Let me lay this down on the table real nice for you:

Communicating to your child that he must always be right is the quickest way to raise a narcissist.

We hear people talk about it all the time: “That guy is a narcissist! Get him outta here!” But what the heck does it mean to be a narcissist? What is narcissism? Well, gee golly goo, let me tell you!

A narcissist is a person that always needs to be right. Being wrong is punishable by death in a narcissists mind. They can never be wrong, it is impossible. If someone proves him wrong, the world would implode and dogs would talk and pigs would fly! The sky would come falling down and hell would freeze over. When I’’m talking with a narcissist, I feel like I’’m walking on egg shells, like I have to watch what I say less I offend him. A narcissist will never show his weaknesses, for showing weakness is weak. He can never look at the other side of things, for he has one stance on a topic and all else not seeing it his way is wrong.

But be advised, there is a fine line between noticing what is a narcissist and confident person, because the characteristics are similar, only the motive is what differs.

Let me explain.  A narcissist will do something solely for the benefit of looking better in front of others, and feeling higher value to themselves. A confident person does things for the benefit of himself as well as others, looking to make other feel good about themselves.

Narcissists make everything work in their favor because they hate the feeling of being wrong, they hate the feeling of failing, so they convince themselves that they are always right in some way. This is different from a confident individual, who merely sees the positive side to everything, and isn’t affected negatively, while still having the ability to recognize the reality of a situation. A narcissist also loves external excuses that are out of his control. They tend to lash out at individuals that disagree with their opinion, or have a different view. They’ll challenge that person until they see it his way. This is a big thing to learn about because you can notice when you or your child is slipping into a narcissistic mindset and be more able to get out of it.

When you reprimand a child for being wrong, it makes them uncomfortable with making mistakes, or ever admitting they have made a mistake or failed.

It makes them uncomfortable with admitting that they are wrong. This creates quiet kids, which turns into quiet adults. Boring personalities will spawn from people afraid of looking wrong in front of others. They’ll have no character, no pizzazz, only comfortable with conforming to what the social consensus deems as acceptable.

The beginning of class is my first opportunity to get kids talking about themselves. I’’ll usually make an open-ended question that gives room for a unique response: “What is a scary dream you’ve had?” Some kids will jump to answer my questions, as they love the limelight. The majority, though, will stare back at me with body language signaling their discomfort, squirming around in their seat, hoping that I will “be nice” and move on to the next child. It’’s not that they have never had a scary dream before, or that they don’t know what I’’m talking about. When this happens, children feel they are being put on the spot, tested. They are scared of saying something that doesn’’t fit what I may deem as acceptable, so they say nothing. Either that, or they just repeat what the child before them had said. They think that I am looking for a certain answer, they don’t realize that there is no wrong answer.

Any answer a child will give to me is right. I will respond to hesitant children’s answers with big eyes and a smile, I want them to know that anything they say, as long as it is genuine, is cherished.

Social skills and confidence are very much NOT like math, where we are always trying to find a solution to a problem. Conversation is a way to get a feel for the personality of the persons you are speaking to. This translates into adulthood where “chit-chat” and “small talk” means fake conversation, people don’t mean what they are saying, they are saying it because it is socially acceptable to say. As an adult, you can’t simply squirm around and say nothing like a four year old is allowed to do. You have to give some kind of answer to questions asked, so instead of not saying anything, most people give run-of-the-mill, uninteresting, dull, conventional answers for fear of saying something wrong. Instead of encouraging your children to be the politically correct person, encourage creativity; be okay with what they say. People have been going about it backwards. Instead of teaching children to first learn political correctiveness as the basis for social skills, instead teach them to speak their mind. Later, after they are pro’s at being themselves, then you can start implementing what society deems as acceptable.

Part of confidence comes from being comfortable with your vulnerabilities. This means being unafraid of being judged by others, which will prevent children from becoming insecure with themselves. Also, if they are affected by others opinions, it will influence them to judge other people in the same negative way. That’s what a bully is, a narcissist. Have you noticed that parents of bullies are never searching for help on parenting? It’s because usually the parents have narcissistic tendencies themselves, and are afraid to say that they have done something wrong. We want our children comfortable with being wrong, it creates a certain charm in a person, a likeableness that others can relate to.

When you teach your children to be scared of making mistakes, an interesting thing happens. Your children will feel as though they are not a valuable person if they make a mistake. When you expect only the best from your child, they will feel like they are only “good” when they are being successful. This “value bar” creates either a fear to succeed or a fear of failure in your child. Some children will become so afraid to fail that they will always be working to do well. This seems like a good way to teach your children, scare them into becoming successful. And they may very well turn out as such, but you’ve instilled a fear upon them that will make them feel unworthy as a person when they make a mistake or fail. On the other hand, this “value bar” can also make your children so scared of failure that they will never attempt to achieve anything. They would rather stay mediocre and with nothing rather than risk failure. When you set up the dynamic that failing is the worst possible scenario, you’ve brainwashed your child into a mental straitjacket, feeling that neither success or failure can bring happiness. Instead, teach your children that failure is a good thing; without failure, you will never learn from your mistakes. Making mistakes is necessary to independently achieving your goals. How can you know how to properly navigate the road to success if you haven’t fully experienced every pothole and bed of black ice that is to come? This transcends into business and relationships, to any passion that someone might have. This of course does not mean you should just let your child wallow in failure as if it is a way to live. Encourage them towards success, all while teaching them the value of failure. An easy way to say it is, “Now you know what NOT to do anymore! Keep an out for that in the future.”

What can spawn from this teaching your kids that failure is bad is the popular line, “I can’t do that!” What does that mean? The child is saying that he is afraid of failure, because he has never succeeded in this task before. So instead of attempting this task, he would rather not even do it in the first place. Kids are even scared of PRACTICING a skill because that is an indication that they are not already masters of it already. I tell them, “If you already knew how to do it, you wouldn’t be here. The reason you are here is to LEARN how to do this, not to show that you can do it already.” In fact, outlaw the word “can’t” from your child’s vocabulary, they don’t need it. If they say that word, remind them that they’re not allowed to say that and must replace it with, “I will try my best at doing this,” or, “I CAN do this,” when someone talks and acts like a confident person, it encourages them to keep on a positive and confident mindset. Talking with negative vocab will only deter them from success.

In order for your children to make mistakes, they must first take risks. And in order for your children to take risks, you must allow them to do so. There is a fine line between the overly protective and paranoid parent, and the parent who wants to keep their child safe. Do not fall into the former category. There is a difference between your child being in real danger and getting a few cuts and scrapes here and there. They will be okay! Have trust in your children and they will have trust in themselves. Allow them to make mistakes and to learn from them on their own, there is a difference between being a mentor and giving too much preventative advice. When you allow your child to take a risk, it will transcend into other parts of life. For instance, letting your child take the chance of going down a playground slide face first can be a scary thought, what if he ends up eating a handful of woodchips for dinner? But that same risk can translate into taking the risk of meeting someone new at a birthday party, or shoot to twenty years later and it can prevent him from taking the risk of striking conversation with that pretty girl he sees at his friends wedding. Confidence in taking risks is important, and you need to allow your kids to make their own choices, even if it means swallowing a worm or two.

As you can see, teaching inner confidence to your children is less what you do and more of what you don’t do. You have to tell yourself, “I will not step in the way of my child’s choices to be who they are.” Most of the insecurities stem from external sources, never from within. As stated earlier, children are naturally happy and confident people, it is when they are put in the setting with adults is when they start to form the ego. Your job is to keep them the pure and beautiful people that they are all while teaching them to live and survive within modern society. When talking about teaching confidence, less is more. Let them teach you something about confidence.