Childhood trauma is something that can affect a person for the rest of their life.
For some, their parents may have been too strict or absent altogether, but others may have had a far more sinister relationship, experiencing a childhood being raised by narcissistic parents.
A narcissist is a manipulative person who lacks empathy and has an exaggerated sense of self-importance. They have an excessive preoccupation with themselves and their needs, even at the expense of others.
When a narcissist’s behavior becomes severe enough, they may be diagnosed with the mental health condition narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).
A narcissistic parent or one with NPD is self absorbed and only sees their children as extensions of themselves, often expecting their kids to make sacrifices in order to fulfill their own needs.
They can be controlling, volatile and emotionally abusive, and they may withhold love and compassion from their children.
This leads to kids developing low self-esteem and deep insecurities, anxiety, depression and unhealthy relationships in adulthood.
A 2022 study estimates between one and two percent of the general population have the disorder – though this is likely an undercount because narcissists often try to hide their narcissistic traits.
Having a narcissistic parent can cause trauma for children, and this can result in lifelong issues
It’s unclear if narcissistic parenting patterns have become more common, or if people have just become more familiar with the term, or if it has become better known as therapy becomes more popular.
What is clear is that interest in the topic has increased.
Google searches for narcissistic parents have been increasing steadily over the past two decades, with this phenomenon now being considered a contributor to a range of psychological ails in kids.
The hashtag #narcissisticparent on TikTok has more than 143,000 posts.
Dr Mena Mirhorm, a New Jersey-based psychiatrist and assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, told DailyMail.com, psychiatrists have likewise seen this trend increase in their offices
He said: ‘It’s very common, unfortunately,’ adding he sees clients who had a narcissistic parent in his practice two or three times a week.
Because of this, he’s come up with common personality traits narcissistic parents display and offered suggestions on how to cope.
Do your parents show signs of CONTROL?
Narcissistic parents fit into an acronym Dr Mirhorm dubbed CONTROL.
C is for conditional love, meaning narcissistic parents only offer love when they feel you are meeting their expectations.
If you didn’t get the grades your parent desire, they might have made you feel you weren’t good enough or were no longer worthy of love.
O is over control. A narcissistic parent often feels their way of doing things is the only way, or the best way.
When they see you doing things differently than they would, they interject and add their opinion about how things should best be done.
For example, they might say you used the dishwasher wrong simply because you loaded the plates differently than they would, even if the dishes still end up clean.
This can create a deep sense of insecurity in the child that may persist into adulthood and make you feel that no matter how well you’re doing something, you could be doing it better.
N is for neglect of emotion. Narcissistic parents tend to be focused on their own needs.
When a child expresses their thoughts or feelings, especially in anger or sadness, a narcissistic parent may be quick to dismiss them, since it distracts from focus on the parent.
This could look like a parent who encourages their kid not to cry or attract too much attention. Children raised in this environment may struggle to be in touch with their emotions, and as a consequence, may have problems forming attachments with other people.
Or, it could cause a reverse scenario, wherein the child never learns healthy emotional regulation, and acts out in extreme ways.
T is for two-faced treatment. Children who were raised in this pattern may feel their parent behaves very differently towards them in public versus private scenarios.
Dr Mirhom is an assistant professor at Columbia and runs his own psychiatry practice in Manhattan
Dr Mirhom said: ‘You are sometimes praised publicly, because that will reflect well on the parent and sort of feed their narcissism.
‘But then privately, you’re hyper criticized, you really put under the microscope.’
This creates a feeling of anxiety for the child.
R is for role reversal. In these patterns, adults often rely inappropriately on their child for support. Sometimes, this makes the child themselves feel like the adult in the relationship.
Dr Mirhom said: ‘For example, a parent can say to a child, “You’re the only one who understands me. You’re the one who’s going to be able to help me with this.” And what that does is it puts the child in the position to be the parent, to have to take the emotional burden.’
This is detrimental because it forces a child to take on too much responsibility at too young an age. This can make a child feel that they have no one to depend on, which can persist into adulthood, making it hard for a child of a narcissist to form relationships with and trust others.
O is for overpraising, which can go hand in hand with two-faced treatment. With this trait, the parent doses their kid with an extreme amount of encouragement or love for doing something that aligned with the parent’s wants.
Later, however, when that praise is taken away, it reinforces the child’s feeling that they only deserve to be loved when they are ‘good.’
Finally, L is for lack of empathy. This is similar to neglect of emotion, except instead of willfully ignoring their child’s emotional needs, the parent is actually incapable of understanding why their kid might be feeling sad, upset or distressed.
Dr Mirhom said: ‘Because the narcissist is always thinking about their own emotion and not about the emotion of the child, they’ll say things like: “Why are you upset? What have you been going through? Oh, look what I’ve been through.”‘
All told, these different facets of narcissistic parenting compound on one another, making it more likely a child will grow up insecure, with feelings of inadequacy and problems connecting with other people, as well as mental health conditions of their own, like anxiety and depression.
Practice becoming CALM
In 2023, actor Cole Sprouse opened up in an interview about how his mother’s decision to put him and his twin brother into acting as children may have reflected some narcissistic tendencies. He said: ‘I think it satisfied some sort of narcissism she probably had in order to be recognized as this sort of artistic’
Once a person realizes they may have been raised in this kind of environment, Dr Mirhom recommends taking steps to prepare before you have to see or interact with your narcissistic parent or parents.
He recommends remembering the acronym CALM.
The C in calm stands for creating boundaries. As an adult, a person who was raised by a narcissistic parent might benefit from deciding what they can tolerate.
For example, someone might ask their parent to refrain from criticizing them. If their parent is unable to follow that boundary, then the child might decide to remove themselves from the situation in order to respect his or her own boundaries.
The A stands for adjust expectations. When people see their parents after a period of time, they may subconsciously hope for things their parent was never able to give them as a child.
Someone might hope, for example, their parent may be more understanding now that they are older, and open to the possibility of reconciliation.
However, hoping for lifelong patterns to shift usually ends in disappointment.
‘If you know, somebody’s been behaving in a particular way their entire life, there’s a good chance that they’re not going to change,’ Dr Mirhom said.
L stands for limit engagement, which means a person should pick their battles with their parent.
Narcissists frequently create scenarios with conflict, and might try to revert to older tactics of making their child feel insignificant or unworthy.
In these scenarios, Dr Mirhom said, it’s sometimes better to remove yourself from the situation than to engage in an active fight with your parent. These can lead to bigger explosions and conflict than necessary.
Finally, M stands for mentally prepare. This includes things like making sure you feel safe going into your next interaction with your narcissistic parent, and also learning how to identify what sets you off and how to best remove yourself from situations that don’t serve you.
Dr Mirhom told this website: ‘You want to know the exit before you’re in the fire. You don’t want to wait until something bad happens already.’
While a childhood under a narcissistic parent can lead to people pleasing, difficulty creating healthy boundaries, mental health conditions and even showing some narcissistic traits yourself toward others, there are ways to get help, including individual and group therapy.
