Children’s behaviour
When co-parenting with a vengeful, narcissistic ex, one of your biggest fears is that your child becomes a narcissist too. When a younger child goes into a rage, you panic. When your older child is boastful, arrogant, selfish, disrespectful or displays harmful behaviour, then your fears intensify. We curse our narcissistic ex for their lack of parenting skills.
What we often don't realise is some of these emotional outbursts are a phase and ones that many children experience, and emerge from, in time. Young children are often unable to express their feelings of frustration and anger verbally, so they lash out. Teenagers are developing their individuality, testing their boundaries with you, and trying to demonstrate their level of maturity. Sometimes we find ourselves blaming the narcissistic parent for everything!
Cruel narcissists have a deep-rooted sense of entitlement and a lack of empathy. They are incapable of self-reflection and genuine remorse, which enables them to use the child as a weapon and harm their mental health in the process. When you are aware of how you don't want your child to grow up, it's easier to focus on what you do want your child to learn.
Your mission
You are in a challenging position, and your mission is not an easy one, but it is vital to protect your child's emotional health and wellbeing. You must counter the damaging traits your ex attempts to instil by;
Raising your child to have a healthy mind with realistic views of themselves – praise them accordingly, sensibly and keep them grounded.
Give them the tools to be able to recognise when they are behaving inappropriately. Teach them to learn from their mistakes and to grow from them.
Teach your child self-worth in the face of adversity. Teach that it is ok to fail and receive criticism at times and that it's the effort that is important not the result. Show them, unconditional love.
Younger children can be enamoured of the narcissist; their generosity, the fun experiences, the high life. Deep down, children want to have their feelings and emotions validated; they want their opinion to count. They want to have emotional permission to think, feel and behave freely, and their personality to develop naturally. These are things the cruel, narcissistic parent will try to control. Children observe and compare both parents' behaviours as they get older. So, use this difficult co-parenting journey as an opportunity to demonstrate a clear comparison to your child.
When your child hurts someone emotionally or physically, teach them to pause and think about their behaviour. How did they both feel? What could your child have done differently?
Teach them a pattern so they can grow an understanding of themselves and how they impact those around them—model self-awareness to your child by talking about your behaviour and apologising when necessary.
The narcissistic parent
A narcissistic parent will try to raise a child's self-esteem in an unhealthy manner. They will shower them in praise and give them illusions of grandeur. They will put their child on a pedestal and show others how 'special' their child is. They will show their child disappointment and anger if they don't meet their high expectations. They will encourage their child to think and feel as if they are superior to others rather than reassure them and guide them to self-improve. They will give conditional love to their child. They will instil feelings of shame and guilt in the process.
Eddie Brummelman, Assistant Professor at the Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam, conducted research published in April 2020. His helpful and important study focused on 'Raising Children with High Self-Esteem (But Not Narcissism)’.
He writes;
"We propose a tripartite model of self-regard, which holds that the development of self-esteem without narcissism can be cultivated through realistic feedback (rather than inflated praise), a focus on growth (rather than on outperforming others) and unconditional regards (rather than regard that is conditional)".
Brummelman's work is essential in understanding the parenting techniques which create narcissism in children and what measure can be taken in an attempt to nip the narcissism in the bud at an early age.
Hope
As a parent with a highly narcissistic ex, you face an uphill battle ahead; you are not just trying to raise a child without narcissism, you are trying to counter the narcissist’s harmful parenting methods.
I want to give you hope because I know that these methods can work. You, as the healthy, safe parent, are already modelling all of this to your child. They see it in you. But when you are fully aware of what you are trying to achieve, then you will make a conscious effort to implement and model this thought process. You will encourage your child to have an abundance of self-awareness, to be coachable and to feel worthy. You will have done all in your power to defeat narcissism.