As much as you love your children, you’ve noticed a heavy feeling appear in your stomach lately.
They’re growing up and changing, but instead of becoming their own person, they seem to be copying the words, actions and behavior of your narcissistic partner.
The cold tone has started to surface, and you’re spoken to like you don’t matter.
Conversations echo a dynamic you’ve become familiar with, and none of it in a good way. Seeing as children learn narcissistic behavior at home, there’s only one person who is responsible for this, and it’s you again who has to pick up the pieces.
If you want subtle signs your kids are copying your partner’s narcissistic behavior, I’ve got 8 for you.
#1 They Talk to You in Replica of Your Partner
The triggering sound, tone and words of your children are only triggering because you’ve heard them before.
You’ve sensed the daggers that accompany what’s being said. You sense the coldness, and it sounds like a repeat of what you’ve had to tolerate many times before.
The difference is, the tolerance came from somebody who you married and had kids with, and now you’re seeing a new generation, one you created together, mimicking that talk.
It seems to be when you express yourself, or your feelings, that you are met with those lines.
You’re so sensitive.
You’re overreacting.
Then there is the roll of the eyes, or the sighs and looks of disgust. You kids have learned to copy your partner’s behavior, because it’s all they see.
They think it’s how you should treat your spouse, and so another cycle begins, and the dynamics become more complex.
#2 Your Boundaries Are Tested, But Your Partner’s Are Not
Why is it that your child knows exactly how to push your buttons with you, yet walks so precariously around your narcissistic partner?
It’s the same reason why you feel so comfortable around emotionally regulated people, and walking on eggshells around toxic people.
This all comes from knowing which parent absorbs that bad behavior, and which one looks to always punish it.
Their worst version of themselves will be dumped on you, and before you know it, you’re taking on everybody else’s negativity, not just your partner’s.
#3 Everything They Do Is for Your Partner’s Approval
It’s interesting to step out the dynamics and study what’s going on around you, and that includes all the ways your child changes around your partner.
Signs to look out for can be when they laugh too hard at your partner’s jokes in order to seek their approval that little bit more.
Sometimes you might notice your child overly trying to impress them, whether it’s to do with school, or home life.
There’s a level of anxiety around that behavior, and it is a type of survival response that will probably be familiar to you, because you’ll have developed it, too.
I know these may not be things you want to hear, but if you want to spot those subtle signs, you have to know what to look for, and where they came from.
#4 In Small Ways, You Are Being Gaslighted
It’s never nice, and you won’t be expecting it from your children, but they can gaslight, and will if they’re copying your narcissistic partner’s behavior.
Look out for ways your child denies anything that clearly happened. They will learn how to rewrite events, and when you talk about something they said and they stare blankly back at you, you know that things aren’t right.
This isn’t maliciousness. It’s more to do with the fact that they’ve been watching your partner, and picking up ways to act with you and toward you. Everything that happens is modeled back to them and absorbed, and that means the good, the bad, and the downright ugly.
#5 There Is No Empathy, Specifically for You
You don’t necessarily demand empathy, but you hope you’ve raised your kids in a way that lets you at least see a caring and compassionate side to them. Alas, this doesn’t exist, and instead, your distress goes right over their heads.
More so, your children have learned to step over your pain without even acknowledging it, even though they’re acutely aware.
It’s exactly how your partner treats you, and it makes you feel even more alone in a home where you should feel safe and loved.
#6 Their Worst Behavior Is Saved for You
Being anybody’s emotional punchpag is no fun, but when it’s your kids, it hits differently.
You want your kids to have reached a conclusion whereby they respond in calm, and don’t treat you in the same way your partner does.
Soon enough though, you do start to see them mirror that same volatility. You don’t know when their anger will burst out of them, and it is another level.
Slamming doors, raised fists, punching holes in walls, this is the sad reality for a lot of parents who have their children growing up to turn into their narcissistic partners.
The reason they act that way with you is because you’re the safe parent, and you won’t abandon them for how they treat you. In fact, you do all you can to try to fix it.
The picture is never pretty, but you have to start seeing the dynamics as soon as you can in order to help you deal with them.
#7 Your Authority Constantly Shrinks
Minimizing you at every opportunity? Yeah. That sounds like a kid copying a narcissistic parent alright.
It’s hurtful to see, as you are doing your best as a parent to raise children who are loving and respectful, and for them to know that you are the parent.
Yet this isn’t the way with toxic behavior. Your rules won’t matter, and will be defied at every single opportunity. It will feel exhausting for you, as every decision you make will be questioned.
To be undermined like this is no fun at all, and it does enter more troublesome territory the longer it occurs.
The problem lies with everything these kids have witnessed, including all the times your partner has disrespected you not just once, but consistently.
Every time you accept their treatment of you, your child learns to accept it as normal, too. When you begin refusing, you are teaching them that this isn’t something they need to accept, either.
You are more in control than you think you are, but you may not be using that control as wisely as you are. There’s always time to turn it around.
#8 They Laugh at Misery
You think maybe it’s a nervous way for them to act, like they are unsure how to respond to certain scenarios.
You slipped over, or hurt yourself. Your partner yelled at you and left you feeling bewildered.
Your child’s natural reaction, and not out of that nervousness, is to laugh, maybe even mock your sadness.
It’s not right, and is a very worrying way to engage with pain or negativity, yet they – at such a young age – have perfected how to make you feel even smaller in those moments.
