Key Points
There isn’t a lot of research on narcissistic parenting, in part because adults in therapy don’t often realize they have narcissistic parents.
There’s no idea of co-parenting with a narcissist. In that case, you need to adjust to parenting alone so that your children can thrive.
Strategies for coping with narcissistic parenting include minimizing contact and modeling emotional intelligence.
Things I’ve found myself saying in sessions this week:
“It feels like there’s no middle ground, and it makes you alternate between feeling hopeless and thinking that if you just increase the volume and intensity of your contact, your ex will respond positively.”
“Whenever we lose a relationship—no matter how dysfunctional it is—there’s a sense of grief. We grieve for the lost hopes and dreams and the future we’ll never have with this person. When you’re in the midst of the grieving process, it feels like you’re always going to feel hopeless, even if you know rationally that you won’t.
“Parenting is the hardest job in the world. However, raising children alone doesn’t have to be as difficult as you think. Sometimes, there’s a sense of relief that comes from being on your own and not trying to control your children’s rules when they’re not in your physical custody.”
These interactions provide an overview of therapy with single parents who are broken, devastated, and frustrated after divorcing a narcissist. While the stories vary, the theme is always the same:
There is no concept of co-parenting with a narcissist.
There is very little research on narcissistic parenting, narcissistic family dynamics, or the effects of this disorder on children. Complicating matters further is the fact that adult children who seek treatment typically don’t see their upbringing in a narcissistic household as a problem.
The following strategies can help you redefine your parenting plan and learn to adapt to single parenting so that you and your children can thrive.
9 Strategies for Overcoming Narcissistic Parenting
- Minimize Contact. High-conflict people love to engage in psychological battles. The hidden agenda is to keep you clinging to the relationship, even after years of dry spells. The link is on the divorce decree. I have seen a few dynamics more toxic than subjecting a child to hard blows and constant psychological warfare.
- Set firm boundaries. Structure in all situations can provide children with a safe, predictable, and protective barrier from malicious psychological harm. The emotional rollercoaster of a narcissistic parent can be more damaging to a child’s healthy ego development than outright abuse.
- Avoid feeling sorry for your child. No one deserves to grow up with a selfish, self-obsessed adult, but there is a worse ordeal. Feeling sorry for others only perpetuates the victim mentality and prevents them from moving forward and pursuing healthy relationships of their own.
- Pledge to be calm, kind, and non-aggressive. This is a very difficult task, but if your ex is getting emotionally intense and threatening to take you along for the ride, someone needs to consider the impact on the children. Deep breathing, meditation, mindfulness, and support groups can do wonders for your physical and mental health.
- Limit the number of phone calls or text messages your child has with your ex while he or she is in your custody, and vice versa. Barring emergencies, the best-case scenario is no contact at all. Unless you suspect that your ex is not caring enough for your child, it is best to stay away from his home. Conversely, allowing your child to contact you about something he is doing or not doing is an invitation to triangulation. The positive side of a child asserting himself in the presence of a non-controlling parent is that he learns valuable coping skills for dealing with difficult people in the future.
- Teach him social and emotional intelligence and serve as a role model. Point out positive examples of single-parent families when appropriate. At some point, the child grows older and becomes capable of more abstract observation. He should learn from you about proper emotional regulation and healthy coping skills. I am a fan of direct, age-appropriate communication, especially when the narcissism is extreme.
- Focus on your child’s unique qualities and independence. Somewhere between childhood and adolescence, the narcissistic parent loses focus (if he ever had one) and stops seeing the child as a unique individual with feelings and needs that must be validated and met. The child instead becomes an extension of the parent. The parent sees normal emotional development as selfish or deficient, and this is reflected in the child. For a child to receive approval, they must meet a verbal or nonverbal need of the parent; approval is conditional on the child meeting the needs of the parental system.
- Don’t criticize your ex in front of your child. Narcissistic behavior is certainly abhorrent, but children are ill-equipped to handle the emotional weight, no matter how “mature” you feel they are. What complicates matters is that many narcissists are model citizens for the rest of society: they pay their bills on time, tend the garden every Saturday, go to church on Sunday, and actively participate in the PTA.
- Eliminate the term “co-parenting” from your vernacular. I have great respect for adults who courageously seek family therapy after a divorce from a narcissist. The work is hard and intense, and it often takes a long time to come to insight and ease the pain. During those particularly difficult hours when I am using all the healing stations, I sometimes find myself saying something like the following in a session:
“You described your situation as a nightmare from which you may never wake up. I understand that your pain is overwhelming and all-consuming.” I will ask you to suspend your disbelief for a moment, and consider one thing: Once you have overcome the grief and trauma, once you understand what drew you to this person in the first place, once you have improved your self-esteem, and realize that no matter what you do, you will never be able to relate to this person—then you and your children will come out the other side. Trust me. I have been there before.
