The only thing Alice ever received from her mother was contempt. She couldn’t remember a time when that wasn’t the case.

That’s how psychologist Daniel Shaw described one of his patients in his research on how narcissistic parents influence their children.

Alice’s mother couldn’t admit any fault. If there was any fault—anything at all—it was Alice’s.

After decades of dealing with this, Alice had come to believe it. She had low self-esteem, had given up on a promising nursing career, and was dating a man who wasn’t good for her.

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She seemed to be stuck in a lifestyle that confirmed her narcissistic mother’s low expectations of her.

Unfortunately, this is a fairly common scenario among adult children of narcissists. How does this happen?

How can childhood experiences resonate so powerfully in people’s adult lives? And how can this be treated?

How do narcissists treat their children?

Let’s start at the beginning. What happens to children of narcissistic mothers and fathers?

To answer this question, let’s consider why a narcissist might have children in the first place.

At first glance, having children may seem like a selfless act, right? Creating, nurturing, and caring for another being means putting someone else before yourself. And as you know, narcissists prefer to put themselves first.

So, perhaps it’s no surprise that a 2019 study found that narcissists have fewer children on average than the general population.

But it’s clear that some narcissists do have children. So for those who choose to have children, what’s the motivation?

Narcissists treat their children just as they would anything else — as a potential source of narcissistic supply.

They don’t see their children as objects of their love and affection but as a source of self-esteem.

As in many areas of their lives, narcissists choose to have children if there’s something in it for them.

This can lead to confusing, if not downright abusive, behavior toward the child.

Sometimes, a narcissistic parent may overestimate their children, setting impossibly high standards for them. But other times, they may be extremely dismissive and neglectful.

Whether a child experiences Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde depends on whether they are providing narcissistic supply to the narcissistic parent.

So the child of a narcissistic parent learns that love, warmth, and affection are conditional—they don’t just exist. They’re something they have to work for. They have to act in certain ways if they want to be loved.

But of course, this isn’t a fair competition—every child craves affection from their parents, so they do what they need to do to get that love.

In other words, the child of a narcissistic parent has to put aside their own desires, needs, and even personality to fit in with their parent.

As we’ll see, this can have a real negative impact on the child, and these effects can last long into adulthood.

Characteristics of Children of Narcissists

A parental environment like this can hinder a child’s normal emotional development. They develop what’s sometimes called “shared narcissism.”

Narcissists tend to be very strict, self-absorbed, and lack empathy. Their behavior is a defense mechanism to help protect their very fragile self-esteem.

When you grow up with someone like this, you have to develop your own defense mechanisms—and in many ways, these are the opposite of narcissistic traits:

Instead of being tough, you become flexible. You have to be that way, to mold yourself into the image you think your parent wants you to be. You may never learn who you really are, because you’re too busy trying to be who your parent wants you to be.

Instead of being self-absorbed, you become hyper-focused on others, worrying about what they think, what they think, and how they feel about you. You’ve learned not to expect warmth from others naturally—you have to earn it. So you may become a people-pleaser, trying to earn the warmth you never got from your narcissistic parent.

Instead of lacking empathy, you become hyper-empathetic. For you, empathy is a crucial tool, because to stay in your narcissistic parent’s good books, you have to be able to read them. What’s their mood? How do they want you to act right now?

Research has shown that as a result of all this, children of narcissistic parents are at a much higher risk of:

Depression and anxiety

Unable to form healthy connections with others (this can happen in a variety of ways – they may not be able to connect with others, or they may become overly dependent on others)

Blaming themselves for any of their parents’ mistakes

Feeling ashamed or selfish whenever they put themselves first

Feeling like they are just an object their parents need, rather than a unique individual in their own right

In some cases, they develop narcissistic personality disorder (we’ll discuss this in more detail later)

However, the actual impact on the child may be very different if there is another parent present, who does not have narcissistic personality disorder. Psychologists sometimes divide mental health symptoms into two groups:

Externalizing: Conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and conduct disorder (CD). In these cases, the internal issue is projected outward through behavior.

Externalizing: Things like depression, anxiety disorders, and separation anxiety disorders. In these cases, the internal issue is not projected outward, but is “stuffed” inside

A study of more than 900 children found that when children were raised by one narcissistic parent and one non-narcissistic parent, externalizing problems were more common.

But when children were raised by one narcissistic parent alone, externalizing problems were more common.

Problems of Adult Children of Narcissistic Parents

Unfortunately, the problems experienced by children of narcissistic parents do not stop in childhood. The ghosts of the past continue to haunt them throughout their adult lives.

For example, in one study of nearly 200 people, adult children of narcissists had lower self-esteem and higher rates of depression than children who were not raised by narcissists.

In another study, children who experienced parental alienation had similar emotional problems.

However, they were also more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol and had difficulty trusting others.

Problems like low self-esteem and substance abuse can occur after many different forms of childhood abuse—and these aren’t specific to being a child of a narcissistic parent.

But some other problems may be more unique to this situation. One of these problems is a lack of interpersonal interaction.

Okay, that’s a bit of a technical term, so let me explain what it means!

We all have our own subjective experiences in life. We see the world through our own eyes, we have our own thoughts and beliefs, and we move through life feeling like we’re in the driver’s seat. That’s subjectivity.

When two people come together, there is a slight mixing of our subjective worlds.

You believe one thing, I believe another. You feel an emotion, I feel another. But over time, we learn to understand and accommodate each other.

We may disagree on many things, but we find common ground. In a way, we create a shared reality between us. This is interpersonal interaction.

Now, narcissists don’t care about interpersonal interaction at all. Instead, they impose their subjective world on others.

Their needs and desires come first, and their beliefs are valid. Let’s say anyone disagrees with this or tries to impose their subjective world on the narcissist.

In this case, the narcissist will respond negatively—perhaps with narcissistic anger, insults, or other forms of abuse.

In some cases, a narcissist’s child doesn’t learn interpersonal interaction from their parents.

They may identify with their parents, imitate them, and learn to impose their parents’ world on others. But more often, they become submissive, allowing others to impose their world on them.

Through years of imposing their parents’ reality on them, this becomes a habit that they repeat with other people. This happened to Alice, whom we met at the beginning of this article.

Adult Children of Narcissists and Marriage

Adult children of narcissists often experience unhealthy, turbulent, and difficult romantic relationships.

The bond between parent and child profoundly influences the relationships we develop in adulthood.

When this parental bond lacks unconditional love, adult children of narcissists sometimes fail to develop the belief that they deserve to be treated well by others.

As such, they gravitate toward relationships that have a similar “vibration” to the one they experienced with their parents.

As psychologist Seth Meyers explains, a healthy relationship filled with warmth, trust, and affection can be a source of great anxiety for a child of narcissists.

Throughout their childhood, they learned that in order to receive praise from their narcissistic parent, they had to put their own needs last. Whenever they put their own needs first, they inflicted narcissistic injury on their parents and were punished for it—by being ignored, neglected, or humiliated.

It’s like they create a circuit in their brains, to help protect them from that punishment. They know that if they put their own needs first, they’ll end up getting punished. So just thinking about it makes them anxious.

When they reach adulthood, that circuit is still there — even if the narcissistic parent is long out of the picture.

If they meet a kind partner who puts them first, the circuit is activated anyway. They feel the same anxiety, and they fear that punishment is coming — even if it’s not coming anymore.

DoChildrenOfNarcissistsBecomeNarcissistsThemselves?

I mentioned earlier that children of narcissistic parents are at higher risk for developing Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The key words here are “higher risk” — it certainly doesn’t happen to every child. It takes a combination of factors.

Some studies have shown a genetic aspect to Narcissistic Personality Disorder. According to this idea, whether a child develops Narcissistic Personality Disorder depends in part on whether they inherit the genes that lead to it.

We inherit 50% of our genes from each parent, and which genes we inherit from which parent is essentially random. Without essential genes, the chance of developing narcissistic personality disorder is much lower. But genes only tell part of the story. Although the causes of narcissistic personality disorder are not well understood, it is thought that we need a very special childhood experience to develop it – one that involves a combination of over-esteem and neglect on the part of a parent.

Over-appreciation creates a deep need for praise and affection, and neglect creates very low self-esteem—two key components of narcissistic personality disorder.

However, as we discussed earlier, if a non-narcissistic parent is present in the child’s upbringing, this may reduce the risk somewhat.

The second parent may be able to prevent or reduce some of the neglect and abuse meted out by the narcissistic parent and provide at least some of the parental warmth that may help the child grow up more healthily.

How Do Therapists Help Adult Children of Narcissists?

By the time they reach adulthood, children of narcissists have been through a lot. In order for a therapist to help a narcissist’s child live a healthy emotional life, all of the issues we discussed above must be addressed, including:

Any emotional or substance abuse issues that may be present

Lack of interpersonal interaction—difficulty connecting with others, or the belief that others may be capable of liking them at all
False beliefs that now control their behavior (for example, the belief that they must put their own needs last in order to be loved)

According to therapist Jay Reed, this involves a baseline of “empathy, positive regard, and a desire to understand,” but he says that this is not enough on its own.

In addition, the therapist also needs to help the client see themselves as they really are, rather than as they have been taught to see themselves.

This involves uncovering their false beliefs and learning to see the world more objectively. Reed calls this “therapeutic discord,” but you’ll find the same idea in many types of therapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy.

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In addition, the therapist needs to remove the client’s protection of their parents.

You may wonder why someone would be so protective of their abuser, but this is very common, especially when talking about parental abuse.

Remember that a child really wants love and affection from their narcissistic parent.

Admitting that their parent is abusive means giving up all hope that that love will ever come.

Because the idea of ​​this is so painful, children make excuses (often blaming themselves) and keep trying to get the love they crave.

This is part of the reason why children of narcissists end up in rocky and difficult marriages.

If they find a spouse who is abusive in the same way their parents were, and they manage to get the new spouse to love them, then their parent may have actually loved them all along.

It may actually have been their fault for not learning exactly how to act to get love.

Thus, difficult relationships become a puzzle they have to solve, to prove that their parent’s love is really there—it’s just been withheld. So they go from abuser to abuser, trying to work around the puzzle.

Reid’s approach is to remove the protection surrounding their father.

If the patient can accept that their father was treating them badly and that the love may not have been there, then they can break out of this cycle of abusive relationships.

Of course, this is a painful hurdle to overcome, and as with many forms of therapy, things can get worse, emotionally, before they get better. But life is easier on the other side of these hurdles.