Behavior is Communication -
But bad behavior cannot be tolerated.
This post is going to make some readers uncomfortable. It might also make some readers angry. It might also make some readers reflective. That is because this post is about two of my favorite topics, but probably two of the most controversial: parenting and narcissism. Wherever your reaction falls - sit with it for a moment. Notice which emotions are lighting up, and where they are lighting up in your body. Are you feeling queasy? Is it harder to breathe? Are you suddenly noticing your heart beating? Are your ears ringing? Is your skin prickling? Are you sweating? Or- do you feel immense relief- I am not alone - echoing through your mind? Whatever emotional reaction you have, it’s cool. I welcome your feedback and discussion. Let’s begin:
Last week, I made two parenting decisions in the same day that might seem, upon first glance, to counter each other. In the first - I firmly enforced boundaries with my son. In the second, I allowed him the freedom to complete a “big kid” task on his own, with plenty of room for error. We’ll get to those stories in a bit - but first, a little foray into children and narcissism:
Children are inherently self-centered. This isn’t a commentary about “children today” or “gentle parenting” - it is fact. Since their brains are still developing, their strongest instincts are the primal ones of self -preservation. Have you ever known a baby or toddler to consider your urgent need to use the bathroom when they are screaming for food? Or to be respectful of the fact that you are working in the morning when they. wake several times throughout the night? Children’s ability to regulate their behavior vis a vis their surroundings is something they must learn - usually from their caregivers, and most usually in the home. Children between the ages of 3 and 6 often go through a narcissistic phase where they believe that the world revolves around them. This is the phase of flailing supermarket tantrums, refusal to put toys away, and limitless pushing of boundaries. This is normal - they are creating and asserting their own identity in relation to - and most often - in reaction to - yours. This is, as a dear friend of mine and early childhood psychologist says, “developmentally normal, but socially unacceptable.” It helps them understand their place in the world, but it can become problematic if the child gets stuck in this phase - and some do.
We all know adults that are “stuck in this phase.” There are many different kinds of narcissists (for another post…), but the connecting thread in all of them is the manipulation of attention, emotional resources, and caregiving in their direction. Dr Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist and expert on narcissism says that 1 in 6 people are narcissists. The personality can range from overt, grandiose - this is all about me - to more subtle, but just as draining - please take care of me - constantly. They. are the people that we are constantly walking on eggshells around - any misstep can make them crack. It may not take much deep thinking for you to identify people you’ve known, or still know, that fit somewhere in this range. The truth is, we all do - it’s how we stay alive. The key is to know how to stay somewhere in the middle, and the way we know how to do that is by cultivating empathy, respect, compassion, patience, reciprocity, and psychological safety.
The way we keep our children from getting stuck in the it’s all about me phase is to nurture in them a strong sense of empathy, awareness of community, respect for boundaries, and kindness towards others. We have to help them identify bad behavior, and throw the reasoning away. There is no doubt that whatever the reasoning is - is true - a bad day, tough situation at home, learning challenges - and still, the behavior is unacceptable. Teaching children to take responsibility for themselves, their behavior, and their words helps them start the work of living in community. When we don’t, we get the kids that stir up social drama, flaunt their disrespect for authority, bulldoze through established boundaries, believe communal norms do not apply to them, and in the extreme cases - become relationally and physically aggressive towards others.
In my practice, I often see the kids who are trying to cope with having these kids in their classes, gymnastics teams, baseball leagues, and social circles. As a parent, it is heartbreaking to watch your child struggle with the constant exclusion/isolation/you’re not my friend today games of relational narcissists, and the physical - sometimes subversive - wounding from aggressive narcissists. For many of us, this is because it nips at the wounds we have from relationships with people who did this to us.
So now, we get to the parenting portion with the first story -
The morning began like every other morning thus far in the summer: in utter chaos. My kids have become complacent morning people, since over the last few months of the school year, advancing pregnancy and having a newborn in the house made it much more difficult for us to leave for school on time. Without the strict departure time of 7:30am, they have slothfully embraced the extra time to linger, dawdle, and stroll in getting ready. Throw in a week between school and camp with little recognizable structure, and the resettling into a routine has been rough. To throw another wrench into the machine, the camp bus arrival time is…not consistent. That is how, at 7:34, we found ourselves running out the front door - shoes barely on (me), and backpacks hastily zippered and dragged along (them) - to catch the bus.
Once they’re on the bus, I am free to recalibrate the start of the day. On this particular day, I decided to spend my hour between bus and Gemara class to sort through our storage closet. About 15 minutes into this, I received the following message from the bus counselor:
Can you please have a talk with [son], he is running around on the bus while it is driving fast, bothering other kids, and refuses to listen to instructions.
I was, of course, horrified.
MY son is doing this? The child raised in MY house?!
I immediately called the bus counselor and asked him to put my son on the phone. I could hear in his voice that he was fully dysregulated, in his impulsive self, and that this situation needed a firm voice. I told him to sit down and buckle up, then spoke to my daughter, to remind her of her responsibility as the older sibling. Expecting my “stern mom voice” to do the trick, I went back to sorting boxes. Two minutes later, I receive another message:
He’s still doing it.
I am not proud of this behavior of his - but I share this to highlight the moments in which our children will stress against the boundaries that we’ve established for them. These are the moments where we, as parents, must teach them that bad behavior is unacceptable. They will test limits with their behaviors - and sometimes they will also try to communicate something that is hard for them to say. In this instance, I figured out what he was trying to tell us… much later on. In the moment, my response to the bus counselor was:
“Tell him I’m coming to camp to speak with him.”
I packed up the baby into the car and drove the 45 minutes up to his camp. I was writhing with a combination of anger, embarrassment, disbelief, and sadness - but anger was driving the car, weaving in and out of traffic, and white-knuckling the steering wheel.
“I’m going to kill that kid, I’m going to kill him!”
I repeated it over and over again on the drive up. A combination of my spouse assuring me over the phone that there is likely an explanation, since this behavior is way out of his baseline of kind, respectful, rule following kid - and a friend reminding me that I know this is typical childhood behavior on what we know is a wild bus -took me down from a 10 to maybe a 6. Still - typical or not, this behavior wasn’t going to go untended. I arrived at camp, put the baby in the stroller and marched - likely with full on “angry mom face” judging by the wide-eyed stares of teenage counselors - towards my son’s bunk. They were getting ready to play a game of soccer on the field, and when this kid spotted me - his entire body slumped in shame. Using the universal “come here” motion with my finger, I summoned him to me by the side of the pitch. Keeping my voice shakily level, but firm, I asked him to tell me about his behavior on the bus. I then asked him whether he thought his behavior met the criteria of our home values: kindness, safety, and respect. (spoiler alert - it didn’t, and he knew it).
I explained to him the real-life consequences of standing up in a moving vehicle - him flying through a windshield. I then reminded him our home rules about personal space, safety, and respecting others - and the fact that kids will not want to play with children who bother them. Finally, I explained to him what the consequences would be at home for his behavior (in this case, removal of access to favorite toys and any screen time for the foreseeable future - including his much awaited viewing of Inside Out 2). I also added that any continuation of this behavior would indeed mean removal from camp, and a summer spent sitting in a chair, facing a wall. To finish it off, I asked him what he thought his kindergarten teacher, a woman whose opinion he highly values, would think if she heard this story.
(When she did hear the story, she told me to remind him he has to be a contributing member of the group)
I asked him if he understood, and he nodded tearfully. He thought we were done at that point, but I then said “take me to your bus counselor.” Since a first grader does not have general knowledge of where counselors are stationed during the day, we stomped all around the camp - stroller bumping over gravel paths and all - until we found the bus counselor, and my son audibly (I can’t hear you!) apologized for: his dangerous behavior on the bus, and more importantly - not respecting him/listening when he repeatedly told my son to stop.
As we walked back, I reminded him that I love him, that I want him to be safe, and that he has to remember to act according to what he knows is right. The conversation ended with a hug, but my time at the camp was not complete. I then hiked to the girls side of camp to find his older sister, to remind her that her responsibility on the bus is to keep her and her brother safe. She, being the dutiful eldest daughter, was properly terrified to see me at camp.
The bus ride home, and all subsequent bus rides have been blessedly uneventful, and my son knows that his behavior is now being closely watched.
Later on, when the emotional dust settled, and we had the chance to go on a walk together, I asked him whether he was feeling frustrated or sad because the presence of the new baby has meant that he’s getting less attention from us. He nodded, told me he missed our time together, and that he didn’t want things to change. We talked about other ways to express this, and other ways to signal for attention that aren’t dangerous, disrespectful, and unkind. We also talked about how some changes are temporary, and others mean we also have to change. His behavior on the bus (and truthfully, other little moments over the last couple of weeks), communicated that he needed us to pay attention to him. That being said, bad behavior, would not be tolerated.
The second parenting decision came at the turn around point of our walk - my son asked whether he could purchase a snack from the convenience store. Since I didn’t want to maneuver the stroller through the aisles, I told him that I trusted him to go in on his own, with $5, and pick out a good snack. I stood up the block, and within 6 minutes he was back outside, grinning, pretzel yogurts and change in hand.
“That was so great mommy, I did a big kid thing, and I didn’t even get junk food, or drop anything, or be wild. I said thank you, and I even checked for the kosher letters on the snack”
Why would I let my son, who had been so blatantly disrespectful just that morning, go in by himself and maneuver the complex interactions of purchasing a snack? He could have run wildly into the store, picked out a bunch of candy, made a mess, and bothered other shoppers.
He didn’t - why?
Because I showed him that I trusted him. I showed him that I know his baseline personality is kind, safe, and respectful. That his emotions are valid, even when they create bad behavior. That he is the kid who asks me how my run was - every single morning, who his teachers how their weekend was- and if they’re feeling better when he knows they were sick, the kid who goes out of his way to greet everyone from the maintenance worker to the head of school every morning, that he is the kid who comes to get me when his baby sister is crying, that he is the kid with a kind heart, and curious mind. I showed him that he is not his behavior, but that his behavior can show people who he is.
We have to trust that our children can internalize the lessons we teach them, and they have to know that we trust them to mold it into their personality. In both instances, the lesson was the same - you are a person in community, and you will act respectfully, and kindly in the settings that you are in. Enforcing this through correcting bad behavior, and encouraging cooperative behavior, will help mold his eventual core self as an adult. He will make more mistakes, and with firm, loving structure - he will learn a little bit more each time.
We all want to be cared about, cared for, and considered. We all want someone to notice when something is different, we want to be missed when we aren’t there, and we want to be told “good job” when we remember to go to the dentist. We want our booboos kissed, and our rambling stories heard, and our dreams validated. That is because we are all, inherently, the children we once were. Our personalities bloomed from roots that stretch way back into our formative years. We are the babies who liked to be held, who stared at shiny things, and who cried when our caregivers ignored us. We are the toddlers who wanted nothing more than to hear “I love you,” even when we spilled milk all over the floor. We are the children who wanted our parents to tell us, “I am proud of you,” even when we didn’t make the grades they hoped we would. We are the young adults who walked the tightrope of self-love and doubt, when we made choices ersatzed our lives.
Some of us, might be narcissists. Statistically, one in six people reading this - is one. You might be thinking, it’s too late for me/my child/my coworker. You might be right - but remember, all behavior is communication. Bad behavior, though unacceptable and definitely something to course-correct, is also telling you a story.