How Does a Narcissistic Grandparent Damage a Child?

6 min readJun 20, 2023

There are many ways that narcissistic grandparent damages their grandchild.

Their affect on them, can result in a lifetime of being abused by narcissists, friends, partners, colleagues, bosses and anyone they come into contact with.

It can also result in them being sexually, financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically abused by them or other people.

Their priority

A narcissistic grandparent soon establishes themselves as their grandchild’s priority.

This is also the behaviour of their parent; they prioritise the grandparent over their own child. Often without even realising it.

Every time they compromise what is best for their child over their parent’s demands, they are prioritising their parent. This can be in little ways, but also bigger ways like big life decisions.

When the child sees this behaviour, they assume that they must prioritise their grandparent too.

The children and grandchildren circle around the centre- the narcissistic grandparent.

Before the grandchild is born, the narcissistic grandparent will test their child to see if they will retain their role as number one.

In a series of dramas, the narcissistic grandparent will establish their superiority over their unborn grandchild. If their child doesn’t prioritise them, then the narcissistic parent will punish them with their rage, expressed in a shouting row or the silent treatment.

However, they express their rage, their expectation will be that their child will concede to them.

Responsible for how they feel

A grandchild of a narcissistic grandparent will be made to feel responsible for their grandparents’ emotional state.

The narcissistic grandparent will manipulate their grandchild with threats, or emotional blackmail, they will be sad or angry unless the child does the thing they want.

The grandchild will feel guilty or sad if they feel that they upset their grandparent, and in an attempt to relieve this ashamed feeling give into their grandparent.

Once the narcissistic grandparent has established their ability to control their grandchild, they will use it every time to get what they want.

The needs of the child are completely disregarded.

Parentification

In a similar way, a grandchild may be expected to take care of a narcissistic grandparent with their physical or mental needs.

They become the grandparent to their own grandparent.

These demands made by the narcissistic grandparent will exceed the age and maturity level of the child. They will be expected to do things not appropriate or suitable for a child.

If the child can not do these things, or will not, then the narcissistic grandparent will manipulate them or threaten them into doing it.

There is no emotional, psychological or physical support from a narcissistic grandparent to their grandchildren.

It’s all about the narcissistic grandparent and whatever they need.

No boundaries

There are no boundaries that a narcissistic grandparent will respect.

In fact, for a narcissist other people’s boundaries are a challenge to overcome.

Any boundaries that the grandchild’s parent has for their child will be disrespected. It will demonstrate to their grandchild to disrespect their parent.

The child’s own boundaries will be ignored. If the child complains, then they will be punished with rage, the silent treatment, threats, or belittled.

Boundaries are unreasonable to a narcissist because they want to do whatever they want.

Ever the hypocrite, the narcissist expects other people to respect their boundaries.

Unpredictable

Narcissistic grandparents are unpredictable.

As they are ruled by their fragile ego and its defence system, they are easily hurt by a comment or action.

It doesn’t make sense to a normal person, but to a narcissist these things can be a huge deal. Of course, the child will never know what they said or did that was wrong. It leaves them guessing and assuming that they did something wrong.

Once that defence system is activated, a narcissistic grandparent may fly into a rage or descend into the silent treatment.

One minute the narcissistic parent can appear to be loving and fun but the next moment in a rage. Children are confused by this, they don’t understand what’s going on. It leaves them feeling insecure and unsure.

Scapegoat / golden child

Likewise, a narcissistic grandparent can be unpredictable with their grandchild, suddenly treating them very well or terribly.

Narcissists have to have a scapegoat.

Often the children of their scapegoat child, will be the scapegoat grandchildren. And the children of the golden child, the golden grandchildren.

The scapegoat will be blamed for everything, by the narcissistic grandparent and the rest of the family.

The golden child will be rewarded with praise, attention and money/gifts.

However, these roles are not set, and they can change very quickly.

If the scapegoat does something good for the narcissist’s image, they can be rewarded by temporarily becoming the golden child. Or if the golden child does something the narcissist doesn’t like, this can happen too.

Neither child feels secure in their role because it can change in a moment.

Conditional love

It can appear that the golden grandchild is loved by the narcissistic grandparent.

However, it is not real love, unconditional love and acceptance.

The narcissists’ love is dished out like a reward when the narcissist gains something from their grandchild. But just as quickly it can be taken away.

Children soon learn what is expected from a narcissistic grandparent. They seek love and acceptance from their grandparent, something that they will never obtain. Their need is used against them, to abuse them.

Image

A narcissistic grandparent is all about their image.

If appearing to be a good, loving and caring grandparent is important to their image, then they will do whatever they have to support this image.

It’s all about how they appear to others, so in public they will be one kind of grandparent, but it will be the opposite when they are home alone with their grandchildren.

The grandchildren are rewarded with praise, attention and money or gifts when they bolster the narcissistic grandparents image.

When they make their narcissistic grandparents look bad publicly, then they are punished with shouting rage or the silent treatment once they are alone.

Abuse for a lifetime

The more habituated to narcissistic abuse a child becomes, the more likely they are to suffer for a lifetime.

Even if a grandchild has good parents, ones that demonstrate love and acceptance, the presence of narcissistic grandparents can undo it all.

It makes narcissistic abuse their normal, and because it’s their normal it means that they attract and are attracted to narcissists.

These people can wreak havoc in their lives, devastating their personal and professional lives.

It can lead to sexual assaults or abuse, divorce, addictions, parental alienation, financial abuse, loneliness, depression, suicide, debt, mental health issues, self-sabotage, people-pleasing, insecurity, inability to form healthy attachments, co-dependency, hopelessness, helplessness, physical abuse and complex PTSD.

Allowing a narcissistic grandparent contact with your child, especially on a regular basis, can be the very thing that destroys their life.

I am not exaggerating.

All these things I list above, are the consequences I myself have suffered or my clients have.

Please protect your children.

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