Everyone has wounds from childhood. This is true. But the more educated we can become about the types of wounds and specific nature of the wounds, the better we are able to heal our own wounds and also the better we are able to help our children.
I cannot express enough how important it is to live a life of growth, recovery, healing, self-reflection, accountability, vulnerability in front of your kids. Children learn by mimicking those around them. They copy behaviors to find what works for them and what doesn’t.
So in this situation, you already have one parent who is manipulative, coercive, controlling, passive aggressive, hyper sensitive, overly reactive, and taking no personal responsibility. Often in these homes, the non-narcissistic parent over-compensates. We try to control what our kids see and experience. We try to fix everything. We try to deny the reality that they are already living with the narcissistic parent in an effort to protect them from it. We try to be “perfect” for them.
What we are missing though is that our kids don’t need perfect, they need human!