Tag: Co-parenting With a Narcissist

Narcissistic Abuse
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Triangulation With Children And The Narcissist’s New Supply

by Manya Wakefield
Narcissistic Triangulation

IN THE CONTEXT of narcissistic abuse, triangulation is a manipulation tactic in which one person engineers a rivalry between two other people or groups. The aim is to prevent the opponents from uniting against the manipulator, who uses the conflict to control and exploit both factions. Macedonian King Philip II called the strategy divide et impera, but it is more commonly known as divide and conquer.

In order to maintain dominance, highly narcissistic people tend to use oppositional parenting strategies with current or former partners. It’s distressing enough when a narcissistic person triangulates a former partner with their new romantic interest, but the wound cuts much deeper when the triangulation is used to weaken the bonds between the former partner and their child.

A community member submitted the following question:

I am being triangulated with my ex narcissist’s new partner. They are telling our children that the new partner is a better parent because they are carefree, while I have been battling anxiety & depression. Ultimately, they want the children to move in with them. In your opinion, what is the best course of action for someone in my situation?

For answers, we turned to clinical psychologist and parent-child attachment specialist, Dr. Michael Kinsey, author of ‘Transcendent Parenting: A Workbook For Parents Sharing Children With Narcissists,’ for his analysis.

1. Play the long game

It’s painful when a child expresses a preference for their other parent and their new partner. Parents experience feelings of fear, abandonment, and anger at the unfairness of the rejection. However, it can be helpful to look at the situation through a wide lens.

Dr. Michael Kinsey encourages parents sharing children with narcissistic partners to look at the big picture.

“I think that there’s the short view and the long view here,” explains Dr. Kinsey, “The short term view can be pretty discouraging. The kids may believe it, they may be acting in line with what the alienating or narcissistic parent is feeding them. But the thing to keep in mind with narcissistic people is that if you have an estranged relationship with them you are one of many people. The hallmark of narcissistic personality disorder is there have chronically strained relationships. And the reason for this is that everyone ultimately has a fall from grace with a narcissist. People will always see through the façade at some point. Maybe at first just for a few moments. Maybe there will be a prolonged estrangement that develops between the narcissist and the kids. But there will always be an opportunity.”

2. Don’t take the narcissist’s bait

It’s tempting to enter into a competition with the narcissistic person’s new partner, to utter a snarky response when your children comes home repeating praise of the new partner and criticism of you. But that will only encourage the narcissistic person because it shows that their manipulation is working.

Dr. Kinsey says that it’s best not to take the bait, “You stay above the fray. You don’t comment on it. You don’t respond to it. You speak to the kids. You don’t speak to the narcissist through the kids.”

3. Be your child’s safe harbor

Once you have processed your feelings about the situation, start focusing on taking the best possible care of yourself so you can show up fully and with an open heart for your child.

Take the best possible care of yourself so you can show up fully for your child.

“What I would advise people to do,” says Dr. Kinsey, “Is to create a very welcoming, open, accepting, non-contentious environment for the kids to return to. In many ways, that’s the best you can do.”

It’s okay to gently let your child know how you feel. Dr. Kinsey gives an example of what this might look like, “You speak to the kids and you say, ‘It really hurts that it feels that way to you, that this other parent is better, but I’m your mother or father and I’m always here for you.'”

Final Thoughts

It’s not easy raising children with combative partners. It’s important to remember that extreme narcissism is a post-traumatic stress adaptation and that much of their crazy making behavior is not about you. Highly narcissistic people are often acting out repetitions of early life conflicts.

As much as narcissistic people seek to shift everyone’s attention on to themselves, its important to support children by making sure that their needs remain the top priority. Learn more about preventative steps you can take to protect your child’s mental health and how to answer your child’s questions about a narcissistic parent.

If you feel that you or a loved one could benefit from additional support with triangulation, reach out to Dr. Kinsey at Mindsplain. 

Books by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D.

Quotes about excessive narcissism and triangulation

Triangulation is a manipulation tactic in which one person engineers a rivalry between two other people or groups
What is triangulation?
the aim of triangulation is to prevent the rivals from uniting against the manipulator, who uses the conflict to control and exploit both factions
Why do narcissistic people triangulate others?
the hallmark of narcissistic personality disorder is they have chronically strained relationships
A sign of excessive narcissism.
Extreme narcissism is a post-traumatic stress adaptation. their crazy making behavior is not about you.
Extreme narcissism
Everyone ultimately has a fall from grace with a narcissist. People will always see trough the facade at some point.
Patterns of excessive narissism
Divide and conquer
Triangulation: divide and conquer

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Narcissistic Abuse
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4 Ways To Protect Children From Developing Personality Disorders

by Manya Wakefield
3 Ways To Protect Your Child From Developing A Personality Disorder | Dr. Michael Kinsey

Many parents are concerned about how exposure to excessive or extreme narcissism will affect their children. They worry about whether their kids have a higher risk of developing personality disorders.

Narcissistic abuse as an expression of domestic violence and can adversely affect a child’s neurobiological experience. It can harm the child’s sense of security and ability to bond. Even if a parent is the primary victim of the aggression, abuse, or neglect, it is important to recognize that the child is a secondary victim. Witnessing or experiencing domestic violence in early life can sow the seeds for the repetition of these behaviors in adulthood, which can manifest as victimization or oppression.

A community member asked how they might protect their child from developing a personality disorder. They wrote:

I’m co-parenting with a malignant narcissist who is verbally and physically abusive to me in front of our children. Is it possible that my children risk developing personality disorders from exposure to pathological narcissism?

For answers, we turned to parent-child attachment specialist Dr. Michael Kinsey, author of Transcendent Parenting: A Workbook For Parents Sharing Children With Narcissists, for his analysis.

Prevention of the development of personality disorders in children

“Children learn first and foremost by what they see and what they observe. There are going to be lasting impacts of trauma in a context where there is emotional and physical abuse,” explains Dr. Kinsey, “I think there are things people can do to buffer against the permanent arresting of development that can happen as a result of witnessing or seeing that type of abuse.”

1. Validate the child’s experience

It’s import that children receive support to help them process their experience of domestic violence. Parents can build trust with their kids by being honest and direct about what the child is living through.

Dr. Kinsey explains, “Creating meaningful narratives around the experiences. Do not walk away from it, silence it, or pretending as if it’s not happening. That’s a really important thing for kids. Kids need to know that they’re not experiencing an alternate reality from their parents.”

He points to an important factor that can impact children growing up with family dysfunction, underscoring the significance of the deep connection between kids and same-sex caregivers.

“When the parent who is experiencing the abuse is the same-sex parent, there is a strong identification, i.e. the classic example of a husband abusing his wife emotionally or verbally,” says Dr. Kinsey, “The child who is going to be most greatly impacted by what is going to be the one who is identified with the one who is being abused.”

The reverse can be true in instances when children identify with the parent who perpetrates the abuse. In this way, children may internalize and emulate the dysfunction of their same-sex parent later in life.

Dr. Kinsey puts it this way, “There are other problems in continuing the line of abusers when the observer is identified with the abuser.”

Personality order prevention
The effects of domestic violence on a child who is the same sex as the recipient of the abuse will be profound. Dr. Kinsey explains,”The child most greatly impacted by what is going on is going to be the one who is identified with the one who is being abused.”

2. Make sure that your child is safe from harm

To protect your child’s mental health after they have witnessed or experienced domestic violence, reassure them that actions are being taken to ensure their safety.

“Let the child know that what they saw was really disturbing and it’s not okay what happened and that something is being done to protect or insulate the child,” says Dr. Kinsey, offering an example of what parents might say to help support their child, “One thing I can think of just at a very practical level [would be to say], “I know what you saw was really scary. Do you have any questions for me? Do you have any feelings about it?”

3. Encourage your child to express their feelings

Help you child articulate the emotions they are feeling in connection to abuse. Be mindful of the ways the child communicates their experiences so that you can affirm them.

Dr. Kinsey explains, “For younger kids watching for signs of the impact of the abuse in play is super important and not silencing the play when it shows up. So, if toys are fighting then you can sort of say, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re fighting. How scary.’ Things like that and just sort of validating that the child is seeing something that’s very hard.”

4. Teach your child to practice compassion

Encourage your child to practice putting themselves other people’s shoes. Without condoning harmful behavior, show them how to practice compassion and understanding for others. This must include people they may not necessarily agree with, such as a narcissistic parent.

Teach your child to practice compassion and put themselves in other people’s shoes.

“One of the biggest buffers against personality disorder development is having some sense of understanding of one’s feelings and the feelings of someone else.” says Dr. Kinsey, adding that its vital for the parent to remember that a narcissistic partner is still a human being, “Narcissists are not devoid of feeling states. To optimally protect kids, we need to help them develop an understanding of who that person is and what their emotional system is like and give them a context for understanding the behavior. We can hold intention that the behavior itself, that the abuse itself, is unacceptable.”

He points out that to remain in an abusive relationship is to tacitly green light toxic behavior, which sends the wrong signal to a child. However, it’s still useful to help the child develop an understanding of what’s going on with a domineering parents and why the act the way they do.

“At the very least,” he concludes, “The child needs to have an understanding of who the narcissist is, why they are behaving the way they are and how it’s possible to still maintain a loving understanding of that person, even though they do very bad things.”

Final Thoughts

To prevent the development of personality disorders in children, it is important to prioritize protecting their mental health especially if they have borne witness to or experienced abusive power and control.

There is no escaping the fact that staying with an abusive partner can devastate a child’s mental and physical health. They may develop a fear of abandonment, chronic anxiety and depression, or a guilt complex. Some of the others ways a child’s wounding may also manifest are disconnecting from their emotions, impaired empathy, compulsive lying, isolation, and shame.

If you feel that you or a loved one could benefit from additional support with preventing personality disorder development in your child, reach out to Dr. Kinsey at Mindsplain. 

Further reading

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Book a one-on-one consultation or coaching session.

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Narcissistic Abuse
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3 Effects of Narcissistic Parenting on Minor Children

by Manya Wakefield
a sad young girl

TRAUMA IS THE WORD most commonly associated with extreme narcissism – and with good reason. People who have been targeted for narcissistic abuse often scoff when the pathology is described as shame based because they are distracted by the spectacle of the narcissistic person’s formidable defenses. But in reality, narcissistic personality disorder is a post-traumatic stress adaptation. It is usually developed to resolve intense feelings of inferiority and shame often connected with psychological devastation.

Extreme narcissism is a kind of scar tissue that develops to protect unhealed trauma. It numbs, hardens, and desensitizes the mind, eventually severing consciousness from feelings of incessant vulnerability, fear, and hyper-vigilance. It restricts the ability to genuinely bond with others, making empathy an elusive prospect. The deeper the trauma, the more narcissistic people disconnect from their emotions to cope. The overarching feelings of inferiority and shame become submerged in the subconscious mind. There, a false self is generated to serve as a bulwark to keep unbearable, vulnerable emotions at bay. The words narcissist and narcotic originate from the Greek narkao which means “I numb myself”.

Early life wounds fuel the adult fury boiling under the surface of this personality type. It’s what drives the explosive narcissistic rage that detonates with every real or perceived threat to their cherished false self. It feeds their obsessive need for control and it can blind them to the fact that they perpetuate the very trauma that wounded them on others, especially their children.

3 Effects of Narcissistic Parenting on Minor Children

  1. Research shows that children who witness narcissistic abuse suffer the same degree of harm as the parent who is the primary target for the narcissist’s aggression.
  2. Children who witness or experience narcissistic abuse are at risk for long-term physical and mental health consequences.
  3. Some children who witness narcissistic abuse may have an increased propensity to act out the same violence in their own relationships.

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Mental Health
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How To Answer Your Child’s Questions About A Narcissistic Parent

by Manya Wakefield
mother and daughter on grass

Knowing how to answer your child’s questions about a narcissistic parent is essential to their healthy development and wellbeing.

The reason for this is that narcissistic abuse commonly falls under the umbrella of domestic abuse in families. Raising children in an environment where domestic abuse is normalized can seriously impact their physical and emotional functioning.

Research shows that exposure to domestic abuse affects kids to the same degree as if they had experienced the aggression first hand. In many instances, children may suffer psycho-emotional abuse, exploitation, and manipulation by a narcissistic parent. 

By witnessing abuse, they may be quietly conditioned and even encouraged to use the same power and control tactics in interpersonal relationships as their abusive parent.

How exposure to narcissistic abuse can impact children

Witnessing or experiencing abuse in infancy and early childhood can produce elevated levels of emotional stress, which in turn can damage a child’s cognitive and sensory development. This can lead to a reduced ability to concentrate and result in poor academic performance from the child.

Children exposed to abuse in the home may experience difficulties distinguishing right from wrong, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress and suicidal ideation.  

Research also shows that children from families where abuse is normalized risk perpetuating the cycle of abuse by falling into and repeating the familiar roles of victim or abuser.

Helping your child navigate the narcissist’s gaslit reality

It is imperative for parents who are raising children with narcissists to be able to answer their child’s questions in a way that validates the child’s experience and edifies their level of self-trust.

For answers, we reached out to Clinical Psychologist Michael Kinsey, Ph.D., a specialist in the dynamics of personality, intergenerational trauma, and parent-child attachment. He is also the author of  ‘Transcendent Parenting: A Workbook For Parents Sharing Children With Narcissists,’ and the children’s’ picture book ‘Dreams of Zugunruhe.’ 

N.B. This interview aims to inform, enlighten, and provide

accurate general information on the topic of narcissism. It does not provide medical, psychological, or other professional services. If you determine that you need professional assistance, please seek the relevant specialist advice before taking or refraining from any action based on information in this interview. Thank you.

Narcissistic Abuse Rehab: What is the best way to answer my child’s questions when they are at an age when politician style answers won’t cut it anymore? This kind of speaks to what we were talking about before, about the gaslit reality children of narcissists find themselves in.

Dr. Michael Kinsey: Yes and kids are such good BS detectors even from a young age. One of the amazing things about our brains and how we are wired is simply that we can decode – maybe not consciously – but we can decode guarded answers from free, authentic ones. We can tease these things apart with great precision. I suppose any parent really knows, whether you are involved with a narcissist or not, that kids don’t buy politician style answers.

The best advice I can give is something that I mentioned earlier which is that you really have to understand in a compellingly authentic way why the narcissistic person acts the way they do. That might be hard to hear and it might sound like you’re doing the work of condoning their behavior. It’s important that I say that’s not the case. You can understand something without condoning it.

The more you are able to understand it the more clearly it brings in to relief why it doesn’t work or why it’s dysfunctional or why it shouldn’t be the way it is.

You know for a lot of narcissistic people that explanation could be something like, “Your father or your mother had this experience growing up. What’s closer to the truth is they are feeling vulnerable, sad, disappointed, hurt, other way. It would be much better for all of us if it happened differently but this is the way it is. And there’s a lot of people you’ll run into in life who act this way because it’s very, very hard to feel sad, hurt, humiliated, etcetera.”

Narcissistic Abuse Rehab: It’s interesting because many of the people who get targeted for this kind of abuse are highly empathic and the way you describe this particular course of action allows people to use their empathy to push through is I think that it’s an interesting, solid way to go forward.

Dr. Michael Kinsey: Keep in mind that this is a totally different strategy than you would use with the narcissistic person. Once a relationship has gotten to a point where it’s beyond repair, you can speak respectfully and assertively without needing to empathize or condone their behavior whatsoever.

But when you’re talking about children, you need to understand that you cannot pit yourself against a child’s love for their mother or father. You will not be well received and you’re putting yourself and your relationship with your child at great risk but trying to, in some ways, stand in between them and one of their parents. Because children always love their parents even if it’s unhealthy in many ways.

So when you’re dealing with your kids you really have to be respectful of that love that they have for them. Acknowledge the shortcomings, but also make it okay for that child to maintain some sense of loving connection to them and not make it a sort of zero sum game where it’s either him or me or it’s either her or me.

Narcissistic Abuse Rehab: Right, by giving the children these sort of impossible choices.

Dr. Michael Kinsey: Absolutely.

Read the first part of our series Co-Parenting with a Narcissist and check back for the next installment soon!

Links

This interview is also available on our podcast on these fine platforms:

Co-parenting with a Narcissist, Episode 2

Resources

Osofsky, Joy D., ‘The Impact of Violence on Children’, The Future of Children – Domestic Violence and Children, Vol. 9, no. 3, 1999; Koenen, K.C., et al., ‘Domestic Violence is Associated with Environmental Suppression of IQ in Young Children’, Development and Psychopathology, Vol. 15, 2003, pp. 297-311; Perry, B.D. ‘The neurodevelopmental impact of violence in childhood’, Chapter 18 in: Textbook of Child and Adolescent Forensic Psychiatry, (Eds., D. Schetky and E.P. Benedek) American Psychiatric Press, Inc., Washington, D.C. pp. 221-238, 2001; James, M., ‘Domestic Violence as a Form of Child Abuse: Identification and Prevention’, Issues in Child Abuse Prevention, 1994.

Baldry, A.C., ‘Bullying in Schools and Exposure to DV’, Child Abuse and Neglect, vol. 27, no. 7, 2003, pp. 713-732; Fantuzzo John W. and Wanda K. Mohr, ‘Prevalence and Effects of Child Exposure to Domestic Violence’, The Future of Children – Domestic Violence and Children, vol. 9, no. 3, 1999.

Fantuzzo John W. and Wanda K. Mohr, ‘Prevalence and Effects of Child Exposure to Domestic Violence’, The Future of Children – Domestic Violence and Children, vol. 9, no. 3, 1999; Kernic, M.A. et al., ‘Behavioral Problems among Children whose Mothers are Abused by an Intimate Partner’, Child Abuse and Neglect, Vol. 27, no. 11, 2003, pp. 1231-1246.

James, M., ‘Domestic Violence as a Form of Child Abuse: Identification and Prevention’, Issues in Child Abuse Prevention, 1994.

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Co-Parenting With A Narcissist

by Manya Wakefield
Co-Parenting With A Narcissist

CO-PARENTING WITH A NARCISSIST is often said to be impossible. A popular quote by A. Price asserts that “A narcissist will never co-parent with you. They will counter parent. They don’t care about the emotional damage that the constant drama inflicts upon the children as long as it causes emotional damage to you.”

A distinguishing feature of narcissistic family dynamics is dysfunction. The more malignant a narcissist is, the more they are prone to ignore healthy boundaries to satisfy their need for control. Narcissists think nothing of using their children to dominate and manipulate the other parent. 

When co-parenting with a narcissist, children are frequently exposed to or experience psycho-emotional abuse and coercive and controlling behavior from narcissistic parents who seek to dominate the child’s perception by distorting their reality.

In many instances, children are made to navigate disruptive patterns of intermittent reinforcement, which highly narcissistic parents use to bring the people they target under their influence.

A narcissistic parent’s oppositional behavior and mischief-making can have serious consequences for their children who often struggle with feelings of chronic anxiety and depression.

Learn More About Co-Parenting With A Narcissist

For guidance on counter-parenting or co-parenting with a narcissist, order your copy of ‘Transcendent Parenting: A Workbook For Parents Sharing Children With Narcissists,’ by Michael Kinsey, Ph.D. at Amazon.com.

Further Reading

Confidential support is available to anyone experiencing abuse.
Book a one-on-one consultation or coaching session.

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