Reducing social media, promoting family values, and encouraging kids to do good without expecting praise can all help, experts said.
Thanks to social media use, school grade inflation, and environmental factors, narcissistic behavior appears to be on the rise in children and teenagers, some psychotherapists and experts say.
Its prevalence in students under the age of 18 has increased by about 10 percent in the past 12 years and should be on the radar of school psychologists when school resumes soon, according to David Liebert, a practicing psychotherapist based in Tampa, Florida.
Liebert cautions that narcissism is a very broad term and that mental health professionals generally refrain from diagnosing the specific personality disorder in children because their personalities are still developing. Consequently estimates vary widely.
Narcissistic personality disorder is defined as a need for admiration, a pervasive pattern of grandiosity—an overinflated sense of one’s importance—and a lack of empathy for others. It affects less than 2 percent of the general population, according to the National Library of Medicine.
Liebert said he believes that in recent years, the self-esteem movement may have gone too far. The need for constant approval is a common problem in communities where children get trophies for finishing last, and gold stars are no longer awarded for the best work for fear of excluding others.
“A minimally bruised self-esteem,” balanced with humility, is healthy, Liebert said. “You’ve got to provide kids a little more opportunity to fail.”
Anita Horvath, a psychotherapist based in Cobleskill, New York, said narcissistic behavior often occurs in individuals who, as children, were praised for their performance but not seen as a whole being.
She believes this behavior has steadily increased over time. Today’s children are spending more time away from their parents. Even when they’re with their parents, they may be less connected, in an era that’s focused on performance and productivity rather than on the whole child. Consequently, they have less help dealing with negative experiences.
What’s more, parents may be immature themselves, Horvath told The Epoch Times.
“Oftentimes, parenting is not about meeting the child’s emotional needs. It’s the child who is asked to meet the parents’ needs. Emotionally immature parents get triggered, project it onto the child, the child is forced to adjust to receive their love. And sometimes, as a result, their personality shapes itself in a disordered way,” she said.
