From three to five years old is when parents often like to really indulge their children and grandparents may want to do that too.

To tell them they’re really special and they can do anything, be anything, have anything. This is one of the concerns these days. That we, as a society, are teaching children to be too special, to be too narcissistic, in a sense.

Don’t Over-Praise Your Child

The problem that's happened in society over the last forty years, since about 1970, is that parents and teachers have been telling children that they’re too special.

Telling them they can have anything, do anything and be anything - without also mentioning “If you work hard enough and if you learn the right skills,” and “these things are possible, but they're not guaranteed.” This is the age when it's tempting to start saying things like that.

This is also the age where people start buying clothes for the children that say that they are the “Prince” or the “Princess” or that “They are in Charge” - things like that.

While that's humorous, it actually may be contributing to the child starting to have an overblown sense of specialness.

One thing we've learned about teenagers and adults is that when they think they are more special than the people around them, they're not fun to be with and develop a sense of entitlement.

So, this is the age to catch that. You want them to have confidence in themselves and their relationships with others. However, it's confidence in themselves IN relationships with others, not just confidence in themselves. Rather than simply telling children they’re special, we want to tell children they did a good job or they accomplished a good task.

This helps them understand that anything is possible, but they do have to work for it.

One of things we know today is that a lot of high-conflict parents are narcissistic and they are very absorbed in themselves. Perhaps as a way to cope with problems they had in childhood or because they were given too much praise themselves growing up and got away with doing whatever they wanted without taking responsibility.

In either case, 3-5 years old is a good age to develop a realistic balance and to not encourage the child to start thinking of themselves as superior to other people.

It's not good to have low self-esteem, but it's not good to have excessively high self-esteem either. You can't give your child self-esteem. Your child gets self-esteem from success. So give your child opportunities to have success, to try new things and tell them, “Good job!” Or “That was funny.” Or “You know you're really good at that activity.”

Developing confidence in oneself and in one’s relationships with others is really important, and this starts at age 3-5 years old.

Avoid Overly Praising or Overly Criticizing

You may have a high-conflict co-parent who is narcissistic and overly praises the child or you may have a high-conflict co-parent who is narcissistic and insults the child, looks down on the child and criticizes the child too much.

Keep in mind that you may not be able to control what they do because if they are a high-conflict co-parent, they don't reflect on their own behavior and they don’t change their own behavior. So instead of trying to control the other parent’s behavior, focus on what you can do with your child.

Talk about the 4 Big Skills during your parenting time, don’t overly praise them and don’t overly criticize them.

By focusing on your own behavior, you can have a lot of control over your time with the child. Realize that you may be balancing what the other parent is doing. If there are opportunities, let the other parent know this is an age where the child needs to learn that they are successful at doing things and are not just special for being.

If you just can't get used to this idea of not telling the child they’re special, what you could do is say, “You're special to me, but in the world you're going have to learn how to do things.” So don't give them the impression that they are a little king or a little queen who will be served whatever they want growing up.

That's actually a disadvantage in the modern world.