One of the most horrific and horrendous behaviors that is common to people with certain forms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is trying to paint a person in a negative light to the person's children. Whether the children are very young, older, or adult, the damage can be devastating on several levels, both to the targeted parent AND to the child.
Narcissists are typically not able to comprehend the severity of the damage they're inflicting, although some are. But often a person who is smearing another person is only thinking about destroying the CREDIBILITY of the targeted person, so if the targeted person starts telling others the truth about what the Narcissistic person has done, the hope is that no one will believe them.
Trashing a parent to the person's own children is often done for very superficial and petty reasons, such as trying to MAKE the child LIKE the Narcissist BETTER. People with NPD are often very jealous of close relationships between other people, and will seek to destroy bonds between others, and try to gain "loyalty" of one of the people by creating a CLIQUE, a FACTION, or a "secret club" that INCLUDES the one person and EXCLUDES the other via turning others on the targeted person. They also tend to give "gifts" to the person they're trying to lure, and to make time spent with them seem like a GRAND PARTY... so much better than spending time with that OTHER boring, straight-laced, control freak, rule-making parent...
Children often MISS CONTRADICTIONS, such as a Narcissist calling a targeted person names implying sobriety and Puritanical values such as "straight-laced Polly Purebred " one day,
and calling them an "unstable, irresponsible *&^*@" the next.
Some favorite common rumors that Narcissists seem to enjoy spreading about a parent or an ex in order to 'destroy' their image and reputation, either to the person's children or to others, include:
~ They have a drug habit
~ They have an alcohol problem
~ They can't be trusted
~ They're bipolar or otherwise "mentally unstable" (for some reason "bipolar" is a popular label used often in smear campaigns, it must have been on TV a lot at some point, or in a popular movie.)
~ They "sleep around"
~ They don't tell the truth
~ They don't really care about their kids
~ They cheated on their ex (this one is often used when the ex did the cheating)
~ They're Narcissistic themselves
~ They're the one who was abusive, the other was so worn out and miserable that he/she "HAD TO" lash out/cheat/lie/steal/do drugs... etc..
~ They only care about themselves
~ They lied about the ex and the relationship, and they "make up stories"
~ They keep secrets from everyone
~ They have a "secret life"
~ They "abandoned" their kids
~ They neglected their kids
~ They're control freaks, and/or nobody likes them
What children need to understand is that NO ONE who is NOT a "Narcissist" would spread bad things about their own parent, especially to THEM, whether they were false or true.
ONLY a person who has bad intentions would purposely try to convince a child that their parent is simply a "bad person". Even when one parent is ABUSIVE, a person who does NOT have Narcissism or bad intentions would be more worried about the child figuring out that their parent is abusive, how to explain what's going on or what's happened in a gentle and careful way, and what kind of impact it will make on the child, whether they're still young or an adult.
A NON-Narcissist would wish for the abusive or neglectful parent to heal themselves and heal the relationship with their child.
A Narcissist, on the other hand, just seeks to ruin the child's respect, care, and bond toward the targeted parent, whether that parent was abusive OR whether they're a very loving, caring, excellent parent who loves their child or children very deeply.
Most of these kinds of rumors come from a REAL PLACE, but that place is not from the life of the person who is being targeted. Usually, these are stories pulled straight from the gossiper/smearer's OWN life, edited and rewritten to make the target the "main character" instead of themselves.
Occasionally these tales may also be pulled from others lives whom the Narcissist knows, such as their 'best friend', family members, coworkers, even from fictional dramas.
One thing that nearly all those with Narcissism have in common is a honed and practiced ability to lie, and to convince others that a completely false piece of fiction is true, both about themselves and about other people.
