Sanctuary for the Abused

Thursday, July 12, 2018

Narcissists: Troubled Cases of Arrested Child Development

The simplest way to view narcissists is as troubled cases of arrested child development.

Children haven't the emotional baggage older kids and adults have acquired, but the delightful effect of this freedom on them isn't what it us usually equated to - innocence and lovingness.

Children don't take the needs, feelings, and rights of others into account. What they want is all that matters. Children can be very cruel. Improperly raised, they become terrors.

Childishness is appropriate in children, who have not yet acquired the experience to grow. So, we cut them slack and see the humor in their behavior, finding their childishness amusing, remembering that we were their age once and just like them.

It's easy to be so generous with children, because they can't hurt us. They are totally dependent on us, and they know that.

But when this same childishness persists in an adult, we don't readily see the humor in it. It is always viewed with contempt.

So, it isn't exactly a virtue in children then, either.

Ask a teacher: the main difference between an adult and a child is that a child isn't responsible for his own behavior and an adult is.

Now, when you get a grown-up child, with the power of an adult, or perhaps with great power as a high-ranking official, you have great power coupled with no responsibility. The recipe for a reign of terror.

Like Hitler or Saddam Hussein. Narcissists. Children with all power and no accountability.

- Kathy Krajco

ORIGINAL POST

Labels: arrested development, emotional age, infantile, narcissism, narcissist., tantrum