Headmaster Shocks After Calling Parents ‘Clueless Narcissists’ Who Are Damaging Their Kids

Try not to be offended parents, but apparently too many mums and dads are ‘clueless narcissists’ damaging their children with delusions of creating a ‘mini-me’. That’s according to Sir Anthony Seldon, the headmaster as Wellington College.

The outspoken teacher has voiced his opinions on how parents should help in educating their children – instead of leaving it all up to schools.

His comments have come after research published by the Sutton Trust last year, which showed that bad parenting is fuelling the rise in the amount of children who developed behaviour and educational problems later on. The research found that children who don’t develop strong emotional bonds with their guardians before the age of three are prone to struggling at school.

“Parents need to be partners from the beginning,” Seldon wrote in the latest edition of Insight, the HMC magazine. “The expression ‘helicopter parents’ is an excuse for schools to push them away. We need to educate parents about good parenting and work together to educate the child.

“Preparing for exams is about 25 per cent of what schools are for and the other 75 per cent is helping young people develop intellectually, emotionally, psychologically and artistically, and we need parents to understand their role in that.

“Too many parents don’t have a clue what it is to be a good parent. Government and schools need to be clearer about what good parenting means. A poor parent damages their child, doesn’t let them become independent and wants their children to become a mini-me.

“They shout at the touchlines, they spend all their time at the school play videoing rather than watching the performance. This is a form of parental narcissism. Rather than letting the child be what they want to be they atrophy their child’s sense of development and autonomy."

Seldon continued to write that if he was ever Prime Minister, he would make sure all parents attended parent evenings.

“They must respect the school and its teachers and are not permitted to speak to them in certain ways,” he writes. “On the school’s side, all children need to be respected, especially the naughty ones.”

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