Praising Your Kids Too Much Will Make Them Narcissists

Researchers from Utrecht University and University of Ohio led by Eddie Brummelman have found evidence strongly suggesting children become narcissists, in part, by internalizing their parents’ inflated views of them". This means parents who praise too much and keep telling the child that he or she is special over the other kids may encourage narcissism. 

Too much praise on children can cause narcissism

Narcissism is a cause for concern as narcissists are prone to lash out at other people, often violently, when they are humiliated. The study wanted to find ways to develop interventions and prevent early narcissistic attitudes among children. 

According to the research abstract published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), narcissism levels among western youths are increasing and yet no one exactly knows its origins.

There are two schools of thought on the possible causes of narcissism among children: the social learning theory and the psychoanalytic theory. 

The social learning theory maintains that narcissism is caused by parents overvaluing their children while the psychoanalytic view point blames the lack of parent-to-child warmth as the biggest contributing factor to a child's narcissistic tendencies.

The study involved 565 children aged 5 to 7 years and their parents over a period of six months. Researchers have concluded that parental "overvaluation" of their children, not lack of parental warmth. The children have internalized super ego boost by exhibiting attitudes of self-entitlement and sense of superiority over other kids. A full report on the study can be downloaded at the PNAS website.

The researchers said that "overvaluation" or "inflating kid's egos" is entirely different from boosting a child's self esteem which is actually good.