Children need to be helped to be able to understand the dynamics of this disorder and thus come to understand how they have been manipulated.

Depending on the severity of the disorder children will need to have therapy and will have to learn assertiveness skills. Narcissism is a spectrum disorder so the higher the level of traits that a parent has, the worse the damage the children have. Children need counseling and could even need trauma recovery. As they grow, they need to learn to be able to put themselves first.

Contact Insight Treatment for More Information

The team of professionals with Insight Treatment are prepared to communicate with you and your family about counseling and therapy. They can provide teen treatment for behavior problems. Contact them by calling (800) 599-8820 and they can assist you in any way possible.