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If you don't want to raise a narcissistic brat, consider taking a hard look at your parenting style.
A new study found that parents who believe their children are better, more special and deserve more than other children can pass that point of view on to their children, creating young narcissists who feel superior to others and entitled to privileges.
"Loving your child is healthy and good, but thinking your child is better than other children can lead to narcissism, and there is nothing healthy about narcissism," said Brad Bushman, a professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University in the United States.
Bushman is the co-author of a new paper that found a direct correlation between parents who overvalue their children and children who are narcissistic.
The study, published on Monday in PNAS, is the first to look at the origins of narcissism.
"People are not just born narcissists, and there is nothing you can do about it," Bushman said. "Our research shows that the way parents treat their children can predict how narcissistic their kids are."
To be clear, narcissism is not a disorder that people do or do not have. Rather, it is a spectrum on which adults and kids from the general population gradually differ from one another, explained Eddie Brummelman, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and the first author of the study.
"Most children score around the midpoint of the narcissism continuum, with some scoring very low, and some children scoring very high," he said.
"In its extreme form, narcissism can sometimes develop into Narcissistic Personality Disorder in adulthood."
For the study, the researchers conducted interviews with 565 children ages 7-12 and their parents every six months over an 18-month period.
Bushman said they chose that age range because the first signs of narcissistic tendencies begin to emerge around age eight.
"Before that, every kid is a narcissist," he said. "If you go into a classroom of five-year-olds and ask who here is good at math they will all raise their hand. It isn't until about age eight that they start to compare themselves with others." Every six months of the 18-month study period the children were asked to rate their response to 10 items on the Childhood Narcissism Scale.
The statements included: "Kids like me deserve something extra," and "I am a great example for other kids to follow."
For the parents, the researchers used the parental overvaluation scale, which includes statements such as "My child deserves special treatment," and "I would find it disappointing if my child was just a 'regular' child."
The researchers also had the children take a self-esteem test, and the parents were asked to take a parental warmth test.
The researchers found that the more parents overvalued their children, the more narcissistic the children's responses became six months later. They also found that parental warmth was associated with high self-esteem in children, but that parental overvaluation was not associated with high self-esteem.
"When children are seen by their parents as being more special and more entitled than other children, they may internalise the view that they are superior individuals, a view that is at the core of narcissism," the researchers conclude in the paper.
They add: "When children are treated by their parents with affection and appreciation, they may internalise the view that they are valuable individuals, a view that is at the core of self-esteem."
So, according to the research, loving your child and thinking he or she is awesome is a good thing, but thinking your child is more awesome than other children can lead to trouble.


Parents who believe their children are better than others create narcissists, study shows

According to the research, loving your child and thinking he or she is awesome is a good thing, but thinking your child is more awesome than other children can lead to trouble. Photo: Xinhua

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Parents who believe their children are better than others create narcissists, study shows


Parents who believe their children are better than others create narcissists, study shows

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Parents who believe their children are better than others create narcissists, study shows

Parents who believe their children are better than others create narcissists, study shows