Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

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Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by cronus » Tue Mar 10, 2015 6:05 am

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... istic.html

Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Do people become narcissists because their parents are too mean to them or too nice? These opposing theories both have proponents, but it is the latter that gets support from the first long-term study of narcissistic traits in children.

Freudian psychoanalysts were the first to propose that children with cold and unloving parents compensate by loving and praising themselves excessively. But more recently, others have claimed that narcissism arises from the opposite problem – of parents praising their children too much, giving them an inflated sense of their own worth.

This might seem more intuitive, but the cold-parents theory is still alive and well among some psychoanalysts. To test this idea, Eddie Brummelman at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and his colleagues studied 565 children between the ages of 7 to 12, a period that often sees the emergence of narcissistic traits such as selfishness, self-centredness and vanity. "Previous studies were all conducted in adults," says Brummelman. "We wanted to see how [narcissism] develops over time."

Over 18 months, the children and their parents were given several detailed questionnaires that were designed to measure narcissistic traits and parental behaviour. Children, for example, had to give a rating of the extent to which they agreed with statements such as "my mother lets me know she loves me" and "kids like me deserve something extra". Although parental warmth had no effect on the children's narcissism, there was a small but significant link at each stage between how much parents praised their children and how narcissistic the children were six months later.

(continued, way before my time Freud...my parents didn't go for all that tosh neither - do anything wrong punished three fold types. Made me the monster I am today. Drains another beer. Puts some Wagner on....some Vaughan Williams also.)
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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by JimC » Tue Mar 10, 2015 6:35 am

Only praise improvement, that's the ticket...
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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by cronus » Tue Mar 10, 2015 6:43 am

JimC wrote:Only praise improvement, that's the ticket...
Easier said than done, as you must realise. Go over the mark and the kid is chasing the star, not the planet which it is the goal. And for children, even adult children, that star and those large arbitrary dollar signs loom large and spectacular. :coffee:
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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by klr » Wed Mar 11, 2015 11:17 pm

A 6-year old nephew of mine had to give a poetry presentation as some traditional culture festival recently. Apparently, he should have put more "expression" into it, in terms of movement, etc., something his teacher didn't know or care about. He was a bit miffed afterwards.

As I said to his parents: He learned an valuable lesson about disappointment and failure.
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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by cronus » Thu Mar 12, 2015 6:57 am

The main thing is to avoid giving too much praise when learning to read. So intrinsic to later life activities. It is where to keep the fine balance between encouragement and silence most. Easily overlooked and won't read that one in any books. :read:
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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by mistermack » Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:00 pm

Did Freud actually get anything right? Ever ?

I can't think of any example.
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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by cronus » Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:03 pm

mistermack wrote:Did Freud actually get anything right? Ever ?

I can't think of any example.
He got his fees about right. Would have been enough for someone in his line.
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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by Animavore » Thu Mar 12, 2015 2:37 pm

klr wrote:A 6-year old nephew of mine had to give a poetry presentation as some traditional culture festival recently. Apparently, he should have put more "expression" into it, in terms of movement, etc., something his teacher didn't know or care about. He was a bit miffed afterwards.

As I said to his parents: He learned an valuable lesson about disappointment and failure.
Irish people aren't used to expresion at all, as the line of droning readers at any Catholic service will attest to.

I had the priest asking me, after my sister's wedding, did I do readings all the time and if not I should consider it.

I laughed.
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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by Brian Peacock » Thu Mar 12, 2015 3:00 pm

Animavore in 'The Wedding Reader'. Hey, I'd go and see that film.


Anyway, well done Scumple, it's just so great you started this topic. You deserve a choc ice. Strawberrry or Minty?
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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by JimC » Thu Mar 12, 2015 8:16 pm

"I have come not to praise Scumple, but to bury him"
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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by laklak » Thu Mar 12, 2015 8:40 pm

Spare the basement shackles and the cattle prod and spoil the child, I always say.
Yeah well that's just, like, your opinion, man.

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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by Rum » Thu Mar 12, 2015 8:50 pm

I did pretty well at school. I was in the 'A' stream most of the time and often in the top five in class at exam time (you knew where you stood!). I don't say that to brag in any way, but to comment on the fact that my father in particular always wanted to know why I wasn't a couple of places higher in the exams. It made me feel a bit of a failure at times.

I'm not sure if praise would have made any difference except that I would have taken a little more pride in doing pretty well and perhaps felt a bit better about myself.

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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by Brian Peacock » Fri Mar 13, 2015 2:11 am

Rum wrote:I did pretty well at school. I was in the 'A' stream most of the time and often in the top five in class at exam time (you knew where you stood!). I don't say that to brag in any way, but to comment on the fact that my father in particular always wanted to know why I wasn't a couple of places higher in the exams. It made me feel a bit of a failure at times.

I'm not sure if praise would have made any difference except that I would have taken a little more pride in doing pretty well and perhaps felt a bit better about myself.
I had that sort of upbringing - parenting by dissatisfaction and disapproval i call it now. It's part of the reason i did well at school though. If i was in my bedroom doing my homework, and giving myself extra homework like copying out the textbooks, or at school early and late for extra lessons and clubs, then i didn't have to interact with the family or deal with the stress. It's also the reason why I wanted to go to university and didn't really have much to do with my parents until I was in my thirties and a parent myself.

Every teenager is a narcissistic hedonist by design, and getting away from home was essential to developing my individuality, independence, and sense of self. Children are the natural focus of attention for parents as well, and perhaps if this focus is too intense and goes on for too long then the developing consciousness is trapped or habituated into thinking that they are, indeed, and naturally should be, the primary focus of attention for everybody else.

But anyway, that's enough about me - what do you think about me?
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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by Hermit » Fri Mar 13, 2015 4:13 am

You are one of the best posters here, but not the best. :nono: That is unacceptable because you could be the best. The problem with you is that you are just too fucking lazy to reach the top. Put your back into it for once, you slothful being. :irate:
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Re: Too much praise may make kids narcissistic

Post by JimC » Fri Mar 13, 2015 6:45 am

:lol:
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