What are some steps to avoid raising a narcissist?

[answered by Danielle Hall on quora.com]

1. Never tell your kid they are a burden to you. Example, you kids are like a ball and chain around my leg keeping me from focusing on my happiness, my success, etc.
2. Never tell your kids that they are ungrateful to have all they have, yet neglect them emotionally. Example, narcissistic mother provides food shelter and clothing, but never spends time with her kids, doesn't know their hopes and dreams aspirations, just wants them to turn 18 so they can leave the house.
3. Don't use your kids for emotional support. Don’t vent your problems to them. Example, narcissistic mom thinks her kids should support her by helping her achieve her dreams. They are the cheerleaders in her life, they are there to spur her on.
4. Don't displace anger and frustration on kids. Example, narcissistic mom comes home to find apartment has been broken into and everything stolen. In blind rage she grabs her ten year old by the hair and starts pounding her head against the refrigerator door.
5. Don't shit on your kids dreams. Example, daughter tells narcissistic mother she is thinking if becoming a lawyer. Mother responds, I can't see you as a lawyer.
6. Don't make love and affection conditional. I love you when you succeed and make me proud, but I'm ashamed of you when you fail. This creates a person who is terrified to fail, to be a loser, and the kid may become a narcissist to protect self from insecurities.
7. Don't pour all of your fears and negativity into your kids heads. Example, mother is terrified of living and being stuck in poverty, instills that fear in her child, which later creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. The child had a life long dread of poverty and finds her worst fears come to life in adulthood--joblessness, homelessnes, drug addictions, alcoholism.
8. Don't shame and guilt-trip. Don’t tell kid you are a loser, just like your father. Don’t say why can't you be a good boy, good girl like so-and-so?Why can't you be pretty, smart, hard- working like, so-and-so? You want a kid that never feels like they're good enough, this is the way to do it.
9. Don't break promises to your kids. Example, Narcissistic mom tells kids they will be taken to the beach that day but never comes home. Kids grow up with trust issues, and feel its normal for people to disregard them.
10. Don't gaslight your kids. Mother tells 17 year old daughter she is kicking her out of the house the day she turns 18. Kid drops out of school to take a factory job to support herself. Years later mother shames daughter by asking why she didn't go to college and make something of herself. Daughter reminds her she kicked her out of the house. Mother gaslights: I did no such thing!

If you neglect, shame, project, gaslight, withhold affection, discourage and blame, as listed above, you will get:

A) a child with low self esteem too afraid to even have dreams, who will be unable to love themselves, and be victims of other controlling, manipulative, predatory people later in life. In short, a dog shit covered doormat.

B) a child who is terrified to fail, who is afraid, that if they are poor, fat, ugly they will be judged and scorned. They will cover up all the anxiety and fears they had growing up under a narcissistic parent by creating false armour, because they are terrified to ever feel that out of control again. As an ego defense, they will become over-controlling assholes who are arrogant, entitled, and manipulative. But also they will focus so much on their own pain and needs that they won't have any empathy for anyone else. They won't ever love, because they learned that love was conditional and rejection too painful. They will lash out because they are full of rage at their narcissistic parent, and by extension, the world. They will demean and degrade because other people's success diminishes their own.

And thus another narcissistic asshole has been created to shatter other people's lives.

Thanks, narc mom.

Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry.
Mamma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true.
Mamma's gonna put all of her fears into you.
Mamma's gonna keep you right here under her wing,
She won't let you fly but she might let you sing.
Mamma's gonna keep baby cosy and warm.
Oooh babe

Mother, Pink Floyd.