“It’s all about you” is a great worship song, but the reality is that we’ve raised a generation to believe “It’s all about ME.” In a thousand ways, we parents have raised them to defy Copernican logic by being the center of the universe.
already experienced symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder,
compared with just over 3 percent of the 65-and-over set.” 30% believe they deserve a B just for showing up to class. Those are scary stats.
The result of all this parental foolishness is that many young people are growing up spiritually handicapped. So much of spiritual maturity has to do with how we process pain. Discipline entails embracing the painful or unpleasant in the short term in order to realize long term gains. Though well-intentioned, parents are depriving their children of this essential piece of equipment, creating little narcissists instead.
So what is to be done? First of all, if you’re a young person between the ages of 15-30, you would do well to evaluate how much of this cultural poison has seeped into your soul. Ask a few older, wiser mentors to give you a no-holds-barred assessment of your level of narcissism. Do you make your life decisions to serve a higher purpose? Do you delay gratification? Are you disciplined?
For young people
- Expose yourself to more painful and ambiguous situations.
- Read Proverbs on the subject for a good study.
- Go on a two-month summer mission trip.
- Watch the “Me Monster” video below (my favorite comedian & a hilarious riff on the subject).
- Give your child chores.
- Involve your child in serving a local ministry.
- Help your child identify a mentor and help them learn how to seek and listen to feedback.
- Stop caring so much about every aspect of their lives. By age 18 they should be making their own decisions.
- Realize that our culture is broken and the models you’ve inherited are broken. Read Juli Slattery on the subject.
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These are such great challenges for us as parents! Thanks!
That clip made me laugh! Me monster alive and kicking all over the world, sometimes in me I guess too, maybe more often than I would hope or care to admit…..
The kid thing – I wish kids came with an individual handbook. Working out how much responsibility a kid of 7 should have and what is basically too much for them without the natural maturity that comes with age is a nightmare. How you make a kid feel safe and loved and yet leave ’em to suffer when they make a mistake……..judging which things to do that with and which not……..it’s a total minefield and is doubtless littered with my parenting errors.
I’ve always had a lot of good natural balance – used to be a dancer! But this kind of balance – it’s frequently beyond me to figure it out. How do you get a kid to process pain well? How do you teach this stuff? I’m vocal with my kid and don’t hide the tough stuff I am going through from him, but explain it as best I can. But you can’t join up all the neurons in someone else’s brain and make them understand and apply skills in their own lives.
Every parent’s yearning is for a well balanced, mature kid who can have fun, show restraint, be full on, compassionate and wise. No-one wants a me monster! Sometimes I feel like the Irishman shaking my head and saying “you can’t get there from here!” But it ain’t over till it’s over, so I guess I just have to keep trying……..
You’re right Seth. We are so full of ourselves! My husband I were working at the Soup kitchen this past Christmas day (since we had no family or children coming to our house). We thought it would be good for us to be volunteering rather than others with children and family. But, much to our surprise, there was a young family with 2 boys ages 8 and 11 there working along side of us. When I asked the mother if it was hard on her sons to be away from their home and their new gifts on Christmas morning she said “we want them to grow up and know the Christmas isn’t all about them but about serving others. We do it every year and now their Grandpa comes with us.” Wow…how profound! Wish I had thought to do THAT as our family Christmas tradition!
All I can say is that the baby boomers taught all those that came behind them well.
Im sure many people laugh when they read “30% believe they deserve a B just for showing up to class” but I have to agree with that statement. I was in a meeting only last month where a child who has been truanting school has just been informed by the authorities that his parents will be prosecuted if he fails to attend. Sitting in that meeting, facing the authorities he said ” I will attend if you pay me!”
Somehow this student fails to recognise that parents can be fined up to £2,500 and sent to prison for 3 months even when the authorities are sitting in front of him spelling it out!
This is a serious problem in todays young people.
I think is is one of the most difficult challenges in raising my 3 kids. Each one processes information differently and can see the same situation in 3 different ways. I can explain something and it is interpreted 3 different ways, when all along I thought there was only one meaning.
I appreciate this post Seth… it’s been one of my greater challenges over the last few years to raise my kids where God is on the throne of their heart.
Lots of Believers say they want to know God’s will, but it seems to be in a narcissistic way. His will means it’s about Him, but somehow in our twisted way of thinking we turn it into a very narrow, inward line of pursuit. Check out an article I posted on my WordPress blog, The Cash Acccount, entitled “Narcissism and God’s Will Don’t Mix” at http://thecashaccount.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/narcissism-and-gods-will-dont-mix/
Thanks!
I guess I am 6 years late with this comment, but this was a good blog!
I especially liked this one:
“It’s not that you’re bad and need fixing. It’s that you’re much better than you realize.”