Quora: What can we do about my stepdaughter being influenced by her narcissistic mother?

What can we do about my stepdaughter being influenced by her narcissistic mother? She's 17, her biomom has 2 supervised visits a week.

 

FIRST! Most important!! Don’t put your kid in the middle of a power struggle between yourself and a narcissist.

The Narc will more than likely be playing those kind of petty games and trying to poison the child against other family members, and you really don’t want to stoop to that level. It’s ugly and only teaches the child distrust for all the adults involved in such a drama.

Be the grownup in the situation, and provide the child with a consistent, nurturing, safe, and sane home.

Teenagers are experiencing a lot of growth and brain development that can often make them behave like toddlers, but with hormones. She may be difficult to deal with at times. She may be selfish and stubborn, she may exhibit behavior that makes you think of her narc mom, and she may repeat the hurtful and loathsome things her mother says in order to get a reaction out of you, or to try and hurt you during a disagreement.

There’s no way to sort out, at this point, what behavior is being amplified, encouraged, or motivated by the narc, and what behavior is simply a matter of the child being 17 years old and going through her own normal growth and learning development stages that everyone goes through at that age. Teens can be obnoxious and a lot of teenage behavior does look an awful lot like NPD. The difference, of course, is that normal folks grow out of that stage eventually and become fully developed emotionally mature human beings.

The important thing is for you to remain as calm and centered through all of this as you possibly can. Set boundaries and limits on the child’s behavior and enforce them consistently, without anger if at all possible. If you do get angry, that’s OK, but be willing to admit that you were angry and talk about it after you are calm. She will need to learn how to acknowledge and deal with anger, so show her the healthiest way to do it.

The child may come to you with stories, gossip, or genuine hurt and confusion regarding her mother’s behavior. Do not pass judgement or be ugly ‘out loud’ in front of the child about her mother. Turn it around and ask the child what she thinks or feels when her mother says or does those things. For example, the child may say “I hate mom’s new boyfriend, he is a total jerk and she’s always hanging all over him,”

You can then ask “What does he do that makes him a jerk?” or “What do you think of your mom hanging all over the guy in front of you?” “Why do you think she does that?” Give her safe space to share her feelings without judgement and without her feeling like you are collecting ‘dirt’ on her mom.

Children are very perceptive, even though their brains and emotions may not be mature enough to express their thoughts clearly. If you give her a loving and sane home base, and room to express herself, she will be able to figure out for herself who is who and what is what. Demonstrate to her what healthy relationships look and feel like by modeling appropriate adult behavior between yourself and your partner and by treating the child as a thinking and feeling person of her own. The narcissist, by contrast, will either be treating her daughter as a ‘mini me,’ a ‘best friend/gossip buddy,’ or a ‘parental substitute,’ all of which roles will eventually be uncomfortable for the young lady, and which she will eventually recognize as inappropriate.

By modeling good boundaries, appropriate interactions between yourself and other adults and between yourself and the children of your household, and keeping a safe home base for your daughter, you will be able to give her the freedom to observe and make her own decisions about the kind of person she wants to be and the kind of person her mother is. If you push the issue by making unkind remarks about her mother you will only push them closer together. Remain neutral as much as possible, if you need to say something negative about the mother don’t make it a personal attack such as “She’s irresponsible” but instead frame it as disapproving of the behavior, “I didn’t appreciate her being 3 hours late to pick you up,” (or whatever)

Don’t do power struggle with the narc. Don’t get into contests about who can be the ‘best’ parent, don’t give in to impulses to indulge or spoil the kid to ‘make up’ for her mom being such a jerk. Don’t try to be her best friend or the ‘fun’ parent. Just be fair and kind and decent, have rules that are reasonable and be willing to talk with your child about the reasons for having those rules, and eventually the young woman will grow out of her temporarily narcissistic teens and become a better person for having had YOU in her life.

=====================================================

 Editing to add:  Posts tagged 'quora' were originally my answers to peoples' questions on quora.com.  They were monetized but I am giving them away for free here. 

If you feel inclined to support my writing, here's my paypal 

And if you prefer to pay it forward, I recommend Safe Place as an excellent place to support.