How a Parent's Narcissism Affects a Child's Mental Health

Published in a recent issue of Current Psychology, a year-long investigation by Hewitt and colleagues explored whether parental narcissism predicts child mental health problems.

This research, the first-ever longitudinal study on the effects of parental personality disorders on child mental health and development, found that parental narcissism was linked with “later child depression, anxious and avoidant attachment.”

The detailed findings of the study are presented below after some introductory sections on narcissism and narcissistic parents.

What is narcissism?

Narcissism refers to feelings of superiority, grandiosity, self-importance, and entitlement.

Narcissism has two subtypes: grandiose and vulnerable. Even though the two share much in common (e.g., excessive focus on the self and need for admiration), grandiose and vulnerable narcissism have important differences, too:

• Grandiose narcissism: associated with entitlement, sociability, aggression, risk-taking, and above-average self-esteem
• Vulnerable narcissism: characterized by neuroticism, isolation, paranoia, and unstable or low self-esteem

Our focus here will be mainly on grandiose narcissism.

Narcissism and self-esteem

Grandiose narcissists tend to make a great first impression. This is likely because they come across as having high self-esteem.

Although some narcissistic people do have high self-esteem, it is important to understand that narcissism and high self-esteem are different concepts.

People with high self-esteem think of themselves in positive ways (good, valuable, respectable, and deserving of acceptance), but narcissists like to believe themselves to be superior—special, the greatest, and the best.

In other words, for a narcissist, being good is not good enough.

This may explain why narcissists, but not those with high self-esteem, tend to be overly sensitive to negative evaluation and criticism.

In fact, some researchers have argued that narcissists have fragile self-esteem and that their self-esteem regulation is a “defense against excessive shame.”

Parental narcissism

Parenting is one of the most difficult roles one can undertake. Being a good parent requires empathy, warmth, acceptance, and sensitive responsiveness. This presents challenges for many pathologically narcissistic individuals.

Because of difficulty regulating emotions and sense of self, narcissists fail to prioritize their children’s needs. To them, a child is not a separate individual but an object-like extension that exists only to fulfill the needs and desires of the narcissistic self.

Therefore, the only time love and affection can be expressed is when a child’s looks, talent, or accomplishments bring attention and admiration to the parent. Failing to make the parent feel good, in contrast, will often result in neglect or punishment.

Things may get worse when the child reaches adolescence because adolescents’ assertion of their own identity, needs, and wants can feel highly threatening to the narcissistic parent. It can trigger competitiveness, jealousy, and rage.

Consequently, narcissistic parents of adolescents may engage in harsh discipline, psychological manipulation, boundary violations, gaslighting, scapegoating, and other harmful behaviors.

So, in theory, one would expect children who grew up in narcissistic families to experience developmental and mental health issues. But what does the research say?

Investigating parental narcissism and childhood depression

Much of the published research on narcissism has investigated its negative effects on romantic relationships, not child development or mental health. So, the study by Hewitt and collaborators aimed to address this knowledge gap.

Participants

The sample comprised 59 parent-child pairs, as described below.

Parents: mean age of 48 years old (range of 37 to 65 years); 81 percent female; 68 percent White; 88 percent married or common law; 85 percent employed.

Children: mean age of 13 years old (range of 9 to 16 years); 67 percent female.

Methods

Separate self-report surveys were filled by parents and children at the beginning of the study and a year later.

Measures

• Super Brief Pathological Narcissism Index
• Attachment Style Classification Questionnaire for Latency Age Children
• Interpersonal Reactivity Index for Children
• Patient Health Questionnaire-9

Narcissism in parents and mental illness in their children

The results showed that parental narcissism was linked with “children’s self-reported depression, anxious and avoidant attachment.”

Furthermore, child attachment anxiety explained a “large proportion” of the association between parental narcissism and children’s worsening depression.

The attachment anxiety seemed to “arise from the pathological and invalidating nature of the parent.”

The study did not determine the mechanisms through which parental narcissism affects children’s mental health. But here are some possibilities:

• Lack of empathy and regard for the child’s interests: Because narcissistic parents use their children to meet their own narcissistic needs, their children are frequently subjected to manipulation, exploitation, and various forms of abuse.
• Maladaptive parenting styles: Narcissistic parents vacillate between two extremes of authoritarian and permissive parenting—either imposing strict rules and demanding unquestioning obedience or setting no limits at all and barely being aware of a child’s needs (or even existence).
• Effects on other family members: Given how emotionally draining it can be to deal with the abusive behavior of a narcissistic person, often nobody else (e.g., spouse, relatives) can meet the needs of the child for a safe, stable, validating, and healthy family environment.

Takeaway

Parents with pathological narcissism have considerable difficulty regulating their emotions and sense of self.

Again and again, they fail to provide a sense of safety and predictability, prioritize their children’s psychological needs, or model healthy self-esteem and secure attachment for them.

As a result, their children struggle with self-doubt, often desperate for external validation, approval, and admiration.

Not surprisingly, the research reviewed here found that parental narcissism “exacerbates child depressive symptoms directly and indirectly, through child anxious attachment.”

One implication of this finding is that therapists may need to pay more attention to parental mental health in the treatment of childhood depression.

Helping parents regulate their emotions and sense of self—which is particularly challenging for narcissistic parents—may have a significantly positive effect on the child’s mental health and psychological development.

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