Parents Who Don’t See Past Themselves
Hi, I’m Shea Stevens, a private practice counselor in Texas specializing in family issues. If I’m asked to pick one main trait of narcissistic parents, I think of the tendency to not make space for their child. To not truly see their kid, or allow them to take up space. The result of a parent who centers themselves too much is that they do not attune to the child in ways they need, or hold space for their child’s thoughts, feelings, or the things that make their child a unique person apart from the parent.
I have another post on Childhood Emotional Neglect which talks about what happens when there is a significant issue in the emotional connection between parent and child. Sometimes this happens with parents who are narcissistic, sometimes it’s due to other circumstances. Narcissism is a trait on a spectrum; not all parents with narcissistic tendencies are full-blown narcissists. I believe experiences with narcissism are common in cases of complex trauma in a family or church but not everyone who is emotionally neglectful is a full-blown narcissist. Every person is unique and complicated.
Variations of Narcissism
There can be different presentations of narcissism. Some of these parents may be totally distant, some may fluctuate between enmeshment one day and heavy criticism the next. The distinguishing characteristic is that a narcissistic parent often does not choose to see past themselves, to the detriment of their child. A common trait of narcissism in parents is seeing their child as an extension of themselves. Some narcissistic parents will give their child lots of attention, but they could be engaging with them without really seeing or listening to them. Projection is when a parent places characteristics or expectations onto a child based on their own desires, dreams, or fears, without stopping to ask whether the child is their own person, and who that young person is.
Projection is a huge piece of narcissism, it is a trait of people who are too fragile to face themselves. I believe it is a key reason why a narcissistic parent can feel justified in belittling and subjugating their children to mistreatment; because they are too wrapped up in their own fragility or trauma history to hold space for another person’s needs. Compassionate parenting is not for the weak; it requires a lot of fortitude to hold space for yourself and also another person. The interesting thing about projection is that even when it seems like it’s about the child’s shortcomings, it might still be about the parent. A parent who is critical all the time might be that way because they don’t feel that they can be accepted or worthy themselves, and they project that onto their child. Instead of giving the child space to be accepted for how they are, the parent’s own insecurity or trauma gets repeated and projected onto the next generation. Healing and growing serves not just the individual but also their children; likewise, refusing to work through your stuck points hurts not just yourself but your kids too.
No Parent is Perfect
The failure to hold space for your child is something that every parent falls into at times. It’s a challenge to constantly hold space for another person, and parenting is not easy. No parent has a perfect track record with this. The key difference is that a narcissistic parent does this frequently, chronically, and the child experiences it as significantly harmful. There is a spectrum from being clinically, significantly narcissistic; qualifying for the DSM personality disorder, to a parent who is attuned and connected sometimes but still demonstrates this tendency fairly often. No one’s childhood is perfect. It can be all the more toxic because of this confusion of whether your parent is “good” or “bad”. Children who are young and who have not yet developed higher levels of critical thinking may not be able to sort through the nuance, and the need to attach to your parent is a strong survival instinct. When you think of your parent as a wonderful, ideal person, you internalize the idea that people who love us can make us feel bad or unworthy, and it might take time to go back and raise your standards of what treatment you deserve from people who love you, and to heal from how it affected your self-worth or self-esteem.
Enmeshment
The paradox of narcissism is that your parent can be very focused on you and “enmeshed” with you, while still not truly looking past themselves. The enmeshed connection is on their terms, and when they are asked to face something they don’t want to face or go beyond their comfort zone, their tolerance is low. This is, again, very confusing for a child. Enmeshment can also be confusing and toxic when it fluctuates (as it often does) with the parent becoming highly critical, angry, or distant after switching off from being a doting parent. Rather than a balance of attunement and healthy separation, the parent is either enmeshed with the child (as if they are the same person or the child is filling the role of friend to the parent*) or the connection is switched off. *I will write a post later dedicated to the topic of parents treating kids like a friend, which is a nuanced topic.
The enmeshed narcissistic parent will often seek comfort or attention from their child. The child may sometimes feel obliged to serve in the role of a caregiver to their mother or father. A narcissistic parent will not hesitate to use the child for her own emotional wants, whether or not it is developmentally appropriate for the child. This could look like telling the child more about the parent’s issues or personal life than is appropriate. A child will feel the burden of the parent’s feelings and it may increase the child’s anxiety. Depending on the content of what is shared with the child, it can be traumatizing if the parent really shows no regard for keeping inappropriate experiences from the child’s view. Narcissistic parents may also have an enmeshment with their child that treats boundaries like a personal insult. Privacy may be done away with.
Balance of Attunement and Separation
Children need to be on a developmental trajectory toward becoming a healthy, autonomous person with a separate sense of self from their parent. Each phase of a child’s development requires its own appropriate balance of attunement, connection, and sense of separation between child and parent. Narcissistic parents tend to work against healthy autonomy and separation, whether they realize it at the conscious level or not. Rather than taking cues from the child about what level of connection or separation is needed at any given time, the parent may make their own determination based on the parent’s wants and needs.
If you have experienced these kinds of issues in your upbringing, or if they continue to be issues in your family dynamics, you can contact me if you are a Texas resident who wants a therapist to talk to about it.