The psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who writes ShrinkWrapped has a post reflecting on The Tragedy of Narcissism.
All of us have a significant Narcissistic investment in our children. It is the most normal and natural thing in the world to feel pride at our children's successes and pain at their set-backs. However, most healthy parents know that part of their job requires separating their interests from their child's interests.....
And the saddest part is that for the unfortunate children of such people, they are already finding their self worth dependent on external forces, continuing the Narcissistic cycle that their parent have been unable to escape.
Children depend on receiving unconditional love from their parents; when a parent is distressed or depressed, they are less able to be emotionally available to their child. The children who have to go through the crucible of pre-school, nursery school, and grade school admissions, recognize how much importance their parents attach to it, which means that if they "fail", they have failed their parents. It doesn't even help if they succeed; either way, the message to the children is that their parent's happiness depends on an accomplishment by the child over which he has no real control.
Previous posts in which I discuss private school admissions and how parents misunderstand the process, or make their children suffer in the process:
Parents' attitudes distort the the admissions process
The point is, any admissions committee's decision is not about the relative value of any particular child, it's about the intersection of the applicant pool and the school's programs and resources.
Parents who view the admissions process as if the process determines their child's value, like Ms. Glenn, are failing in their parental responsibilities. A parent's job is to empathize with the children's feelings, not identify with them. A parent's job is to stay clear about their children's identity and value, which cannot be determined by some outside agency, such as a school, but by the relationship between the child and the parent.
Delusional Parenting: College Admissions
Echoing Fred Hargadon’s (Princeton University Dean of Admissions) comment four year ago, “we could have filled three separate classes from this year’s pool of applicants, with no discernible difference among them.” His follow-up statement also applies to the admissions picture at private high schools in 2002. “A student’s acceptance is, to a significant extent, a matter of luck.”
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