HOW IT STARTS
As infants we develop in the context of an attachment relationship. Without someone there to help us, we just wouldn’t survive. So nature has designed the attachment system to ensure that we stay in proximity to our parents. From birth we are primed to attach, and infants take an active role in initiating and maintaining the attachment relationship. As we develop, we learn about the world and ourselves from our parents. The social and emotional learning that takes place during this period is vital to our development.
But when our primary caregiver is emotionally unstable, the attachment relationship is fraught with danger. And there is no escape. Because we are hardwired to attach, we adapt to the parenting we receive. These adaptations help us survive, but they can be problematic once we grow up.
A narcissistic mother is by definition, self-focused. She has very little capacity to provide us with the support and emotional validation we need as children. She is also (in most cases) unable to repair the relationship when there is misattunement. So when she does the wrong thing, impinges, neglects or shames us, she won’t work to soothe or help us, doubling the impact and leaving us to deal with painful emotions on our own.
This doesn’t teach us resilience. It teaches us that relationships can’t give us what we want and that the world is fundamentally hostile.
1. Shaming
Narcissists are shame averse. They project shame onto others (including their children) as a way of avoiding experiencing it themselves. They also use shaming as a parenting strategy without making themselves available for soothing and repair. The strong emotions elicited by shame are too hard for a young child to manage on their own and can lead to the child using dissociation or other problematic ways of coping. A mother who is narcissistic will also put her own shame into her children through projection and eye contact, leaving a lifelong legacy of chronic shame.
2. Lack of Boundaries
Narcissists and narcissistic families tend to be enmeshed. Boundaries tend to be viewed as an inconvenience by narcissistic parents. Expect impingement, lack of privacy, projection and triangulation. Attempts to set limits, say no or pursue your own interests may be met with derision, ridicule and anger. You may grow up believing that the price for having relationships is loss of self.
The roles in narcissistic families are blurred or reversed, with children often “parentified.” Children in these families can be co-opted as emotional confidantes for a lonely parent or triangulated to form a phalanx against the other parent.
At other times, the child will be asked to adopt adult responsibilities, taking on a caring role, looking after siblings, doing housework and managing the household at the expense of schoolwork, friendships, enjoyment and play.
3. Lack of Emotional Support & Validation
Narcissists tend not to offer support or validation to others. Empathy is rare. In narcissistic families there is generally no containment, soothing, support, acknowledgement or validation. Children who grow up in this environment will think of themselves as “oversensitive”, “too emotional” “too much” or a burden to others. This is the message they receive from parents who are unwilling to do the work of providing emotional support to their children.
We need our parents to help us discover ourselves. They can help us communicate our internal world and understand who we are and what we are feeling. Because they are taught that their genuine emotions are unwelcome, children of narcissists often lose touch with their own feelings and become alienated from themselves.
4. Impossible Standards
Narcissists tend to impose very high standards on others. Their children will be required to be “perfect” in order to meet with the parent’s approval. Failure to meet the standards set by the parent often leads to the threat of withdrawal of love. The parent will hold this threat of rejection (and the end of the attachment relationship) as a means of controlling and dominating their children.
This leaves the child stuck in an impossible dilemma. Because we are all hard wired to attach, children threatened with rejection in this way will adapt to their parent’s needs and attempt to become what their parents want them to be, destroying the potential to become authentically themselves.
The child of narcissists will often grow up perfectionistic, becoming anxious and depressed when they fail to meet the impossible standards of parental expectations.
5. Control
Narcissists need to control others. Because they view their children as an extension of themselves, they will be driven to try to control them. Attempts to exert or express yourself will be met with hostility. When the parent holds the threat of disapproval and rejection over their head, the child gets the message that relationships are inherently fragile and that they need to meet other’s needs to be acceptable.
Unfortunately, narcissists find it almost impossible to accept others for who and how they are. The control is exerted to make sure that you appear to others as the perfect child, not because that is “good” but because your narcissistic parent needs you to reflect glory onto them.
In healthy families, children learn to become themselves by exploring, experimenting, making mistakes, messing up, being accepted, nurtured and encouraged to keep trying. Narcissistic parents tend not to encourage the free play and exploration that accompanies a child’s attempts to learn and explore the world. They will “take over,” never allowing the child to learn through failure. As a result of this control children can develop performance anxiety, afraid to try or make mistakes.
6. Lack of Recognition and Acceptance
This is a biggie and probably underlies most of the damage done by narcissistic parents, whether they are overtly neglectful or more controlling. Narcissists generally view difference and individuation as a threat. Because you are seen as an extension of them, they tend not to recognise or accept you as you are. For young children, this can be extremely destructive and derails the developmental processes that underlie identity formation.
Worse still, narcissistic parents may actively invalidate, criticise and undermine your authentic self. Ridicule, humiliation, judgement and shaming are used as parenting strategies to get you to do what they want you to do. In this kind of early environment, children eventually learn to ignore their own needs and feelings.
7. Focus on Appearances
Narcissistic parents are focused on appearances. They seem to care more about how things look than any intrinsic value or meaning in people or events. Children growing up in this environment quickly learn that they need to look attractive, and that what they do is more important than who they are. They learn to value status and achievement above kindness and generosity, winning above connection.
Growing up with parents who value appearance and status results in children becoming obsessed with worldly success, recognition and acknowledgement. Lacking an internal compass, they rely on external markers to tell them who they are and manage their self-esteem.
8. Hostility
Children raised by narcissistic mothers will often internalise a strong feeling of self-hatred. These mothers offer only conditional love, leaving the child to believe they are unloveable without the approval that comes with meeting their parent’s needs.
But more than this, narcissistic mothers can unconsciously project anger and hostility onto children, using sarcasm and ridicule, judging, belittling and criticising. It can be a bit like growing up with a team of high-powered attorneys picking apart everything you say and do for potential flaws and inconsistencies. Children experiencing this kind of treatment can grow up to become defensive and apprehensive, waiting for the next emotional blow.
These emotionally damaging parents also pit their children against one another to make them feel better about themselves and underline their power. The narcissistic family runs on power and conflict, control, manipulation and competition rather than love and empathy.
Because they are valued for what they do rather than who they are, children of narcissists desperately strive to meet impossible standards and when they fail, they become filled with self-hatred. These children can also be extremely competitive as adults, forgoing the joy of real connection for jealousy, envy and obsessive competition.
The model for social relations in narcissistic families is one of using or being used. Children of narcissists rarely learn kindness or compassion — for themselves or others. Real connection and vulnerability are not valued by narcissistic parents. Other people are viewed as “automats,” providing narcissistic supplies, but swiftly discarded when no longer useful.
Internalising these values is extremely destructive for children. Underneath the constant striving and over-achievement of children raised by narcissists is a deep well of self-hatred, which can sometimes manifest in hostility projected outwards. Children raised in these environments can also be paranoid and cynical, lacking trust and belief in the inherent value or goodness of the world.
Narcissistic parents create damage. Although the wounds aren’t always visible, they are still there, creating havoc in the lives of their children. The emotional abuse suffered by these unloved children is constant, due to the indelible character flaws inherent in narcissistic personalities.
Children of narcissists are often forced to believe the skewed world view of people who are self-focused and paranoid, growing up to think the world is hostile. Without therapy, they can become lonely and self-destructive, lacking the ability to find themselves or be close to others.
Narcissistic parenting creates adults who lack a strong sense of self. Learning to develop self-awareness and compassion is the first step to unwinding the distortions of your damaging childhood.
