Episode 73: Teenagers Rebelling Against The Narcissist Parent

s Sara 00:04

Empowered people make informed decisions that lead to living a life without regret. This is Sarah kaki and Shana woods from Atlanta divorce law group, and this is the happily ever after divorce podcast. Welcome to the happily ever after divorce podcast This is Attorney Sara Khaki with Atlanta divorce law group and joined by our very own Managing Partner, Shawna Woods. Shawna, today’s topic is a common issue, especially for clients of ours in our divorce firm who are going through divorce or going through a conflict in their marriage with a spouse that is a narcissist. Yeah. And what typically happens is, at some point, when the minor children have such a couple, who one parent, the parent is trying to do everything to make the household function while the other parent is a high conflict personality, for example, like a narcissist, and they have minor children together. At some point when these minor children become teenagers, the patterns the dynamics of the household start falling apart a little bit they start shifting as the minor children become teenagers and become more aware of the behavior and the patterns of the narcissist slash high conflict personality other parents. Do you want to open that up a little bit?

s Shawna 01:28

Well, one of the things that I think it’s a key point about narcissism is they’re typically extremely manipulative. Yes. And teenagers as they come into adolescence are really by nature. Even if they don’t have a narcissist parent. They’re pulling away from their parents, they’re calling them out for behaviors that they may see as problematic or wrong or just different. So when you have a teenager who has been raised by a parent who is a narcissist, and that narcissist is manipulative as most of them are. The teenagers really beginning to really see this, and the outrage pours out of them as the outrage of teenagers for everything, but they’re able to identify and look at this. And that narcissist no longer has that control and power over them so that they get the all the love and adoration and being able to control the family. The teenagers really do pull away from the narcissist and no longer want their lives to be completely about that parent.

s Sara 02:35

You know, I don’t my children are not teenagers yet getting close, but not yet. But from my own experience as a teenager and just observing teenagers and representing so many parents throughout the years that have teenagers. The biggest difference I would say between younger children and teenagers from my viewpoint is the younger kids are still at an age where they’re able and willing to give a narcissist parent love security and self esteem. A three year old a four year old a five year old can be charmed by the narcissist can give the narcissist oh my god, Daddy, you’re the most special thing in the world or oh my god, mommy like what would I do without you they can still feed that kind of love to a narcissist parent. mean the way a you know five year old or six year old holds your hand or cuddles up next to you and believes everything you tell them about the world. It’s magical. That’s why that age feels magical. That’s why taking on the Disney at that age is so wonderful. And you can do very small superficial things to gain the love of a child at that age. You know, that’s why horrible people are able to manipulate children at that age. Right, right. Teenagers, I think is the biggest one of the biggest shifts that happens in parenting is they are not their love is not that easily bought, right? Not their true love. Maybe they are able to manipulate you and let you think that you bought their love, but their true love is not that easily bought. And actually, teenagers are in a transition in life where they’re figuring themselves out so much. There’s a little small narcissism side of them actually, at that time, because the world revolves around them. Right? So that shift that’s hard for parents with teenagers is that is the point in life, you are there not to get love from your child. Nothing gets out your own soft security or get your own self esteem. But it’s the point in life where you’re supposed to give that to the child. That’s what a teenager needs even maybe that’s not what they’re saying they want but then it’s truly what a teenager needs from a parent is receiving empathy, receiving compassion, receiving love receiving their own self esteem and security, but a narcissist by the book or high conflict personality or somebody with a personality disorder usually does not have the capacity to give empathy, to give compassion to put themselves in the shoes of their teenager to give love and self esteem, they’re there to take. And a teenager is the worst person that you could come in and try to get yourself a security from it get your self esteem from their job is to challenge everything around them, question everything around them, and call you out on your BS if you if you try to deliver to them.

s Shawna 05:30

Absolutely. And there’s a couple of things that you can hit on. One, you mentioned that teenagers have a little narcissism. And we all do, right? We all were born with somewhat of narcissistic traits. That’s the way we got attention when we were hungry. It was to most of us grow out of that now coming into adolescence, that’s a strong identity to be able to find yourself. So it is really all about them in their world, right? They’re easily identifying these feelings about making it all about me and seeing it and apparent, right, so they’re able to call it out a little bit more. And then the other side of that is what another thing that narcissists does to get their supply from their children is what is the outside world look like? You know, what are they looking at me and seeing my family and if I’ve got these cute little, you know, eight, nine, ten year olds who act exactly just like me, and I dress them all cute that’s a reflection of me it’s status. If I have a 15 year old who may be acting out who may have popped off to a teacher without let me show them off would not let me show them off now dresses in a way that I don’t like the narcissist doesn’t like that then we react in a different way, which is awful for parenting. Because the last thing that you want to do is your child is developing into their own personhood, is trying to shame whatever they are becoming right. And so it does create significant problems. Now, sometimes teenagers will be able to just pull away that, huh, right
and distance themselves from that. And sometimes that is that constant battle, that constant, that King butting of heads, that they get into it. So we do see it a lot coming through our office, in either the divorce cases or in modification cases of custody with children becoming teenagers,

s Sara 07:30

right? Because the person that I really, I mean, obviously, it’s heartbreaking for the children when they’re not getting their needs met by a parent. And if not even that, I mean, we all have needs that we don’t always get met by our parents, right. But the sad part is when I think that transition of this parent was a hero of mine, and this parent was, you know, I played with this parent this parent brought me all the nice stuff brought me all the toys, did all the fun things with me. And then one day, the teenager wakes up and he’s like, Man, this person’s not who I thought they were. I think something innocent almost dies inside of them when they realize that absolutely, it’s heartbreaking. We all have that moment growing up where you realize okay, Mom and Dad we’re not superheroes, okay? Not everything you told me were truth. Okay, I wasn’t as special as they thought I was gonna be right like we all that’s part of growing up. Yes. But I do think that knowing though that your parents did their best and their intentions and their priorities and everything they had they did want to put it into you is still is where you find your compassion and your forgiveness. But it is hard to find that with a narcissist parent. And I think the best you can do is we have an episode called compassion for the narcissist is understand who brought the minor narcissist parent up or who brought up my high conflict personality, what happened to them in their childhood, that they haven’t been able to grow past that in me as a 15 or 14 year old can so easily see this parents immature behavior as a child that they’re not able to see and be self aware of, or you know, even have empathy for other people. So there’s, I feel a lot for that child. The other person I feel a lot for here and have compassion for is usually the client or representing who has become stuck between a rock and a hard place. A parent to co parent with this, I mean is already so difficult to parent, a teenager, and to put all of your own ego all your wishes desires for what your child’s life was going to be like and what kind of a relationship you were going to have with your child and your own self identity as a parent, and it comes to a complete screeching halt. When these teenagers are challenging you and questioning you and pushing you to your limits. It’s a great growth opportunity, but it takes a lot of self awareness to use it as a growth tool. maturity. On top of that you are handling an adult teenager in the household, which is your narcissist, spouse. And you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place what you were able to use as, okay, that dynamic was up until this point, my let’s say you’re the wife in this situation. And you’re saying, okay, you know what, up to this point, at least my children loved him. They were spending time with him and that he was the fun dad. He did all the fun things. Yes, I’m the one that did clean up the mess. Yes, I’m the one that had to do. The more labor some stuff, but at least you know, the kids were having a good time with him right now. It is walking on eggshells. And what used to be my fights with him is now my teenagers fights with him. And now I have to, you know, hold her and tend to her wounds. And when if I’m thinking about divorce or thinking about staying, I have a teenager’s feelings to consider too. Absolutely.

s Shawna 10:59

And I have raised a teenager, obviously, my daughter has now grown and I distinctly remember the day she looked at me and said, I used to think you were a superhero. Wow. And how devastating it was that I was no longer that superhero status. But not being a narcissist, and being able to kind of process those things. It was really important just to hold space and say, yet one of the biggest things that we can look at our parents who go wow, you’re human, right and be okay with that. The narcissist doesn’t want to be human. The narcissist wants to be a demigod. Yeah. And so for their child to recognize them as a human with human mistakes and vulnerabilities is huge. They have exposed the dirty laundry from inside the house. And that’s a huge part. And I think what I really feel for it, a lot of our co parenting situations, just like what you said, is as parents, our job is to raise happy, healthy adults that are going to be productive into society, right? That is our primary job with our children, and to do so when they become teenagers.

And they come into this pushing back and no one I know listen to everything you say and challenging things they didn’t challenge. It’s tough for any parents. It’s a hard transition. Because now you have this person in your home who you are supporting and parenting who is telling you you are but wrong, and just everything you’re doing is wrong. So when that’s confronted with a narcissist, the narcissist can’t handle it. And sometimes it becomes physically abusive. Or sometimes it becomes this mental and emotional abuse that they used to take out on their spouse, they’re now taking out on their children. And being that co parents who’s like, how do I protect my child without being blamed for parental alienation or without being blamed for not allowing this to occur? Right? That’s a hard situation.

s Sara 13:05

So exactly what you’re saying about protecting the child and not being blamed for alienation, how the narcissist will enroll the child. One thing we’ve both seen is, when there’s multiple children, how the narcissist will identify different roles. Yeah, the different children, and usually, the eldest one turned out to be the rebel, right, the eldest one that stands up to the narcissist is the first one to see it, and might want to protect the other parent,

s Shawna 13:32

I was just gonna say the eldest usually is the protector,

s Sara 13:35

that protector wants to protect the other parent. And if there are younger siblings, the narcissist will typically turn the other siblings on that child. And now the house is a house divided, you have one parent, and possibly the oldest child that’s typical, could be one of the other children that has room that is in one part of the house, you have the other part of the house where you have the narcissist and anybody they’ve enrolled in to say, your mom or your dad or whatever, and your oldest sibling are crazy.

s Shawna 14:06

That’s the word they use crazy. They’re crazy. They’re crazy. We’re the normal ones. And sometimes when you see it with the children, and I’ve seen this tear, where they’ll tell the parent who’s not the narcissist, look, I’m just going along to get along, right, like I get it. But I don’t want to be in this. I don’t want to be the abused one, right? So I’m just going to be over here doing this. And sometimes that child will buy into it, because who doesn’t want to be told they’re super super special by their parent,

s Sara 14:35

but you know that rebel child also will at some point, they will be fed up with the parent who has taken the narcissist abuse? Yes. And they will stand up to that parent and say you want to take part of this? I’m not Yeah, and how often do we see that when somebody was married for 15 years, you somehow had a strategy of making it through living with this narcissist, spouse, but what breaks the camel’s back Is the straw that breaks the camel’s back is the teenager who is no longer charmed by the narcissist and saying, Enough is enough. I’m not dealing with this anymore, you got to get out of here.

s Shawna 15:10

And I’ve seen it both ways where I’ve seen somebody come in. And I always ask people that when they say I’ve stayed together with the kids, I said, Do you want your kids to have the relationship you have? will stop, right? Because they will be they will most likely are going to emulate exactly the relationship you have. That wakes a lot of people up when they have teenagers, because they’re like, they are seeing me. Everybody gets your nine year old sees you your teenager is judging you, they’re looking at you like, is this really your life? Right? Is this where you’re going to be? So sometimes that will wake up a spouse and say, No, I want out now. Right? I can’t have them say this, or another thing that may happen is they have to get he kids away. They’re like, I cannot let him or her treat my children anymore, so that we all miss lead. So kids can be a catalyst to getting into a better space for people who are living in these abusive relationships. Or it may be that you’ve already exited. And now you’re having to deal with teenagers co parenting with a narcissist, which can be very difficult.

s Sara 16:18

It’s what’s interesting with the whole concept of protecting the children from the narcissist specifically with if you have a child that takes on the role of a rebel is the rebel will not accept the narcissists, saying you’re to blame for this and that. So if the narcissist comes out after the rebel and tries to punish them, the child will not tolerate it because they’re wrapped the rebel was like, No, I have not taken that from you. So it’s the other parent who’s usually blamed for the rebel rebelling against the narcissist parent. And that’s when these parents will alienation cases come up where a high conflict personality disorder of narcissist type personality will come and say, the parent who’s protecting their childhood rebelled against the narcissist cause period parents of alienation, you’re there reason is, she hates me so much. You’re the reason he won’t talk to me. You’re the reason he won’t listen to me. That’s a very common one.

s Shawna 17:17

That is a very common theme that we do see. And parental alienation does happen. And I’m not discounting it. It just doesn’t happen, as often as most people are throwing it around, it became a buzz term. And then anytime your child that like you that was grabbed on to write right, the other parent must be doing this. It said being self reflective and being like, what am I doing? And the truth of the matter is, sometimes we bond more with one child over the other doesn’t mean we love them any less. It just happens. We may have interests that they have, and we’re bonded in in in that way. The Narcissist will take and play that yes, right in turn that
into a manipulation, so that it’s a bad thing, and not a normal natural thing that happens.

s Sara 18:05

So when I was thinking about this episode, in our conversation, I was thinking of other teenager traits that really show up and turn everything on their head. The other one is the manipulative teenager. Yeah, we’ve talked about that in a separate episode. But especially when you have these households that are bigger than one child, you have two or three children in there. What we know from a lot of family dynamics is from your siblings, your siblings do so much to shape who you are, because we tend to take on a different role and the one our sibling takes in the family. So usually, somewhere along the line, the second or the third child may look and say you know what? The rebel isn’t really working out for him. Is it really working out for her the way she’s rebelling against dad? Doesn’t seem doesn’t seem to be getting what she wants, but she’s always fighting or she’s always in trouble. She looks pretty miserable to me. I’m gonna try something different. Oh, okay, so Dad, we’re gonna go along with that. And our hypothesis dad being the narcissist, dad is easily manipulated when you tell him how much you love them. Or when you spend some time with them, or you show some interest in something he cares about.

Or if I just make him feel special. I wonder if I can get a new pair of Air Jordans from him? I wonder if I can get a car from him. I wonder what I could get? You know, he’ll probably tell me it’s okay to go spend the night or go to that party when mom won’t so I think one child usually ends up watching and it says you know, not going to do the rebels thing I’m going to knock because who is easier to manipulate a manipulative person. manipulative people are actually easily manipulated.

s Shawna 19:51

Absolutely.

s Sara 19:52

So manipulative teenager will get on top of that. Read the feeling dynamic and be like yep, I’m gonna I’m going to milk this one.

s Shawna 20:01

And I think that’s something that be very aware of as the parent without the narcissist disorder. Because that middle child, we’re just picking on the middle child here, but that one child who’s seeing this and saying, manipulation, that’s how I get things done.

s Sara 20:19</h5

Yeah, they’re learning the behavior from the wrong person.

s Shawna 20:22

They’re learning the behavior from the wrong person. And it’s working for them. Yes, right. And let’s face it, people live a lot of narcissistic tendencies tend to do very well, educational, right to do career wise, corporate wise they are, they can be very financially successful, all of these things, and we can identify them. So this child is looking at it and going, this is how I get ahead.

This is how I get what I want. Right? So thank you, we, I always preach therapy, but you need therapy in different types for both of these children. Right? To for the one who’s turning into the narcissist themselves, right? Because they’re learning. I’m smarter than my dad, we’re using data in a scenario. I’m smarter than him, watch me manipulate. I’m better at this game than he is. Let me see if I can do this in the worlds.

s Sara 21:21

And this is where that whole concept that’s so common personality trait of Narcissist shows up, which is they think they’re above everything. Because the rules don’t apply to them. they think they can get away with anything.

s Shawna 21:33

Which, again, let’s face it, that’s a tendency at most teenagers, they are testing your boundaries. When you feed into that when you say, Yeah, that’s the trait I like beat it up. That’s the one they’re gonna grow. They’re still growing. They’re still children. We’re talking to them like they’re adults, because they look like adults a lot of the time they talk to us like they’re adults, but their minds are still very much in that phase of figuring their world out. Right. And I
think it is such a disservice to say, Oh, well that that one child relates to the Narcissist. So I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna let him have her right, I’m just gonna let that be when the reality of the situation is you may be feeding into narcissistic tendencies that will develop into a personality disorder.

s Sara 22:28

So the other personality I was thinking of is the child that just disconnects completely. And that one is also really heartbreaking it’s very worrying, it usually shows up somewhere in school, this person has completely disengaged, and they’re doing it quietly. They are not thriving, they’re not doing well, but they’re going out into the dark. They’re not rebelling, kicking and screaming and saying, like the first child that we described, they’re not manipulating and getting results out of this dysfunctional power dynamic. This person just disconnects somewhere along the line, they have not found what their role is, what their part is, what their contribution to the household is, and have not gained the tools of speaking up for their needs or even figuring out their needs. And they just go into the dark. That one’s really the one to watch out for. And by the time usually, we see it develop when the parents bring up to bring it up to us. A therapist is hopefully involved with that child’s probably going through depression might have turned into drugs might have very early to help them cope or dissociative disorder or dissociative disorder. They’re not even looking at it as dad’s a narcissist, mom’s the good one or mom’s a narcissist, dad’s the good one. They’re looking at it as if this household is not safe. I’m not safe. I don’t know how to talk about it. I don’t have the tools to deal with it. I’m just shutting everybody off.

s Shawna 23:57

Absolutely. And that is when they either are going to seek validation outside the home right? Or completely shut down like you said a new depression or whether it disassociative disorder not even be present even though they’re present. Right? You know, it just completely out of the situation. Just I’m I’m going to pretend none of this is going on. I’ve got a fantasy in my head that I’m living. So I agree with you, you do really have to worry about all this stuff. Because you’re going to have as they grow up all of these things that tools that will work for them and tools that won’t work for them. I don’t know how much more I can preach therapy for all of the
people involved but for mostly for the children. I had one case in which that was just heartbreaking and I actually had to get out of it. This poor teenager ended up in long term facility care because they couldn’t handle the constant conflict of the divorced parents and you know one screaming parental alienation. They’re both screaming narcissists, they get, you know, it was a plus situation. This teenager was happier in a long term care facility, and to be that she was in either one of these households. And it was just heartbreaking.

s Sara 25:17

Well, I think the biggest advice we can give to the parent who’s co parenting, at any age is to know that if you have minor children, and you’re with a narcissist, just take this as what you need to prepare for when they’re turning into teenagers. And if they are teenagers, watch yourself on how you’re playing a part in these dynamics because you can take these different roles that your children are playing in this function, and sometimes without being aware. We’re using it to make things work for ourselves. I think sometimes when people aren’t ready for divorce, they take a dysfunctional situation and the roles that people are playing in their
dysfunctional situation, and they’re using as their survival skills. So I think it’s important that the healthy one who is thinks there, what role are you playing for your teenagers who are coming to a massive realization in what the family dynamics really about?

Thanks for listening to the happily ever after divorce podcast.

If you’d like to learn more, go to Atlantadivorcelawgroup.com forward slash resources