Narcissistic Daughter

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My 9 year old daughter has been diagnosed with ADHD and Aspergers. She is very high functioning and excels academically getting straight A's in all her classes at school. My problem is that she was taught by my ex very early on in her life that she was the smartest, best looking child in the world (I guess we've all been guilty of that at some point) but also that the world revolved around her. Now, at 9, she can be incorrigable. She will yell to get a persons attention and she hits whenever anything does not go her way. She takes constructive criticsm poorly and believes she is smarter than everyone else including adults. Is what I described a result of what my ex pumped into her head for 8 years OR is it a result of having ADHD and Aspergers ? Please be brutally honest and break it down form because I can't find articles on Narcissism and Aspergers anywhere.

I don't think that has anything to do with Asperger's. I think it has to do with the way your ex persuaded her that she was better than everyone else. The bad news is, I'm helping my mom and stepdad raise a four-year-old right now, and I've learned that if children don't have their problems with authority corrected by the time they're five, they'll have those problems for the rest of their lives. I don't know what to tell you, but maybe you can have her psychologist work with her on her problems in addition to her Asperger's and ADHD traits.

Since we tend to take things literally, it could be very probable her attitude is the result of your ex's compliments. She really could believe its true because someone told her it, so then it must be true otherwise why would he have said it? You might have to explain to her that things like that shouldn't be taken literally, but still should be appreciated nevertheless. I use to have that same mentality growing up because of compliments. I also had it with insults. We tend to think in black and white terms and forget that things usually fall in the gray area.

I'm curious about something, and I hope this doesn't come across as insensitive, but I've been wondering this for a while and your post reminded me...

Is "narcissistic" just a fancy term for "spoiled"? My two little ones are having to grow up around a lot of spoiled rich kids and I certainly do NOT want them acting that way. As much as we love giving our children toys and playing with them, even letting them watch their favorite movies pretty much whenever, we don't want to give them that dreaded sense of entitlement that causes so many children to simply make demands of their parents--and I mean unreasonable demands.

I am going to have to disagree with those that are indicating that your daughter's actions are casued by compliments she has been paid in the past or how much your ex may have "pumped up" her ego. The fact is that a common trait among AS people is a lack of Theory of Mind skills. In short, this means that they do not understand how other people think or feel about their actions. She yells in order to get someone's attention and what happens? She gets that person's attention. If there are no negative consequences as a result of this interaction what conclusion can she draw except that yelling is an acceptable method to get someone's attention. She doesn't understand that the person doesn't like being yelled at. You or a therapist will have to work with her to help her understand that other people DO NOT like it when she yells to get their attention and you will have to explicitly work with her on better ways to accomplish her goal. This is likely to take a concerted effort at her age as things like this have probably become quite ingrained for her. It is not impossible though. I would recommend Tony Attwood and Carol Gray for methods of teaching Theory of Mind skills. They both suggest drawing "comic strip conversations" depicting common events in a child's life with thought bubbles for all the characters. This is a way to show your child what other people are thinking. For example, draw out a scenario where she is yelling at a teacher to get the teacher's attention. The thought bubble above the teacher could say something like "I feel really irritated when Susie yells at me, I wish she would use a more polite voice when she needs my attention" and there could also be thought bubbles over the heads of the other kids in the class thinking things like "Boy, Susie acts really rude sometimes, I don't think I want to be her friend".

It's not narcissism, its a lack of understanding that other people feel certain ways in reaction to her words and actions.

This is a really strange point of view. I have Asperger's Syndrome and I know a lot of other people who do, too, and none of us have had problems like this.

Then again, it makes some sense, so I think it's worth a try.

hello,

I am sorry about your story. I think its pretty common that autistic person get trapped by narcissistics. They are "easy prey", and often too naive to imagine the evil.

I think we all want somehow attention, more or less, but the autism spectrum is not about the amount of desired attention. In contrary, narcissisms and the Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) are mainly about the desire of getting attention by others. Why they have this desire for attention, there are mainly two theories: they didn't get much attention as babys and try to compensate some inferiority complex by this. Second, they did get too much attention, and now need it.

All in all, i therefore would rather guess that this trait is rather narcissistic. All in all, its just a label, and the question is which label will help you to find relevant literature and support to influence your child in the right way. I think you should try to lookout for the narcissism resources.

greets,

anton

I want to add that it could just be the age. My daughter has these issues as well and when I bemoan these issues with my friends I am finding they are experiencing many of the same issues with their own NT daughters. There is some sort of developmental phase around 7-9 that causes girls to get sassy and narcissistic. Perhaps they are stretching their wings a bit. Anyway, with my own daughter with AS it is an ongoing issue: #1) tone of voice-she has no concept that she is speaking harshly or rudely or doesn't care (this is being addressed in speech therapy #2) she seems to be less clued in about how what she does/how she acts affects others (TOM issues) and #3) she is still somewhat developmentally delayed when it comes to frustration tolerance and dealing with "what I want" vs "what I can have".

My suggestion is to have consequences to her behaviors. For us, she gets time knocked off her game time. We have a schedule and from 5-6pm it is game time and she gets to pick a game and I play with her-she gets my full attention for 1 hour. She really loves it and taking 5-10 minutes off that hour (depending on severity) for EACH instance of rude behavior helps curb the "acting out". You can change it to suit your own situation but consequences for rude behavior are critical.

Do you mean that you usually understand how your actions make other people feel? I have read and been told by multiple professionals that many autistics have trouble with Theory of Mind issues. For example, they are not as likely to understand that when they speak rudely it hurts peoples' feelings or makes them angry.

I think the point is more that we're talking about an 9 year old, than someone with AS. Most of us remember events and emotions, but not really exactly how we thought or how we behaved at that age.

I think Bombaloo's post is a reasonable interpretation for some stages of maturity, AS or NT, actually.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 27 Oct 2011, 4:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have an 11 year old old NT daughter, and I think age is a big piece of it.

My first reaction to the first post in this thread was a simple, "all of the above."

Put typical young girl phases together with AS and I can see how you get something that looks like narcissism.

I would suggest just pulling back and forgetting about blame or reasons, drop any desire to use strong labeling like narcissism, and simply stay the course on simple, consistent, and honest parenting. Social stories, carefully worded feedback, reiteration of your own values, and good modeling of what you want to teach.

Raising daughters who are both confident and world-centered is no simple task, regardless of neurology.

I think they are very different concepts. I readily admit my kids are a little spoiled, but they aren't spoiled rotten. They have the confidence that comes from knowing that if something is really important to them, their parents are probably (although certainly not always) willing and able to give it to them. But we've also been able to teach them that things won't make them happy, and getting what they think they want isn't always the right answer. I think the later is the hard part, because it is so much easier to drop a few bucks than it is to figure out if it is really something that will bring your child joy. But if you don't pay attention to it, you actually deprive the child from learning how to sort out their own needs, wants, and desires properly - as I discovered when my daughter was 4 or so (she had been such an easy, undemanding baby; it was so subtle how we got to that point). If a parent never pauses long enough to see how they are actually contributing to making their child unhappy, then you've got spoiled rotten. IMHO.

Thankfully my kids have learned to accept "no." I can't think of the last time I was challenged on a "no," or even on a "I'll have to think about that." Doesn't mean my daughter isn't moody and defiant, but she gets that way because things get all jumbled in her head and there is absolutely nothing at that moment which can make her happy, and she actually understands that nothing at that moment can make her happy; she throws out demands and requests simply from not knowing what else to do (took a while to figure out that one, of course).

With Narcissism I don't you can teach the limits. The stuff and the attention is all a need of the child; I don't think they can sort out that they might actually be happier with a little less stuff and a little attention; in fact, they probably wouldn't be happier, the stuff and the adulation IS the goal. Maybe if a parent keeps a destructive pattern long enough they can actually develop that in the child, but I tend to think of it more as a natural personality trait that maybe you can mitigate, but that you didn't create.

I think one thing that has made a lot of life lessons easier for us is that we live in a very economically diverse community, and our kids go to very economically diverse schools. We sit firmly in the middle, wedged between the rich kids they know, and the very poor ones. They know, as a fact, how lucky they are, and aren't seeing much in the rich kid's world that they covet; to them, the extras are just cool stuff that no one really needs. Fun when they get to share in it at a play date, but still not as comfortable as home. The super rich families in our community love the world view their kids are getting; I don't think kids can integrate it without having it directly touch their lives; being told "you're lucky" just isn't the same as finding out your friend at school is living with four people in a studio apartment.

My 9 year old DD has a similar diagnosis and we are going through cognitive behavior therapy to try to help with her ToM (Theory of Mind). While my DD doesn't hit and only yells when she's upset, her "emotion-meter" runs off the chart when faced with an obstacle. For instance, she yells at the same volume when a big, hairy spider fell on her in bed as she did when she couldn't open a bottle of shampoo in the shower! Her gauge runs from "1" to "100" with very little in between - my DH and I think about it as her having the appropriate response, but just with an inappropriate level.

We do a lot of practice with having her "read" emotions of others - giving her a chart to write down her perceptions of a highly-charged emotional situations. At first she couldn't pick up a lot of the subtleties we had ("disappointment" looked a lot like "distress" to her). She explained to me later that it was incredibly frustrating not being able to figure out what was being implied. She has to use clues other than facial expressions, such as voice intonation, body language, clues in speech.

It could be that your daughter is frustrated because, while things at school are "easy" for her (schoolwork, for example. And school is a place where routines are well established generally), dealing with not being quite perfect outside of those boundaries is difficult. There is no "map" for how well you get along with someone - in school, you do well on a test, you get an "A". Not so with human behavior and interactions. Being a perfectionist in an imperfect world is very trying. Add on some potentially sensory issues and it's easy to see how a child may get "prickly" when a question isn't immediately answered, or criticism is doled out.

Our therapist has us working through (as a family), identifying emotions with DD, identifying thoughts/emotions of others, anxiety, etc. Your daughter is probably very hyperlexic, as is our DD, and we have tried to capitalize on that by having her read through the material and discuss with us her frustrations. But I doubt what she exhibits is classic "narcissism".

This all sounds so excellent. People really are figuring it all out better now, aren't they? Very little of that ever occurred to us.

No, narcissism is a personality disorder that is classified in Axis 2 of DSMIV.

Of course the OP needs to get her daughter diagnosed first rather than speculating.

Thank you all sooooo much for your highly intelligent and honest replies. My boyfriend (who is a special ed teacher) says that my daughter's yelling, hitting and sometimes cursing are all learned behaviors. He gives the example that in school these bahaviors are almost non-existent. "Why is that " ? he asks. He says because she knows by now those types of behavior will not be tolerated at school but has been condoned (mostly by my family ignoring them) at home. It gets tricky because she can have a meltdown at school but he believes that is the time when her impulsivety comes into play. I do know that hitting, yelling and cursing is not inherent in ADHD or Aspergers. There are many children who have both of these and do not hit and curse. I realize now I have to limit her contact with her father who unknowingly reinfforces her behavior whenever she goes to spend time with him. I guess it's time to roll up my sleeves and try some hardcore CBT with her. Wish me luck.