Have you ever wondered if your parents’ behavior is to blame for your current relationship or emotional issues? Learn more about the narcissistic parent and learn the signs you grew up with him.

The narcissistic parent acts as he imagines himself to be the king or queen of the family or someone whose activities are more important than being part of the family.

As a child, your parents are your world until you can leave home. Your survival and your self-concept depend on them. A narcissistic parent can seriously damage your self-esteem, which requires love and acceptance from both parents to develop. Children of narcissistic parents usually grow up dependent and insecure. They struggle with shyness and low self-esteem.

Their adult relationships are distorted by early childhood experiences with narcissistic parents. Although the traits of narcissism are the same, their expression by the mother or father may affect male and female children in unique ways (1). Here’s why parenting can be toxic:

The narcissistic parent 5 signs

1. Lack of empathy
   Because narcissists lack empathy, they are unable to nurture, mirror, and understand their children, which are essential to developing a healthy self-concept and self-love. Even a narcissistic mother who holds and cares for her child is unable to accurately empathize with and respond to her child’s signals and emotions, which limits the child’s normal development. Some narcissists outsource and ignore their parenting to varying degrees, while others can be controlling and abusive. As adults, these children ignore their own emotional needs and are unable to take care of themselves.

Related: How Childhood Trauma Secretly Creates Narcissists

2. Self-control – it’s all about them
   Mature parents sacrifice their individual needs and desires for the good of the child and to meet their child’s basic needs. In contrast, narcissistic parents place their own feelings and needs, especially emotional needs, before those of their children, who generally adapt, become codependent, and gradually deny their own needs and feelings to deal with parental needs.

They appropriate their children’s failures and natural drives toward independence and either ignore their child or become more authoritarian. The independence of their children is a threat that can compete with and encroach on them. “He thinks he owns the place!” my narcissistic mother observed as she watched her 20-month-old grandson explore her living room.

A neglectful, controlling, or promiscuous parenting style is emotionally abandoning. This is to be expected because, like all narcissists, these parents do not see their children as separate human beings. A child’s needs, wants, and feelings become personal annoyances and indignities or burdens, like a father who coldly tells his young son that he is worthless because he has no net worth. Many of these parents act like children, reversing roles and inappropriately confiding in their children about the other parent (especially after a divorce), sexual experiences, or personal sorrows and distress.

Don’t expect narcissistic parents to share their children’s hobbies, goals, or interests unless that is also their goal or interest. They will only be pleased with their children’s accomplishments or their attractiveness to the extent that it reflects well on them. Likewise, they do not share their children’s excitement or pride in something that was not their idea or interest in it.

They are more likely to insist that their children dress, think, and act in accordance with their desires. This extends to choosing a school, spouse, and job. They sometimes impose their aspirations on their children, hoping that they will live on vicariously through them. Children of narcissists may be driven to prove themselves to win the approval of their teachers, employers, and partners or have little incentive to pursue their own desires and goals when they are not supported from the outside.

Sometimes these parents expect their children to listen to their hustle and bustle; meet their social, sexual or financial needs; Or clean the house or yard properly while relaxing.

One cruel father told his son to dig a swimming pool, while another ordered his son to cut the grass with a razor or face physical abuse. Some narcissistic parents threaten to harm their children physically or cut them off emotionally and/or financially if they fail to live up to their parents’ desires and expectations. As adults, they fear making waves or mistakes and to be honest, they learn to subordinate their needs and feelings to others.

3. Competition, envy and jealousy
   Narcissistic parents envy and compete with their children’s attractiveness, athletic or intellectual abilities, and other types of positive attention their children attract. For example, they may flirt with their children’s romantic partners; They often envy their children’s relationship with the other parent and may interfere with that relationship; Narcissistic parents may be envious of favors they give their children that they did not grow up to and sometimes follow up with accusations of ingratitude.

Narcissistic parents make negative comparisons to disappoint their children. They might compare the child to their sibling, friend, cousin, or even themselves — and talk about how their child compared them when they were young, inferior, or lucky. Such behavior stems from the same jealousy and envy that motivates competition. Unfortunately, many children of narcissists struggle for years, decades, or a lifetime with shyness and low self-worth.

4. You are not good enough
   Like all narcissists, narcissistic parents tend to brag about themselves, their accomplishments, their families, and their children. No one is equal to them or good enough for them. Arrogantly, they judge and expect excellence from their spouses and children. Although narcissistic parents may sometimes appear alert and caring, their behavior can easily spiral into control and shame.

Their children try to win their acceptance, but their love is only conditional, and circumstances are always changing. Trying to please a narcissistic person is a fruitless endeavor, but children blame themselves when they are unable to please a narcissistic parent. Growing up with a “should” makes them more alienated from their true selves and makes them feel sad and hopeless.

My mother always lamented that my brother had not studied law, claiming that he would have been an excellent lawyer. Receiving this praise is undoubtedly why I chose Law, but that would be far fetched. When I became an entertainment lawyer, I complained that I wasn’t a Hollywood agent, probably because it would be more glamorous. When that did not happen, she urged me to be a judge, who would have had a higher status. When I decided to become a psychologist, she tried to dissuade me, arguing that I would make more money by practicing law.

5. Abuse and manipulation
   Children are suggestible and manipulative, and narcissistic parents easily control their children with guilt, threats, and belittling. They shame their children, as they do their partners, with insults, criticism, undermining, blame, and withholding love. Often, they project feelings of unworthiness and negative traits on their children, such as attention-seeking or selfishness; characteristics they disown.

They ignore, deny, and criticize their child’s feelings and needs, and sometimes punish the child for expressing normal feelings, and claim that he is too sensitive or vulnerable. Parents often use or withhold love and acceptance to reward and punish their children, creating persistent feelings of insecurity and teaching them that love is conditional. Such abuse destroys any child’s sense of self and self-esteem and can be just as traumatic as physical and sexual abuse.

Heal the wound

The lack of unconditional love, acceptance, and emotional connection in childhood can leave you with a void and unfulfilled longing. Adult children of narcissistic parents often become depressed, feel unacknowledged anger, and feel empty.

The lack of emotional support for their feelings, needs, and desires creates a pervasive feeling of deprivation. This is emotional abandonment when you feel unwanted, left behind, insecure, or shunned by a trusted family member. To varying degrees, it can rob you of motivation and the ability to express your rights and feelings, address your needs and desires, and set boundaries, further limiting your development and self-esteem.

Until you accept your parents’ limitations and begin to love yourself, you will never be free from suffering. You relive the emotional abandonment of your childhood and seek validation, self-worth, and love in relationships with abusive and/or emotionally unavailable partners, including addicts and narcissists.

They may unconsciously make things worse by automatically responding like a child to an abusive or controlling parent. You can easily accept the blame and find fault with yourself because conditional love is all I’ve known. This futile journey can lead to a lifetime of misery because external validation never heals internal shame and emptiness.

Recovery entails overcoming childhood dependency and shame to feel entitled to love and appreciation. When you are healed, you attain proper spiritual alignment with your true self and destiny.