Could Over-Praising Your Child Really Encourage Narcissism?

We’re all guilty of encouraging our children – it’s a natural and healthy thing to do and something that parenting experts have been recommending for years.

But done to the extreme, it could have a big downside.

Putting your tot on a pedestal and believing him to be better and more special could make him grow up thinking he's superior to other children, warn experts.

Researchers have discovered that spurring our children on might help turn them into narcissists.

Experts studied 565 children and their parents in the Netherlands for a year and a half to see how they behaved.

They found that the children who told by their parents they’re more “special” than others and “deserve something extra in life” were likely to score highly in tests of narcissism.

The researchers also measured how much the parents overvalued their children by seeing whether they agreed with statements such as “my child is a great example for other children to follow.”

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, is believed to be the first to look at the origins of narcissism.

“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 that,” says Brad Bushman, professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University and co-author of the study.

“People are not just born narcissists and there is nothing you can do about it. Our research shows that the way parents treat their children can predict how narcissistic their kids are.”

The researchers chose to study children aged between seven and 11, because they said the first signs of narcissistic tendencies begin to emerge around eight.

Before the age of eight, every child is a narcissist says Bushman. “If you go into a classroom of five-year-olds and ask who here is good at math they will all raise their hands. It isn’t until about age eight that they start to compare themselves with others.”

But if reading this you’re worried that you’ve over praised your own child, don’t panic. A person doesn’t have to stay a narcissist forever.

“Although narcissism is often seen as a deeply ingrained personality trait, it can certainly change,” says Eddie Brummelman, a post-doctoral researcher who also worked on the study.

“When you are narcissistic at one time in life, you’re not destined to be narcissistic decades later.”

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