Are Autism Parents Contributing to the Rise in Child Narcissism?

Cruising on Facebook the other day I saw the following headline trending:

“Children who are overvalued by their parents may develop narcissistic traits, according to a study.”

It made me think. As special needs parents, we make a HUGE deal of everything my son accomplishes. You know what I’m talking about. He tries a new food, we do a victory dance. He writes his first sentence, we reward him and make a huge verbal display. He ties his shoes for the first time, same thing. It goes on and on. Each milestone that some take for granted, we make a big spectacle of it for our autistic son.

Could we be molding him into a narcissist? You see, many of our children are left out by peers. Our children tend to be socially awkward, and playing with NT children is hard because they play so differently. This bruises their egos. So it’s our job to boost them up, right?

But what if we are wrong? Take a moment and consider this: our autistic children are very blunt, hey are direct and to the point. So, if we keep telling them how great they are, what hard workers they are and so on, this may backfire on them in the future.

When a particular neighborhood bully called him the ‘r word’, my son went on to tell him his IQ score and then asked him what his was. (He knew his IQ score from his latest school testing.) The instant my son was made to feel less than because of his disorder, he pulled that sucker out like a machete.

Also, when my son was teased for being clumsy at sports, he spouted off, “So, I know more about computers and video games than my parents!” (Which is true by the way.)

But this isn’t how we want our son to be, and I’m assuming, you don’t want your child to behave that way also.

Many of us special needs advocates are reaching out to the world. We want people to know how special our children are. How special we are. But in that attempt, are we too sounding narcissistic?

So, while I think we do need to make the milestones our children reach a big deal, I think perhaps we need to be going about it differently. I’m still thinking of how to do that.

As of now, when my son starts to brag himself up around others, we stop him and tell him that no one likes a bragger.

But my feeling is that we need to find the balance of appropriate praise and unproductive ego-stroking. I want my child to be confident, but I don’t want him to think he’s better than anyone else.

Courtney is a 30 something, stay at home/ home schooling mom. Her almost 9 year old is autistic with Bipolar Disorder, and a few other diagnoses to add to his alphabet soup. In her ‘free’ time she writes and attempts to run a local autism support group, as well as one on Facebook. You can read more about her story on her blog, A Legion for Liam.