Narcissistic Parenting

Recently my daughter was at an event where the leader of her group threw a fit, for lack of a better description, when the rules at the event were not bent to allow the underage children to participate in a certain activity. She was also unhappy when my child spoke up honestly about their ages, ruling out the opportunity to lie their way in. It made my child so embarrassed for the poor treatment of the event workers  that it ruined any desire she had to even partake in the activity.

I don’t know if it’s just the area I live in, but this sort of overpowering and overtaking of children’s experiences with the parent’s own feelings and reactions and need for validation feels endemic.

Not an hour later, we were at dance where a group was learning new choreography. Most of these girls have been in competitive dance for several years. This isn’t their first rodeo. They brought in their phones so they could video their final run to use for practice at home. Despite this, toward the end several parents went into the studio to video *in addition to* the children’s own videos. Some parents, like me, sat out. It felt demeaning to my own child. The underlying message here was “You aren’t capable of pressing “start” on a video yourself” or maybe “You aren’t capable of being in charge of your own practice at home”. Sure when my dancer was 6 and 7 I took these videos myself. She didn’t have a device to do this nor the coordination to prop it carefully on a ledge and make sure it was recording. She didn’t have the know-how to properly play it over and over for practice at home. And she frequently asked (and still does) for feedback. Putting practice videos into the hands of overbearing parents means that they are playing dance teacher at home – in charge of when, how often and for how long the child practices and perhaps offering up corrections and making it more of a *joint* activity between parent and child. But the minute something competitive starts being about the parent at all, it stops being about the child. And the child feels that expectation, that burden, placed squarely on their shoulders. As the parent of a child prone to seeking out this sort of external validation and approval, I’ve had to forcibly cut the apron strings. She LOVES dance. She dances nearly every day of the week for countless hours a week. If she is capable of sustaining that sort of schedule, she is capable of managing her own practice time outside the studio.  I still enjoy watching her show me what she’s learned but I no longer offer to oversee those practices even if she wants me to. She needs to take ownership for her own time, abilities and goals. To walk in and take a second video would most certainly send a contradictory message about her capabilities and my expectations.

I have seen parents who coach their 9 year old daughters about what they should do should they need to pee during a practice. I have seen parents of children who didn’t make a team so hell bent on correcting this wrong that they try to create an entire new system for their wronged child so he feels no personal rejection. I have heard about a parent who insists that an entire group of kids receive a “bullseye certificate” when only two kids actually made bullseyes at an archery event because she didn’t think it was fair to leave kids out. I have seen parents videotape entire practices all year long and heard them brag about breaking down those videos at home to humiliate their child over every error or lack of intense enough attention. Seven year olds. Eight year olds. Nine year olds. The parents dictate the speed at which a child progresses, not the child’s abilities and readiness. The parent insists that unearned achievement be handed over just out of fairness, or out of seniority.

It really struck me that we are fully immersed in a culture of parenting where the activities of the child must so fully include the parents and must pay homage to the parents’ needs, wants and expectations for their child that the child is hardly even considered anymore. The bigger picture is lost.

For me, my children must derive a certain level of personal joy or satisfaction from their activities. If they don’t, it just stops feeling like a good financial or time investment. They don’t have to feel pure joy 100% of the time but if it’s not MOSTLY enjoyable, then it’s not worth the real estate in our lives. But there are 1000 other lessons I hope – no – EXPECT them to take away from their activities. Team work. Pushing through frustration. Not always getting what you want. Seeing hard work pay off organically. Bravery and courage. Patience. Integrity. Putting others ahead of yourself. Working outside your comfort zone. Independence and self-reliance. Work ethic. So many more. It doesn’t matter if the activity is Scouts or 4H or competitive dance or anything in between. If we are looking for JUST joy, we can play at home with abandoned free of charge. We are in it for bigger life lessons AND the joy those lessons bring. There are these lessons potentially woven into nearly any circumstance where people are expected to work together to achieve some goal.

I can’t help but wonder what happens to kids who grow up deprived of the real measurable chance to organically work as part of a team to reach a goal. What happens when parents so consistently put their own needs to micromanage little Susie or insist on “fairness” for Johnny even if it means breaking the rules to do it? When kids are never allowed to feel let down or to learn to do for themselves and rely on their internal compass – when they are never treated like they are capable – we create adults who are looking for external validation for everything from their happiness and security to their morality and personal ethics.

I’m as susceptible to these parenting pitfalls as anyone. I’ve had my moments of micromanagment, of being TOO present and TOO involved. But I’ve quickly seen the negative effects on my children and reversed course, taken a huge step back and often apologized to them for being inappropriately involved to begin with. I’m not so horrified that parents make mistakes. I’m not about to stop making mistakes any time soon, after all. I’m horrified that so many parents seem to be so fully consumed with their own needs and their own sense of worth and have attached that own sense of worth to their children’s happiness and neediness that they can’t even begin to see the damage right in front of their eyes. These same parents have kids throwing fits pretty constantly at an age far beyond when they should. They have kids who look like a deer in the headlights and even start crying during the few times their parent isn’t there to tell them how to function. They have been rendered incapable, insecure and entitled. And it seems to be manifesting in anxiety, depression, school problems, home problems. Many are medicated, in therapy, their parents exasperated about what the problem is and how to fix it. And in the next breath enabling their child for all to see. What is it about society today that made us so narcissitic and self-involved? I only hope my own kids continue to question the motives of parents and groups that treat children like incompetents and allow no one to feel any sense of accomplishment in order to save the feelings of the ones who haven’t earned it.