Is pre teen a narcissist?

[Preteenstruggle]

DS is 12.
Last Friday at school he got an internal isolation and detention for doing something disrespectful around remembrance day in class. I support the school, the sanction matches the action.

He got back from school on Friday and took himself to his bedroom. I tried talking to him about it and he just shouts and deflects it. Says what can I teach him about history.
He has sent himself to his room, I haven’t told him to or grounded him. I just want to talk about why he did it, the importance of Remembrance Day, then we can move on.
So since Friday, he has been out of his room only for school and for breakfast/dinner/lunch. Then straight back to his room after shouting at everyone about how we shout at him.
We haven’t shouted at him, but I have told him this isn’t going away. We will discuss it and life doesn’t move forward until we do.

This has been a week now. He is a very sociable boy. Talks to friends on the PlayStation (in the lounge), plays football out the front, goes fishing at weekends. So he’d rather give all that up, instead of just talking to me about the stupid thing he did. A whole week without interaction with his friends is unheard of.

So here’s the thing. DH thinks he is a narcissist.
Theres other traits that he has, doesn’t seem to have empathy, love bombs people to get what he wants, uses them. Lies ALOT, and won’t take responsibility for his actions, blames everyone else, always someone else’s fault.

I have always let things slide (I think because he’s love bombed me and convinced me he wasn’t wrong), but this I’m not letting slide because I feel very strongly about it and wonder if my husband is right. It is like he hates being wrong and so point blank won’t talk about it.

To add, a couple of days ago, when he was down for dinner, he’d given the dog a sausage I’d literally just got out the oven. I said not to as he was doing it because it’s so hot. Then comes, oh here you go, moaning at me again. Dog woffs the sausage down, only for a second later to vomit back up. As I was explaining it’s because it burnt her throat, he walks off back upstairs choosing to have no dinner that night. DH said see, he can’t admit he was wrong and you were right. He’s rather be hungry all night than say sorry.

I feel this week has really opened my eyes.
He can be such a lovely boy, can be fun to be around, but yes, also makes me (and his dad and sister) feel like we walk on eggshells alot of the time.

I guess im asking for advice on how to get him to talk to me and also if he does have narcassist traits, how we deal with that

Do you mean discussion or a telling off? If it's the first you can't force someone to talk to you.

Who cares what words you can use to describe him! He’s a teenager!!! Ask your dh did his parents call him names when he was a teenager trying to navigate the world? Whoever coined the word narcissist has so much to answer for, with everyone calling everyone else narcissistic!!!! See also ‘love bing’- tell your dh to stop talking about him like he’s something to be studied and start thinking of him as his son

I’ve seen you’ve updated but I’d have said similar to others that it’s extremely harsh to pathologise a child and it does come across that he is disliked. You cannot have adult expectations of a child, you will damage your relationship with him and it is putting unwarranted stress on him.

In your first example he might be feeling guilty or ashamed of his actions esp if he has already been punished at school. It won’t affect his character to go over it again at home and may well make him shut down. I would take the approach of trying to work out with him what happened and why in this kind of situation rather than another telling off. Help him work things out for himself. The only circumstance that might be different would be if he was violent to someone weaker.

You have to stop with all the love bombing and manipulation nonsense. It’s a very weird way to perceive a child’s actions. He will be developing for a good while yet so give him a healthy path to adulthood that’s loving and safe. You’ve just seen he’ll dig in when he’s hurting do you really want that to be the way things are for the rest of his adolescence while he figures things out?

I think a lot of narcissists develop because of childhood experiences. Trauma, or the need to prove themselves to a highly critical parent, or a narcissistic parent making them the golden child and allowing them to get away with murder.

Your son has been a bit of a teenage git, that doesn’t make him a narcissist. He might have stuff he needs to work through - PD or whatever. He might be reacting to your parenting - is your DH always so critical and quick to jump to armchair diagnosis?

You need to take a different approach with him. Show him he’s got a secure loving home, but firm boundaries and consequences for bad behaviour.

It’s exactly the kind of thing my parents did when I was a teenager - tried to label me with their perceived diagnosis’s when in reality I was attempting to work my way through CPTSD.

It taken me a lot of years in therapy to undo the criticism.

@vegtrug He's now a young adult, having just turned 18. The behaviour he was displaying as a tween has not disappeared, it has got worse.

@PolkaDotOlgaDaPolga I don't think there's a child alive who hasn't wished that one or other of their parents would just bugger off for a bit at some point in their childhood. That's quite normal. It's a very different thing to have orchestrated a campaign to see it through.

Most posters are coming down heavy on the Remembrance incident at school, but the dog and the red hot sausage is more concerning imho. At 12 years old, kids know what happens if you eat something straight out of the oven. What if the OP's child did it to see how the dog would react? That is not normal. Most kids love their animals and it would be beyond the pale to deliberately cause suffering.

This was my thought, same about the dog and the hot sausage. My 8yo dd (ND) reacts very badly/ explosively to criticism/ disapproval about her mistakes and things she's done wrong/ behaved badly. She is more often than not deeply ashamed already and feeling guilty, which exacerbates the response. Having said this, it would be unheard of for her not to have calmed down and apologised/ sought to have a calmer conversation and begin to feel better after maybe an hour or two of quiet time. I do wonder op if your almost-teen feels like this, and is avoiding confronting his feelings.

I agree. Imagine labelling your child with something only a psychiatrist or other mental health professional can diagnose!

Posts like this make me feel sorry for the child who's behaviour comes from parents who won't change the way they parent and would rather write the child off as being a narcissist.

Very sad.

Ban your DH from banding such terms around, he is grasping at straws and does not have the qualifications

No. Children are naturally more self-centred than adults. They are powerless and learn to be manipulative. They grow to learn better. Personality disorders can only be diagnosed in adults because children and adolescents are still developing. Your DH needs to stop pathologising his child and start thinking about how he can parent him through this.

Side issue, but how is your dog?
If she has burned her esophagus a vet visit may be in order for pain meds and antibiotics to prevent infection.

I think a lot of teenagers have to hate their parents and authority as it's part of what motivates them to make their own lives in the end.

Narcissism is too widely used these days to 'diagnose' poor behaviour. I don't think people are that easy to define.

Teenagers need more love than judgment but they often get it the other way around.

He isn't finished becoming himself yet.

The Remembrance disrespect is very interesting. The politics of how we honour our dead and not so much the people we kill in war - young people do see that hypocrisy.

And don't get angry I was at our local remembrance service last week.

But there are huge issues around this country and war.

But it is hard raising teenagers so you have my empathy.

'I have always let things slide'

I think this is probably more the issue here, he is a child who's never had to apologise, has always got his way and now you are trying to challenge him, he doesn't like it.
You learn compassion, compromise, being able to apologise but he hasn't.

OP I feel quite sorry for you and your DH, lots of posters have said that your son's behaviour is normal and that you are harming him by being annoyed. However, this level of sullenness and apathy is not actually how most teenagers behave, most of the time (I say this as a parent of a teen and a secondary school teacher).

It sounds like he's going through a bad patch, and I can imagine how frustrating and upsetting it must be to see your lovely boy behave in ways that are selfish and, at times, cruel. Teenagers are such insular beings, the smallest thing becomes their whole world, and they're using this time to figure out who they are and what they stand for- lots of them will look back and cringe about this.

I would agree that it's time to throw out the armchair psychology and not jump to a psych evaluation, take some advice from parenting sources etc. however, ultimately you can only love him through it all, and lay boundaries and consequences in a fair way whist trying to communicate with him.
xx