"Co
parenting" with a Narcissist means that our kids get their control
issues, arrogance, assumptions and manipulations shoved down their
throats.
So they might be really, really NOT be into hearing any discipline or advice from the OTHER parent.
The Narcissist might be doing the OTHER thing where they do anything to
make the child (adult child included) LIKE THEM BETTER by giving the
kids certain things, especially things that we would not allow them to
have for their own safety and health, and well being.
So, since the
Narcissist is "more fun" to be with (even if it's just brief periods of
time when they're not acting mean or cold), and that "more fun" person
is painting us in a ridiculously terrible light, of course our kids are
going to be affected by that.
Kids don't know what's going on, and they're not SUPPOSED to know. They're not "supposed to" be dealing with this crap at all.
~
Before we go beating ourselves down about hooking up with a Narcissist
who's messing with our kids' heads, though, remember that we didn't
create the Narcissist, who they are, or what they do. Unless we're a
Narc. ourselves, if we had insight into the way they would act down the
road, especially toward our kids, we would have ran in the other
direction, fast.
We don't have to feel horrible about our mistake in
choice of partner, our misread; that just adds to the vortex of pain,
it puts more energy into the dark spots instead of the Light spots.
Our kids are dealing with the Narcissists in a different way than we
are, and they are directly affected. Sometimes, regardless of their
outward behavior, our kids have insight that we can learn from.
The best thing we can do for our kids besides obviously protecting them
as much as possible from Narc. behavior is healing ourselves, finding
who we are again. Put yourself in their shoes; how would I want my own
Mom or Dad to be? Let their recovery and development be their own, the
thing they need most since they don't have a whole family of healthy
relatives, is to have at least ONE who they can identify with and follow
their lead. Kids need someone to follow, someone's footprints to walk
in. It can't be the Narcs', so it has to be us.
