When There is Favoritism of a Child in a Family, It is Usually a Sign There is an Abused Scapegoat Child Too. Comes With a Discussion for Teachers and Mandated Reporting.

 

"Trapped but Resilient"

c Lise Winne

This post is mainly written for teachers who are mandated reporters.
Note: I am a certified teacher and a mandated reporter who decided to research and study subjects on abuse. 

To get to the subject ... 

If you are a teacher, you are probably not going to find out who is a favored child by talking to a favorite child. Favorite children usually do not boast that they are a favorite. Some of the reasons for this are the following:
* "You're a Mommy's boy!" from jeering, teasing peers
* resentment from siblings
* shock and dismay from teachers
* disapproval of the favoritism by other parents 
* Parents who favor a child often deny that they do. 

In terms of abusive parents who use favoritism to hurt one or some of their children, it is often perpetrated by parents who display personality disorders such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder (the Cluster B personality disorders). Abuse can also be perpetrated by people with Cluster C personality disorders (dependent, avoidant and obsessive compulsive). 

Since the Cluster B personality disordered perpetrate abuse more than those with Cluster C personality disorders, and because my blog is more focused on the Cluster B personality disorders, I will be referencing the Cluster B personality disorders for this particular post.

Borderline Personality Disorder is a complex disorder as there are four types of it, and one type can differ quite a bit from other types. One type can display abusive behaviors and another type can primarily express suicidal thoughts or behaviors, loner status, isolation, PTSD and depression to the point where they are too disabled to work or study. If you're not studied up on the four types, you may assume that all Borderlines are abusive if you know of a Borderline who is abusive. Or you might deny that Borderlines are abusive at all if you know of a Borderline who is suicidal and doesn't interact with many, if any, people, let alone partake in abusing them. 

To complicate matters Borderline Personality Disorder is often comorbid with other disorders. It can be comorbid with Dissociative Identity Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, ADHD, Autism, PTSD, Agoraphobia, Social Anxiety Disorder (very prevalent), Separation Anxiety Disorder (also very prevalent), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (which can have many physical effects on the body and be painful, leading to Borderlines feeling hopelessness and self destruction), clinical depression (highly prevalent), suicidality (highly prevalent), eating disorders (also highly prevalent), and addiction (also highly prevalent). 

Because comorbidities are so highly prevalent among Borderlines, it makes it difficult to talk about them in terms of if they abuse, and how they abuse. A Borderline with a comorbidity with Antisocial Personality Disorder is going to act quite differently than a Borderline with hopelessness, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and suicide ideation. 

There is nothing simple about talking about Borderline Personality Disorder in terms of how they abuse children (if they abuse them at all), as they can have comorbidities with the more unempathetic and violent types of Cluster B personality disorders, such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder, or have no comorbidities with these disorders at all and can show deep empathy for others. 

Most Borderlines have empathy, so that distinguishes them from the other Cluster B personality disorders. Their brain scans tend to be a little different than the other Cluster B personality types also and tend to have more in common with people with PTSD than the other Cluster B personality disorders. 

If I had to take a simplistic approach to how Borderlines abuse children, for those who do abuse, the simplistic take on it is that they tend to reactively abuse and primarily stick to emotional abuse. 

Some of them can abuse if someone disagrees with them, or if they feel they are in danger of being abandoned. However, people whom they believe are close to them and disagreeing with them can sometimes be seen by them as abandoning them too. In other words, Borderlines can become easily triggered and afraid of "the possibilities" of being abandoned.  

Do people with Borderline Personality Disorder show favoritism of children? Definitely yes, but again, this does not apply to all Borderlines.  

However, the more likely personality disorder to show favoritism are those people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And they tend to show it blatantly and do it cruelly, at least as far as the disfavored child is concerned. For them it is often a manipulative scheme, with a single-minded ambition for power, control and domination and narcissistic supply. Favoritism also tends to be transactional. They also tend to hurt disfavored children intentionally. In other words favoritism can come with a lot of abuse (not just from the parent, but the favorite sibling can partake in it too). 

As for the other Cluster B personality disorders, there is no research that indicates Antisocial Personality Disordered individuals have "favorites" beyond extortion, and for the Histrionic Personality Disordered folks, they are generally too inconsistent to have a consistent favorite child. 

If some of these personality disorders are comorbid with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is common (another link) then it is more likely. 

For the sake of awareness, it is good for any teacher to know the traits associated with the Cluster B Personality disorders, particularly from the DSM-5:
Borderline Personality Disorder
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Histrionic Personality Disorder
Antisocial Personality Disorder

Note: the statistics for people with Cluster B personality disorders in the general population only counts those who have been clinically diagnosed and reported, and since many people with these personality disorders do not seek help from mental health professionals, the numbers are probably much higher. Dr. Ramani Durvasula, an expert psychologist on narcissism, said that as many as 1 in 6 people in the United States could have Narcissistic Personality Disorder in one of her videos (meant to include narcissists who do not go to therapy and therefor never get diagnosed - this seems more accurate to me too than the 1 - 3 percent generally stated in textbooks ... however I would guess it is more like 10 percent). 

Anyway, to get back on-topic:

Since it is doubtful we teachers will ever learn of favoritism from a "favorite child" or a parent "who is favoring a specific child", we may learn about it from the child who is dis-favored and coming to us with complaints about it. 

Because I know that favoritism can come with abuse, and often does, I tended to take children who complained about favoritism seriously. Sometimes it turned out to be a one-time situation, or did not warrant drastic action, but in general, I thought that issues of favoritism deserved constant vigilance and oversight to make sure the child was not being abused. 

But anyone could see how favoritism could be a set-up for abuse to happen. The favorite can get special privileges while the disfavored does not. The favorite can get to go on special trips with Mom or Dad,  while the disfavored is told to stay home.

And then it has a way of escalating from there unless the parent has a conscience and stops it: the favorite is constantly praised, while the dis-favored becomes the child who is constantly criticized. When one child is praised most of the time, and the disfavored child is enduring criticism most of the time, it's more or less when the abuse of the disfavored child begins. Since abuse almost always tends to escalate rather than de-escalate, I believe it is important to watch out for this first sign. 

How I tended to deal with "the favoritism issue" as a teacher:

I often tried to dig deeper to find out how the favoritism was being manifested. Was the favorite getting more resources while the child standing in front of me got less? Was the favorite getting more affection while the child talking to me got little or none? Was the favorite getting away with punching the child standing in front of me? Scratches? Verbal abuses? Were they called crazy at all? How many times? Were they singled out to be by themselves while the favorite was invited to be part of family activities? Were their feelings being ignored while the favorite's feelings were always taken into consideration? Were they blamed for what others did (DARVO'd)? 

Then I got into the physical abuse specifics. How were they touched by others in their family? I tried to dig deep if they were revealing any aggressive forms of touching (like punching, grabbing, scratching, biting, etc). 

How much were they blamed for things they didn't do, that the parent or a sibling did instead? How much were they made to take responsibility for what others do? Were they accused of having traits that the accuser(s) had (as this might show projection on the perpetrator's part, which is often an indication of Cluster B personality disorders)?

If I felt it warranted a report to Child Protective Services, that is what I did. 

This is to say that a child talking about the favoritism of a sibling rang the first alarm bells for me as to whether they were being abused in their family of origin or not (and most of the children who talked about favoritism of a sibling largely were). 

Usually when there is favoritism of a sibling, there is a scapegoat in the family too. I am providing some articles and links below that address that issue, as well as two Google AI articles (where you can access other articles on the subject through the articles). 

The other thing I noticed about child scapegoats being abused is that when answering questions, they were emotional and appeared exhausted when giving the answers.

If they got into a "I can't tell" phase with their answers, I tried to find a backdoor way of getting an answer. For instance, if I asked whether they were punched, they might tell me that they can't say, or that they don't want to talk about it, so I'd let it go, but then as I gained their trust, the backdoor way I got an answer was to ask, "If you get punched by someone, how do react?" ... "How do you protect yourself?" ... "How do you make plans to keep safe?" ...

Then that might lead to other questions such as: "How do you think this problem can be solved, or do you think there is no way to solve it?" ... "Has any grownup ever defended you?" ... "Does any grown up listen to your concerns and what do they do after you have told them that you feel hurt by their actions?" ... "Has your sibling always been a favorite, or does it pass around to you sometimes? And are you treated better during those times, or does it just seem like you are the favorite because your parent is trying to punish your sibling?" .... "Does the favoritism go back to the prior favorite sibling when they do what your parent wants?" ... "Do you feel seen or heard, or do you feel invisible?" ... "What do your parents punish you for?" Note: if it's something like a look on their face, their tone of voice, accusing them of feeling or thinking in certain ways, or accusing them of evil plans to hurt others - that is a huge red flag! I would not ignore this, because so often it is "perpetrator fantasy", an excuse to abuse - perpetrators who have fantasies about what their victims are feeling and thinking escalate abuse very rapidly - they are more prone to act out abuse fantasies that bring them "sadistic pleasure" than other types of abusers do (it's in the link) - and since teachers are usually mandated reporters (with not enough training, in my opinion, or enough workshops in up-to-date research), it is really, really important to know what children are being punished for and whether it resembles anything like this. 

And finally I would ask: "Does your parent ever apologize for the hurt they have caused you? And how long does that apology last in your opinion?" and "Does your sibling ever apologize for the hurt they caused you and how long does that apology last in your opinion?" 

These are just some of the questions I asked when teaching kids who let me know in some way that there was trouble at home. When younger children are acting out, I think it is important to get to the bottom of "why". Some will say, "I'm just a bad kid." Or "I'm just crazy" or "I'm going to try hard not to act that way. Can I go now?" I don't think any of these are good enough answers in the least bit. They may have been taught to think that way about themseves or to say that. So questioning gets to the bottom of what is truly ailing them, and how they think about things. 

"I care about how you feel and think about things" sometimes works wonders ... I often got sheepish or teary smiles when saying that. If you find out they are abused, probably very few people are caring what they think or feel.

I usually pointed out good qualities that I saw in them too, even if they had the reputation of being "a bad kid".

I think that if you focus on the good qualities of children, that gives them a future incentive and the beginning thought processes to focus on those qualities. The more you focus on those qualities, the more they will too.

If they were teenagers, I focused on their potential, their talents, their intelligence, and suggested activities that they might be interested in, and if they showed a lot of interest in something, I might mention a few careers, although I left a lot of that to guidance counselors as that is their specialty. However, the one thing about a teacher starting the conversation about careers, it shows that you have confidence in them, that they can "make it" in those careers. That kind of focus can continue to help them to think of the future instead of the present ("life as an adult"). 

Abused children and teenagers often think of themselves as losers, that they can't do anything right. Many of them are taught that they are inept - abuse is primarily a power and control issue, and if a parent or caretaker can convince a child that they are inept, it gives the parent or caretaker greater control to make life-long decisions for the child.

Obsessing over gaining more power and control is a "hallmark narcissistic trait" which often carries other issues like lack of empathy for their child, being antagonistically inclined, and a parent can blame shift on to a child when they exhibit unethical behaviors as a way to avoid their own accountability, and a host of other issues that can lead them to abuse their child (called narcissistic abuse, although narcissistic abuse usually escalates to other forms of abuse).  

Many people who seek more and more power and control, and put that agenda first in their lives, treat their children in such a way that will damage or break their child's self esteem, especially if the child is put in a scapegoat role.

Children often feel helpless, inept and hopeless to change their self esteem because part of being in a scapegoat role is that they are criticized a lot for what they don't do (unfairly blamed). They can often feel there is no way out of the constant unfair blaming and shaming, and no action to take to change the trajectory of their parent's bad opinions of them.

But if you have the time as a teacher to teach them something different about themselves, then that can be an impetus for them to think they are more special and valuable to others than they hitherto believed, rather than only valuable for the sake of a sunken self esteem in their families.

I will say it is an uphill battle to get them from sinking again and again into a lousy self esteem, especially if they are going home every night just to have it bashed up again, but I will say that I felt I  had some success, as a teacher in building some of it back up, especially if I kept reminding them of their best qualities.

Granted it worked better for younger children than for teenagers, but teenagers still have the ability to dream, to perk up when feeling valued, to imagine a life of being accepted, to feel they have something to offer than just a walking-on-eggshells, repressed, and a silenced persona with no traits other than what other people give them in a hounding or bullying way. 

The other thing you get by continuing to focus on their better qualities is a better behaved child because they aren't as likely to get attention and reactions by "being bad".

A good paying career and better self esteem can also be a way not to "have to put up with" abuse and low self esteem entrapments, and teenagers are aware of this, at least on some level.

Again, their focus on the abuse at home hijacks their mind to think only in the present: how to deal with the abuse, how to defend themselves, how to get away from the abuse, how the abuse is making them feel "hunted down", how the abuse is continuing to make them feel in general (or destroy them - a lot of abused teenagers feel hollowed out). 

A lot of abused children also feel they are being treated as though they are much younger than their age. In other words, they are treated as though they are seven when they are seventeen. 

When you focus on the fact that they'll be adults in xx amount of years and that skills will help them to survive as an adult, it challenges them to look at themselves as 17 again, rather than as a child (it's an ingognito way of saying "You aren't seven any more, and I'm not treating you like you are seven.").

During school hours, they can start to imagine a future without emotional abuse, where they are in charge of their own lives, interests and ambitions if they are not too gripped with fear about what they will encounter at home.

If they felt competitive with the "favored sibling", I usually asked questions like this (mainly to teenagers): "Do you think your parents or a sibling set up a competition between you? Or is it something you actually and honestly feel is being generated in yourself?" I find that abused children really do not feel competitive, unless they feel they have a chance at some sort of advantage, and most of them don't. Possibly because the scapegoat role is a role which basically makes this clear: "You're the lowest on the hierarchy and I'm going to make sure that you stay there."

There are children who are so abused they don't even know that they are being set up to compete, who try to mediate and compromise a way forward instead so that both people are happy with the outcome. 

If they are from a narcissistic family, that just won't work.

If these teenagers did feel competition with a sibling, I told them that it could end by focusing on their own positive traits, talents, etc., and that it could be more of a choice of theirs on whether or what to compete about, or whether to distance themselves from the sibling. And guess what? When given that choice, most abused children prefer not to compete, and to distance instead. 

In fact, with teenagers in particular, I was focused on their adulthood a lot, and the temporariness of the teenage years. "You'll be out of here in two years, right? What skills would you like to acquire before leaving here so you can live your best life?" - I doubt that highly emotionally abused teenagers are asked these kinds of questions in their families, or even think about these questions. Again, their minds are hijacked with: "How do I keep safe? How do I get them to stop? What do I need to do to keep from being abused? How can I talk about the abuse without the abuse getting worse? I just wish they'd stop already."

Unfortunately, abuse escalates (usually no matter what).

I would like better emotional abuse laws in the USA, but for the meantime, we teachers only have present laws to work with.

Granted, school psychologists can make a big impact and should be part of any of these types of conversations, but since the USA has such poor emotional abuse laws, emotional abuse can go unaddressed aside from what schools can do to open up possibilities of a better future.

However, since abuse escalates, it's best to keep an eye on students who are emotionally abused, knowing that escalation is probably going to be going up. Once any physical abuse by siblings or parents start, then Child Protective Services will step in and give the family ultimatums, or take the child out of the home. Usually. So much depends on the state, the jurisdiction and the type of abuse taking place.

At any rate, before Child Protective Services can do anything (because of being hand-tied by present laws about emotional/psychlogical abuse even though emotional/psychological abuse is incredibly damaging and can have the longest effects), I felt duty-bound to help students who had the attitude of "I'm being told I'm nothing, so I guess I have no future." What a terrible thing to carry around in a place of learning skills, and a waste of human potential!

I think it is up to teachers that students see their potential and for students to reach goals they've set to be a highly functioning adult. 

Children should not be groomed to have a horrible self esteem, but tell that to any abuser. They don't care. Shame is what they prefer to dish out instead, and shame is what they will continue with. 

The best way for children to flourish and have a life that is meaningful, fulfilling, ethical and healthy is for them not to be abused. 

SOME FACTS AND WARNING SIGNS TO KEEP IN MIND

Characteristics of a family scapegoat

Characteristics of a child scapegoat with PTSD

How to tell if a child is being scapegoated in their family

Characteristics of abused children with very low self esteem

How to tell if a child is at risk for suicide

Abused scapegoat children often complain about favoritism of a sibling by a parent

Scapegoats often feel like they can't talk

Scapegoats often feel like they can't talk about the abuse they endure for fear of repurcussions

Scapegoats often feel they have to be silent about their pain

A radical drop in school grades is an indicator a child may be abused

Abused children often talk about the fact that they can't sleep

Abused childen often complain about stomach aches

Abused children often complain about headaches

Abused children often have a drastic change in weight

Abused children often complain about not feeling well

Abused children often seem distracted and confused

Abused children often appear as though they have learning disabilities

Abused children often cry easily

Abused children are often called crazy by their family

Abused children are often referred to as liars by their family

Abused children are often referred to as "too sensitive" by family members

Abused children often complain they are lonely

Abused children often complain they are being isolated from the family

Abused children can complain about neglect

Abused children may appear older than their age

Abused children cry more easily when they see pain in others

Abused children can suffer from a lack of identity

Abused children often show creative aptitude

A child who is crying from trauma is not the same as normal crying. How to tell the difference. 

Abusive parents often lack empathy

What are the signs of emotionally immature parents?

Can child abuse happen more easily with emotionally immature parents? 

Do a lot of immature parents have attachment trauma? Yes.

How to deal with emotionally immature parents - as a teacher

Dealing with difficult parents - for teachers

Dealing with a student's revelations about emotional or verbal abuse - for teachers

Dealing with a student's revelations about child abuse - for teachers

Six tips for teachers who see emotional abuse

Approximately 11 - 33% of girls are sexually abused before the age of 18. 

Approximately one in six boys is sexually abused before the age of 16. 

Approximately one in four children experiences some form of abuse or neglect over their lifetime

Infants and young children are at the highest risk for maltreatment and have the highest fatality rates from abuse

Fatal child abuse warnings

Article on: "Usually when there is favoritism of a child in a family, there is also a scapegoat child too" -  from Google AI copied in dark red (as of Nov. 2025; go through the link for present updates and articles):

Yes, favoritism in a family is often accompanied by a scapegoat, as these roles often coexist in dysfunctional family dynamics. In this pattern, one child is the "golden child," who is favored and praised, while another is the "scapegoat," who is unfairly blamed and criticized for the family's problems. This dynamic serves to project the family's issues onto one child while elevating another, creating a system where the scapegoat takes the blame and the golden child avoids it. 

Characteristics of the roles

The golden child

* Is favored and can do no wrong

* Has the family's hopes projected onto them

* May feel pressure to maintain their "perfect" status 

The scapegoat

* Is unfairly blamed and shamed

* Is often overlooked, dismissed, or disrespected

* May experience negative outcomes like low self-esteem or trauma 

Why this dynamic occurs

* Dysfunctional families: This pattern is common in families with dysfunctional or narcissistic parents who use favoritism to maintain control and project their own issues.

* Psychological projection: Parents may unconsciously project their own feelings of inadequacy or other undesirable traits onto the scapegoat child.

* Maintaining control: The scapegoating dynamic can be used to maintain control within the family and minimize the parents' own guilt or responsibility for negative events.

Hours after I posted the article above, I was given this new AI article, so it is good to go through the link I've provided if you really want more in-depth articles that are not just AI driven. Again, the same link: "Usually when there is scapegoating of a child in a family, there is also a favorite golden child too" - copied here again in dark red:

Yes, it is very common in dysfunctional families, particularly those with a narcissistic or emotionally immature parent, for the roles of a scapegoat child and a golden child to exist simultaneously. These two roles are often the inverse of each other and are essential for the family system to maintain its dysfunction. 

Here is how these roles typically relate:

* The Roles are Complementary: The golden child is idealized and can do no wrong, serving as an extension of the parent's ego and a source of pride (narcissistic supply). The scapegoat, conversely, is the recipient of all the family's negative projections, blame, and criticism. This dynamic allows the parents to avoid taking responsibility for their own issues, as the golden child makes them feel accomplished and the scapegoat allows them to ignore that they are the actual source of the family's problems.

* A Mechanism for Splitting: This dynamic is often a result of "splitting," a defense mechanism where the parent sees things as either "all good" or "all bad". The golden child receives the "all good" projections, while the "all bad" projections are cast onto the scapegoat.

* Pitting Children Against Each Other: Parents often triangulate the children, comparing the scapegoat unfavorably to the golden child ("Why can't you be more like your sibling?"). This creates conflict and rivalry between siblings, which helps the parent maintain control and remain the center of attention.

* Role Fluidity: While sometimes these roles are fixed for life, they can also be fluid and shift depending on who is currently pleasing or displeasing the parent. If a golden child asserts their independence or challenges the parent, they may quickly fall from grace and become the new scapegoat.

* Shared Harm: Both roles are harmful. The golden child lives with immense pressure to be perfect and often has an unstable sense of self, while the scapegoat suffers from low self-esteem, chronic shame, and is vulnerable to complex trauma. 

In essence, the presence of one role often necessitates the existence of the other to maintain the family's dysfunctional equilibrium.

Updated:
new article (12/23/25) fromThe New York Times called:
Do Parents Have Favorite Children? Of Course They Do.
And research shows the less favored children suffer for it. - by Teddy Rosenbluth
"Teddy Rosenbluth spoke to top favoritism researchers for this story. She is fairly certain she is not the favorite child."
(Note: this article is not about narcissistic family systems where favoritism tends to be much more "in your face" in terms of the unfavored child noticing severe differences, and even discards (discards meaning cruel, impulsive rejections). Rampant favoritism is also a given in narcissistic families, and a lot more research has been done on it than families without narcissism. In other families it is a lot more subtle, or not there at all. I grew up around plenty of my other peers that when I asked "Whose your mother's (of father's) favorite child?" they were shocked at the question and answered, "No one. Our parents love all of us. Why?" This article sheds some light on the more subtle displays of favoritism, like always spending the holidays with one offspring and their children).

FOUND ON FACEBOOK

fulfilling life goals after being a cast out scapegoat

art by © Lise Winne

available for sale here

I have been reading Lenora Thompson's articles for awhile and I usually respond to them, and we often have discussions about each of them. The reason why? I'll tell you.

Lenora writes for Psych Central and the Huffington Post about being the child of narcissists. She is a self-proclaimed golden child (an only child) to what would seem to be helicopter parents, parents who, according to her, would not let her grow up. You can read her stories in the articles. She has many, many articles on how she felt stifled and imprisoned by her parents, how every decision she wanted to make was superseded by her parents' decision-making, how she felt she was being groomed to please them at all times.

Every abusive family has a golden child (favored and coddled) and a scapegoat (unfavored and picked on, and often rejected). That's just a fact of life when you have Cluster B personality disordered parents who put their own feelings and dreams first, and expect their children to put their parents dreams and feelings first too (no, that's not how it is supposed to work, if you are wondering).

When she and I talk, I give her the scapegoat versions to her stories. They tend to be drastically different, opposites. But not all of the time.  Sometimes we find only nuanced differences between the golden versions and the scapegoat versions.

I have been working on a side project full of scapegoat stories (which I plan on publishing some day). This is just a teaser.

Sometimes she feels the scapegoat is so much better off than the golden child, other times she sees how painful being a scapegoat is.

So what is a common thing that scapegoats and goldens share, since most of the time there is such a huge disparity between the two roles? And let us not forget that these are roles -- they were thrust on us by parents or caregivers (usually) at a young age, perhaps even when we were pre-verbal, rather than how we define ourselves.

Gaslighting would be one of the things that golden children and scapegoats have in common. But the nuances are these:

Gaslighting of a golden child would be: "Oh, she's a little crazy, but we love it! So creative! So full of life and wonder! So cute when she does that, isn't she?" Gaslighting of a scapegoat would be "She's our crazy one. Yes, she's creative, but she has so many problems! We just can't deal with her any more! She should be put away, but that's not how the world works these days." The first one is to get strangers to admire their offspring, hoping they can cover up the abuse with great accolades and admiration and the image of being perfect parents of a lovable crazy child; the second one is to get strangers to reject their offspring before that offspring spills the beans and exposes the abuse and the parent's image.

But who is kidding who? Golden children are just as capable of exposing abuse as scapegoats are, such as in Lenora's case. Goldens often feel so suffocated and burdened by their parents that they feel spiritually squashed, emotionally squashed, physically squashed, developmentally squashed. It is claustrophobia on steroids. Goldens have been brought up to be pleaser puppets. They can't say anything at all that doesn't please their parents, and after awhile, don't even try to challenge that coding (except maybe through their own very private thoughts which they don't dare to share with anyone ... until they can't stand it any more). This is not what life is meant to be, to be an eternal child with no choices and no dreams, and only to be thinking about your parent's thoughts, feelings, dreams and image (let's not forget their image!). Our spirits really have a hard time with being shoved into Stepford child roles (after The Stepford Wives).

I see her point of view. Love is super conditional whether you are a golden child or a scapegoat. For the golden, it is totally reliant on people pleasing and competition with your sibling (if you have a sibling). The golden feels he cannot be anything else, and be safe from the abuse he sees being hurled at everyone else.

I feel sorry for the golden child in my own life who has to live this way and give up his own dreams, who is called to do it constantly, who has to be careful and terrified over everything he says, and walk on eggshells. He has been groomed to compete with his sister on everything (for the parents divide-and-conquer strategies), and since the sister gave up on the competition and left the family, he has to provide ALL of the narcissistic supply now. There are no more roles left, in fact, no other siblings to take up the lost roles. He will have to fulfill them all. And if something doesn't suit his parents, he will have to endure a barrage of shaming, temper tantrums and insults -- as though he is still a little boy who needs to be reprimanded. If he sees rage, he'll have to pretend he didn't mean what he said. He'll have to stir up a pot of excuses, fast talking, fast thinking, taking things he said back, explaining that he didn't mean what he said, saying things like "It was just a stupid comment. I agree with you" even when he might not want to agree with them, asking how to make it better, giving word salad explanations for every little hurt feeling they have that they blame on him, or on his wife, all with the most syrupy apologies. He will have to have no convictions about anything. Interests? No, too threatening. Opinions? No, he's required to have their opinions. A career? No, not one that will take time away from his parents. A sister? How dare he think to have a relationship with his sister when they have anointed him the golden child! How dare he even think about his sister!

He will have to constantly ameliorate them (and make no mistake about it: he is expert at ameliorating -- as if that is a good thing to be).

I have seen him in 24 hour rages when they aren't around, and then turn it all off like a switch and be sticky sweet with model vocabulary and wit. That's a good life??? Talk about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! He has to "go along to get along" with hair-trigger parents. That's not love! They don't love him!

And worst of all, he seems to have become another Cluster B, full of phony faces and charm just to get through life. I believe the swearing, rage-ful, disrespectful, laugh-behind-their-backs, deriding-of-others personality is really who he is, although that may be a cover-up for how scared, vulnerable, sensitive and sweet he really is. Who knows, but it is all so sad. The worse part of it is that he does the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde because his parents squashed him, wanted him to be their daily pleaser. They spoiled him rotten, favored him over his sister, and tried to convince him that his sister was at fault for any rage he felt. "Take it out on her, not us!" they cried. Because, you know, all narcissists are perfect, and they can't hear otherwise, and what they did to him has to be taken out on someone, after all ...

So one of the things Lenora and I were talking about had to do with living our dreams, and how she had to put that off for so long (required to be the daily pleaser: don't forget!). Any way, here is my response to this article by Lenora about living your dreams after having them squashed by narcissistic parents for most of your life:

I'm always thinking of the scapegoat part of this story, Lenora.

The thing about scapegoats is that they are onto their NMs or NFs earlier than anyone else. If we are given the scapegoat role in our family, we're the canary in the coal mine. That's why we are scapegoats: we see the evil, we hear the evil, and we speak about the evil we see and hear. How dare we speak about it, right? How dare we want to make that better for all children of the household? 

And the first thing they do about it is try to shut us up and shut us down emotionally. However it doesn't work because we still see, hear, etc ... so we are punished for it instead. The "punishments" for seeing, hearing and knowing are brutal, let me tell you. They are so unethical, unjust and severe as to encode us with traumas and triggers. In fact most "other" family members don't want to acknowledge what we go through because it scares them half to death. So they only "watch" the abuse in horror on the sidelines, perhaps try to tell themselves it is not so bad and that it is "normal" in some way, hoping it doesn't happen to them. 

In fact, they are rarely singled out for abuse until we leave. And we have to leave if we are to survive. When we leave for good to fend for ourselves, the narcissists adopt another scapegoat. They always do; they always feel they have to in order to keep any kind of potential bad image they might acquire away from THEM. 

So eventually we are no longer alone when the new scapegoat appears and says to us, "I went through it too! I'm so sorry!"

But the difference between us and the golden child is that a parent or caregiver trying to disable us and our dreams by severe punishments and THE BIG BAD SILENT TREATMENT does not get internalized within us (well, a lot of us). It may get internalized in the beginning, but for many of us with long term "no contact" or living our lives autonomous from their opinions? Not at all. I think most scapegoats can attest to not feeling much shame at all over being given the silent treatment. Why? Because it almost always is over a myriad of silly excuses like a look on our face they didn't like (as though we should have a facial complex JUST FOR THEM), or because we refused to be their full time Cinderella to our brothers and sisters (as though we should really WANT that for ourselves), and a number of equally bizarre "reasons". They grasp at the most desperate of straws to make a scapegoat. 

They do this scapegoating for THEM, because THEY feel threatened by the truth and by exposure. The more they abuse, the more desperate they are to hide it, the more they absolutely NEED some sort of  scapegoat!!  All people who see, hear, and speak of what they see and hear must be scapegoated in their eyes ... except, wait! Doesn't everyone tell of what they are about behind their backs? Aren't all people in their lives just ass-kissing back-stabbing two-facers? 

So they get ultra paranoid.

The reason why a lot of us scapegoats don't internalize their mediocre dreams for us is because we never "really" try to please them. Ever. We know the cost is too high, and nothing will be good enough. We may pretend at it at times because not every battle is worth it, and we want some peace, just like they pretend to love us, all the while slandering us to everyone they can, and throwing us away to the wolves and casting us as "crazy people".

We aren't supposed to please them anyway: they assigned the scapegoat role to us, the role that can never please them NO MATTER WHAT. We find, unlike the smooth fast talkin' always-make-an-excuse goldens, that there is no smooth fast talkin' for us to adopt. What we say, what we do, is ALWAYS vilified. So we give up on pleasing them, and decide to please ourselves instead, and we go for our dreams. 

That's one big difference between a golden child and a scapegoat child.

We HAVE to go big for our dreams to survive without a family, support, and familial approval. So many of us put our dreams first, in fact, and a lot of us (the ones who don't stay in the matrix of the abusive family to get beaten down again and again), are pretty satisfied with where we end up. There are times we might be taken in by the hoovering of our parents or caregivers, but for the most part we are cast out at pretty young ages. Try 15 as opposed to 30 or 40 for you goldens. 

Sometimes there are narcissists along the way who try to trip us up, or stalk us, or slander us, and other tactics. That can set us back. But we also have been able to get back up from being knocked over since childhood when our parent or caregiver was doing it.

The reason our abusive parent always goes for tactics such as hooverings and punishments is because narcissists hate our successes. Yes, I believe that. 

How dare we be successful when they have tried so hard to beat that out of us, when they have worked so hard to smash our self esteem and make us lower our heads in shame our whole lives! They can't stand that their mediocre dreams are only about narcissistic supply: spreading lies, gossip, covering their tracks, panicking over "not covering their tracks ENOUGH", fear of exposure, trying to convince others that they are model citizens who love their children when they don't, trying to keep all of these false identities and false motives together and trying to remember which false identity went with which person, and which lie and wild tale they told to whom, trying to think of top-of-their-heads excuses as to why they are estranged from their children, and continue to be, trying to think of shamings of their children that will stick like glue and permanently damage them -- what a life! 

And to compensate for a life of boredom that selfishness, insulting of others, discarding important people and unfulfillment inevitably produce, they create drama. How? Rejecting or picking on another empath from their lives, or two or three or four. "Yes, let's do that so that we have no empaths when we are sick and old!" Now isn't that the dumbest thing ever? 

So instead they find themselves surrounded by other narcissists or sociopaths when they aren't feeling well. Who envies that?

So glad we are not them and that we pursue dreams that are actually meaningful and worthwhile, while they muck around in the putrid swamp of "trying" to manipulate people all of the time. Good luck with that agenda, eh?

how to tell if you have abusive parents

poster is © Lise Winne
(contact LilacGroveGraphics ((att)) yahoo.com for further usage)

Warning: this post contains language that is not appropriate for children.

This post is also intended to help you discern whether you were or are a victim of child abuse.

This is a quote from a WikiHow article entitled How to Deal with a Bad Parent:

Federal legislation defines child abuse as “Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation"; or “An act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm."
In a post entitled 9 Types Of Behavior You Shouldn't Tolerate From Your Mother by Isadora Baum, CHC is one of the precursors to knowing whether you have a toxic parent (i.e. someone who is not healthy for you emotionally or psychologically). The list includes (abbreviated version):

1. She's rude to you
2. She's uninterested in your life
3. She doesn't think she is ever wrong
4. She leaves you out or favors another sibling
5. She doesn't respect boundaries
6. She makes you feel ashamed of your actions
7. She doesn't appreciate all you do for her
8. She wants you all to herself
9. She's abusive

Note: child abuse tends to be lifelong. If your parents are not willing to change their behavior, the common advice is to seek counseling from a certified therapist (recommended are trauma and/or domestic violence specialists).

Any parent who tries repeatedly or for lengthy amounts of time to punish you when you are older than 18 years of age, whether physically, or by withdrawing love, or by giving you the silent treatment, and has most of the traits of the 9 toxic parenting issues above is an abusive parent. Note that most abusive parents also have very different public images from their private images, and most also fib more than people in the general population.

Note that most abusive parents have personality disorders: Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder are the most common. See my post on what abuse is and who it is perpetrated by, to fully understand the rest of this post.

The following major signs of abusive parents is long, and it is long for a few reasons, one of which is to cover all of the signs with examples and details (for the sake of understanding). I suggest when reading through the bold parts, that if it doesn't apply, then move on to the other signs.

The list:

They neglect you or reject you when you are sick, feeling hurt, feeling traumatized, going through a medical crisis, in the hospital, after an accident, when your other parent dies, or when your sibling dies, or when one of your children dies, or when you, or your spouse, or your child has been diagnosed with a terminal illness:
Narcissistic and sociopathic parents do not take these life-changing experiences seriously because they are that self absorbed. However, if they go through any of these events, they expect everyone in the family to stop what they are doing and to think of them at all times, to pray for them, perhaps even provide round-the-clock comfort! They are hypocrites when it comes to caring: they want to be cared about and cared for, without caring about and caring for others. In fact, some of them resent being asked to care.
Sometimes narcissistic and sociopathic parents withdraw love and caring during these times as a way to punish their child or adult child or as a way to trauma bond with them.
Malignant narcissists (narcissists with sociopathic traits) and sociopaths get off on the sadistic neglect or rejection of their child, especially when their child is going through traumatic life events.

They try to discipline or punish you after 18 years of age:
This is the major red flag of abusive parenting.
(Note: you can become emancipated from your parents in most states in the USA after age 16, so in many cases, punishmernts should be over when you are 16).
Adult-to-adult threats to harm or to punish in any way are classified as harassment. Harassment is illegal.
"Physical discipline" from adult parent to adult child is classified as assault. Assault is illegal.
Locking you in a room or preventing you from leaving a premises as a disciplinary measure is false imprisonment. False imprisonment is illegal.
Narcissistic parents walk a very thin line with the law.
Sociopathic parents often go over the line in terms of breaking the law.
The reason why narcissistic and sociopathic parents still try to punish, discipline, blackmail, arm-twist and sacrifice children is because they still look at their adult child as an underage child. They also don't possess healthy conflict resolution skills, so they retaliate and punish instead. They also feel that children exist for them to control and exert power over.
These kinds of parents are not interested in their children as autonomous adults with minds of their own. An adult child is either deemed to be good (a willing live marionette) or bad (unwilling to be the parent's marionette) in the narcissist's or sociopath's mind.

They practice retaliatory vengeful parenting (they especially retaliate if they feel they are being criticized, exposed or challenged)
Retaliatory parenting is very common for Narcissistic Personality Disordered parents and Anti Social Personality Disordered parents. It is so uncommon among normal parents that if vengeful parents are ever publicly exposed, it can make these parents lose social standing and credibility.
Retaliatory parenting can kill the parent-child relationship forever and is one of the major factors in child/parent estrangements.
Retaliatory parents can expect their children to recite untruths. They often arm-twist children to accept that they, the child, is always wrong, but that the parent is always right. If the child does not promote the parent in social circles, they are known to retaliate.
Retaliation often occurs when parental abuse is exposed, and even when the parent feels threatened that it will be exposed.
The other sign of parents who may be abusive is if they can dish out constant criticism of others, but they can't take criticism themselves (hypocrisy).
Narcissists are known for seeking revenge for people who criticize them. They are also known to seek some sort of censorship.

They play tit-for-tat games with their own children
This is the same as vengeful, retaliatory parenting, except it is a childish game that narcissists and sociopaths find entertaining, fun and funny. Normal parents, if they find out about it, usually find it extremely immature.
Some tit-for-tat examples:
* You tell your parent that you want to take a vacation with just your spouse (this time around). In retaliation, they take a vacation with all of your siblings and their spouses, but do not invite you or your spouse.
* You tell your mother that you are having a birthday party for your three year old, but that it will just be a party for mothers who have three year olds (this time). In retaliation, your mother holds a birthday party for another one of her grandchildren who is also three years old, but doesn't invite you or your child.
* You have an argument with your mother. You tell her that you need some time to cool off and gather your thoughts, and that you will contact her in three days. She insists that the two of you talk right now, that it is terrible to make her wait three days. You tell her that you can't think clearly about the issues between the two of you because your daughter has chicken pox, your husband is trying to find a job after being laid off, the dog has to be put down at the vets, you have to get a personal loan to pay for the mortgage until your husband finds another job, that you are up to your eyeballs in crises. When you contact her three days later, she refuses to talk to you and gives you the silent treatment for three months. After she is done "punishing you" with the silent treatment (note that adult-to-adult punishments are abuse), she says, "How did you like it? Being put off for three months!? If you are going to make me second fiddle to everyone else in your life, and make a dog  more important than your own mother, you know that I got more from where that came from!"
Tit-for-tat parenting is very, very common for narcissists and sociopaths.

They always shift blame away from themselves and burden their child with blaming and shaming instead (even when the child is not at fault)
Narcissists and sociopaths do not accept blame for their actions, no matter how small, so they always put the blame on their victims instead, and this can and does include their children as well.
Typical ways they shift blame on their children:
* If they forgot to pay their bill, they will blame their child for distracting them
* If they stole something from someone else, they will say that their child did it instead
* If they cut their child's face out of the family photo album, they will say that their child expressed a desire to no longer be part of the family (this is highly suspicious:  grandiose narcissists in particular make cutting out one child, or group of children, in the family photo albums a practice)
* If they cut their child out of their life, they will often say that the child cut them out of their life instead (flipped tales are very common with covert narcissists, sociopaths and abusive parents in general)
* If a child falls off the monkey bars at a playground because a parent is not engaged or paying attention, they will say that the child fell off the monkey bars "just to get attention" (this is another kind of abusive parent ploy. This is another instance of a flipped tale to make the parent look good, and the child look bad -- very prevalent among abusive parents)
* A child calls his parent out on a favoritism issue -- that the parent is favoring one of his children over the other. With normal parents, they try to do everything they can to make things even between their children, and to point it out afterwards. With abusive parents, the parent will purposely put a lot more time into the favored child while ignoring you, especially after you complain. This is because they are fuming over feeling criticized about their parenting. If it is obvious favoritism, it is done on purpose no matter what they say (with narcissists and sociopaths it is important to look at what they do rather than what they say). Favoritism in the family covers this topic.
Often narcissists and sociopaths treat you the opposite way that you want to be treated for trauma bonding purposes, for narcissistic supply, and because they are sadists who enjoy their children feeling hurt or marginalized. They like to toy with your lack of importance to them. It is a type of vengeful parenting too.

Perspecticide: your parent re-phrases and re-frames your experiences to their own liking:
This is called perspecticide. Retelling your experiences is meant to be about their own views of you, your thoughts and your feelings. It is also about the role that they have assigned for you in their lives (and this changes depending on whether they are idealizing you or in the discard-punishment phase with you).
They also try to change the events you have lived through in such a way as to make it define their own world view and concepts of you, and to make themselves appear infallible, without reproach. In other words, they use their altered versions of your experiences to self-aggrandize. See my post on word salad arguments for better understanding.
Perspecticide is also about them insinuating that you are either a liar, or that you don't know how to perceive your own experiences, thoughts and feelings (i.e. that you are crazy).
They also use their altered versions of your experiences to self-aggrandize.
Perspecticide is where normal parenting parts drastic ways with abusive parenting.
What it sounds like (using Johnny as the parent's child):
"Johnny feels ________________"
"Johnny thinks _______________"
"Johnny's experience was _______________"
Note that the above should be questions for Johnny, not for his parent to decide. Abusive homes are full of perspecticide in this manner.
When it is especially abusive, this is what it sounds like:
"No, you weren't feeling that at all. What you were feeling is hatred for your sister and you're going to pay for it, and also apologize. You are going to stay in your room all day, and I don't want to hear anything more said about it!"
"I know what you are thinking! You don't fool me! Just for that, you're going to get it!"
"I know I wasn't there, but I believe your sister over you. That's just the way it is. Your sister is mostly always right about events and conversations, and you are mostly wrong, as well as crazy, so you are not going to convince me otherwise." -- this is a typical scapegoating phrase. It is also a sign of splitting (psychology term for black and white thinking).
Read my post on invalidation and perspecticide here.

They make it clear that they don't care what you feel or think
When you have abusive parents, they make it pretty clear that your feelings and thoughts don't matter, only theirs do.
If you find that your parent constantly expects apologies, or expects apologies over what they think you are feeling and thinking, then this is a definite red flag of abusive parenting.
In normal families, a parent will apologize for hurting his child's feelings, or misunderstanding what he is thinking. In abusive families, this rarely, if ever, takes place during the child's entire life time.
If you feel that you have to shout or get emotional to be heard by your parent, this is a typical reaction of children from abusive homes and something that narcissists and sociopaths tend to label as "drama" or "crazy." They are simply too self centered to understand or care what children think or feel, so labeling you is the way they deal with not being sensitive.

They hurt you or punish you if you cry
Narcissists and sociopaths do not tend to think a child crying is normal including if the child is crying because he or she is hurt. Angry phrases like "suck it up!", "Stop being a cry-baby!", "I don't want to hear you cry one more time!", "Shut up!", "I've had enough of your catterwauling!", "I've had enough of your tears! Grow up!" are lobbed at children.
"If you cry one more time, you're going to get it!", or hitting or intentionally hurting a child because they are crying is a sign of un-empathetic parenting. Narcissists and sociopaths lack empathy. Narcissists are hyper-sensitive to criticism so they tend to retaliate against a child who is crying and in pain because they think the child is criticizing their parenting if they cry.
"Oh, I'm such a terrible parent for making you cry!", "If you are not going to be nice to Mommy, and continue to cry, then you're going to sit in your room all day long until you can behave!" are just some of the phrases that narcissistic parents use.
Parents who are narcissists care much more about their image, even if it is not a genuine image of who the parent really is than the child's feelings.
Sociopaths do not care as much about their image, but crying is an inconvenience to them, something that must be squelched and buried because it is cramping their style and entitlements. They can be extremely retaliatory and cold-hearted towards children who are expressing any kind of emotion. In fact, they don't approve of anything other than agreement with them at all times and sycophant phrases.

They constantly interrogate you for information
Normal parents have been known to interrogate under-age children, especially if they are concerned. However, this practice in normal parenting is usually forsaken when the child becomes an adult (autonomous adult).
Parents who are narcissists and sociopaths do not respect their adult child's boundaries and often retaliate if they can't get information or gossip from their adult children.
Constant interrogations are usually a sign of the parent wanting to exert control. Lectures and ultimatums usually follow.

They punish you if you refuse to be interrogated
Silent treatment, verbal abuse, rage, making you a laughing stock are all signs of an abusive parent who won't respect your boundaries about being interrogated.
Interrogations should be over after you have turned 18 years of age.
This is a sign that your parent does not respect your boundaries.

They give the silent treatment (or reject, ostracize or shun):
This is a shaming and blackmail tactic, made to make you feel unloved. It is primarily and overwhelmingly used by narcissistic and sociopathic parents. It is rare for normal parents to use this tactic (though sometimes normal parents use it for very short periods of time on their children, usually not for longer than a few hours or a day, and often with great regret).
Even a day or two of a parent giving a child or an adult child the silent treatment does plenty of damage to the child, and the relationship between parent and child, particularly if the reason for the silent treatment is for the parent to express rage, disapproval, stonewalling or selfishness (the parent initiating the silent treatment wanting to "get his way" without consideration for the child's, or adult child's, feelings or perspectives).
Narcissists and sociopaths use the silent treatment on their children for very long periods of time. Narcissists generally use the silent treatment for two weeks to several months. Sociopaths use the silent treatment as "punishment", even on adult children, and often for months, years or a life time.
Neither personality type expresses guilt for using it and they almost never apologize for using it unless their tactics are exposed to others.
This is the big difference between personality disordered parents and normal parents. Normal parents know and are concerned that the silent treatment is hurting their child and doing damage to their relationship even within the day it is initiated. They tend to apologize to their child and not use it again.
If there is a perpetual use of the silent treatment (a habit), your parent has a problem. Never blame yourself for their use of this dirty tactic.
Even if you receive an apology for a silent treatment that has gone on for months or years, be aware that the apology may not be genuine. Narcissists and sociopaths do not feel empathy for their children, so there is likely to be some other reason for the apology. They are known to apologize and then to turn around and say that they are the victim of their recalcitrant child and that the child caused them to use it. This tactic is definitely a sign of narcissism or Antisocial Personality Disorder as these personality disordered types usually try to present themselves as victims, even of their own children ... except that abuse tends to flow from parent to child, not the other way around. The exceptions are highly addicted children, and children who have been so abused by the parent, that they seek retaliation against that parent. Most abused children, however, tend to have life long depression (whether very mild or severe), PTSD and some have thoughts of suicide.
The other exception is triangulation. For instance, a child is being triangulated and groomed by a grandparent to hate their parent. There is more danger of this happening in a home that has all three generations living in it. In this situation, the narcissistic disordered grandparent uses the child's parent as a scapegoat -- the 1st generation brainwashes the 3rd generation, and both 1st and 3rd gang-bully the 2nd generation person in the household -- very common.
Of course, most narcissists and sociopaths do not know that abuse is overwhelmingly multi-generational, being passed from parent to child, as they rarely go to therapy or read up on the subject, so they sometimes expose themselves to others who are much more educated (especially if the parent uses the "punishment" phrase when revealing why they don't see an adult child).
If you are under the age of 16, time-outs should be no longer in number of minutes than your age. Time-outs should never be used to inflict harm, only as a tool for cooling down and gathering your thoughts.
Sadistic time-outs are a sign of the silent treatment.
The silent treatment is an emotional bullying tactic. It is meant to make you suffer by showing you:
1. that your relationship between you doesn't matter 
2. that your feelings don't matter
3. that your thoughts don't matter
4. that your experiences don't matter
5. that you are dead to the person
6. it is designed to punish
7. it is vengeful parenting (revenge against children is often the sign of narcissistic or sociopath parents -- both types of parents still often practice child abuse long after childhood)
8. it is designed as a power and control weapon to get you to do what the parent wants
9. if practiced on a long term basis it is meant to damage you and disable you (i.e. to make you depressed and despondent -- if your parent also throws in a smear campaign against you or tries to keep you out of family events or dis-invite you, or threatens others in the family not to talk to you, in tandem with the silent treatment, it is even more of an indicator that your parent is a narcissist or a sociopath).
The silent treatment and forms of shunning are mostly practiced on scapegoats in a family.
Also see my more lengthy post on the silent treatment if this is happening to you.
The silent treatment is just as dangerous as physical abuse; around a quarter of children who receive long periods of the silent treatment with a smear campaign from a parent commit suicide.

They don't acknowledge or celebrate your important events
This usually goes in tandem with the silent treatment. They ignore your birthday, graduations, wedding, special awards, special ceremonies, births of your children, birthdays of your spouse and children, holidays you used to share together, and so on, especially when they are angry. They also don't acknowledge or offer help during surgeries, hospitalizations, births, funerals, etc.
In other words, they are conspicuously absent during important times.
As with the silent treatment, this is a passive-aggressive tactic made to make you feel unloved, worthless, not worthy of human kindness or decency.

"You are crazy" or "You are stupid" and other shaming statements:
Shaming is always categorized as abuse, especially if it went on during a great deal of your childhood.
There is absolutely no reason at all why a parent has to tell one of their children they are crazy. But all abusive parents target at least one of their children for the label (or they use psychiatric labels).
Shaming statements about your sanity, your ability to perceive things, being called stupid, being reprimanded over your interests and your choices about who to love, are, obviously, very harmful and hurtful to a child who is looking to parents for validation, love, respect and worthiness.  If these kinds of statements are said once or twice during your entire childhood, you probably still remember them. If your parent apologized for saying them once or twice during your childhood or adulthood, perhaps you can forgive and forget . However, if these kinds of shaming statements were said throughout your childhood, or off and on, they are definitely meant to harm you and hurt you -- they would definitely fall under the category of abuse (this is with or without an apology afterward -- see wheel of abuse).
The "you are crazy" statements are referred to as gaslighting by professional therapists. Gaslighting is so extremely common in all abusive relationships that it is practically a given (see next paragraph).
For more on other ways parents shame, go here.

They gaslight you:
Gaslighting is a lot like "You are crazy" statements, except they are meant to negate your experiences, feelings and thoughts.
For instance, say that your mother called you all kinds of names at 4:00 in the afternoon like "You're an albatross! You're worthless to me! Right now I could care less about you! And I don't want to hear all of your caterwauling crying either, so if you're going to do that, stay in your room with the door closed until dinner!" Two hours later at the dinner table your father notices that you are looking depressed, despondent and you aren't eating your food (by the way trauma, the fight-or-flight reaction, often manifests as a lack of hunger, no desire to eat). Perhaps your father asks why you aren't hungry, why your head is down and why you are pushing your food around your plate instead of eating it. Say that your answer is "I don't feel hungry" but your father is concerned. Say you blurt out that your mother called you an albatross and worthless and didn't care that you were left to cry in your room since four. Gaslighting would be if the mother said: "I would never call you an albatross! I would NEVER, EVER say that about my own child! I would also never say that you were worthless or just let you cry alone! You're absolutely crazy for saying that! What is the matter with you!?"
Gaslighting is so common in abusive families that you can go to a symposium with 200 other survivors and they were all taught to view themselves as crazy, and not to rely on their own experiences and perspectives for their sense of reality.
Gaslighting most often is accompanied by smear campaigns too, especially with other family members that you share in common. In other words, your abusive parent refers to you as crazy, insane, mentally deranged, mentally challenged, or puts psychological labels on you to infer that you are not worth listening to or relating to. This is a tactic to negate what you have to say, and to isolate you so that the abusive parent feels like they have total control over you without family interference or input.
Gaslighting is child abuse and can do a lot of damage to the psychological development and well-being of a child, and in some instances can cause brain damage. My own opinion is that because it is so prevalent in child abuse, and can have such a negative impact on a child, it should be illegal. There is no reason for a parent to refer to their child as crazy.
Also see my more lengthy post on gaslighting.

They insult you:
There are several types of insults including animal names, and other kinds of disparaging names meant to diminish a child's self worth (if animal names are used, it is to perceive the child as less than human).
Normally this kind of behavior breaks a relationship. But as a child, you are hostage to the situation and the labels your parents give you tend to work deep into your consciousness. On-going labeling and verbal abuse can cause severe PTSD in children, especially if these names and labels are used in anger and in conjunction with other types of abuse. A great deal of damage can happen as a result of parental labeling. Narcissist and sociopath parents take labeling to an extreme and rarely change the labels, even over decades. They often refer to their children in public as "the quiet one", "the crazy one", "the comedian" and so forth. That is because they are such control freaks that they put these children into roles at a young age, and try to reinforce the roles upon the children throughout a life time. More on roles from this post.
* Animal names include: albatross, sloth, pig, rat, snake, serpent, bitch, hog, cuckoo, dodo bird, weasel, vulture, black widow spider, scared-y cat, piss-ant, sly-as-a-fox, etc.
* Disparaging names include: stupid, waste, ugly, fat, dunce, worthless, evil, dweeb, dumb-bell, crazy, insane, inane, lazy, crazy-making, cookoo bird, silly, ridiculous, weird, senseless, simpleton, bad-ass, ornery, freak, drama queen, you're such a girl (if the child is a boy), cry-baby, boring, bothersome, bad, terrible, no good, baby, lover (when the child is talking to someone of the opposite sex), has cooties, brain-dead, challenged (especially in front of the child or as a means to hurt the child or reputation of the child), etc.
* Body part names and bodily excretion names include: ass, asshole, fucker, dick, cunt, little shit, little snot, snotty-nosed kid, little pisser, pecker-head, pussy, ass-kisser, bone-head, empty-headed -- never should be used on one's own children
* "Always and never" phrasing is also detrimental to children
* "I hate you", "I wish you were never born", "You're a total waste to me", "I wish you would run away and stay away forever", "I'm tired of you", "I never want to see your little face again", "You drive me crazy", "You are nothing to me", "You aren't mine, so go back to where you came from", "You should never have been born! You've been nothing but trouble since the day you were born!", "get your little ugly face away from me!" -- all very, very damaging to a child
* Comparing children with bad fairy tale characters is also detrimental. For instance, narcissistic mothers have been cited as loving the rhyme: "There once was a girl, who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid." There is a reason why narcissists love to recite that rhyme to one of their children: one, narcissists tend to be black-and-white and rigid in their thinking and judgments (that role playing agenda again), and two, the rhyme is most likely about the narc parent, NOT the child (narcissists swing wildly between idealize and discard, and they use projection to describe other people). Note this rhyme is most often used on the scapegoat of a family (i.e. the most sensitive of the children whose feelings are more easily expressed and haven't totally shut down from the toxic parenting).

They terrorize you if you aren't doing things perfectly for them (or their views of what is perfect):
Narcissistic and sociopathic parents tend to think that their children exist for parental needs and desires. They don't see them as autonomous beings who need to find their own way in the world. So they see them as workers who will help them run their business or household, and to their standards of perfection.
While normal parents ask their children to do chores, they don't terrorize their children if their children refuse to do them. Terrorizing does not work anyway at motivating children (more on what motivates children in another post).
With narcissistic and sociopathic parents there is also an expectation of perfection in their child's deeds, looks and words, with the implication that the child will be severely punished if they don't uphold these demands at all times. Ever hear of the phrase, "You need to be punished for that look on your face?" Narcissistic and sociopathic parents use that tactic over and over again to inflict pain on their child and damage their child's self esteem (on purpose!). This is to get the child dependent on the parent's views of them.
See my post on perfectionism for a more in-depth discussion of this subject.

If you do things for them, they always nitpick about what you didn't do right, or what wasn't good enough, or how much more you owe them. They strategically withhold love, acceptance, praise and familial belonging
Nitpicking you about what you didn't do right is usually used with other forms of abuse. It is meant to shame you.
Most shamed children feel angry inside and actually perform worse for the parent. Some may endure until they grow up and have their own lives. Some go silent. The reaction, however, is never healthy for the child.
When parents throw IOUs at children, it can make the child feel shame as well, but they also inherently know that their parent possesses the resources and that a child can't, so that a "business relationship" or "business deal" can never be satisfactorily established because of the power imbalance. They inherently know that parental IOUs are unreasonable and meant to hurt them.
Narcissists typically expect to be able to have complete control over their child in return for parental love, acceptance, familial belonging and any semblance of kindness.
Sociopaths can, and do, often expect IOUs to be degrading: They expect their child to accept emotional, physical or sexual abuse, or prolonged periods of isolation/shunning, or complete parental control, in exchange for food, clothing and lodging, or any kindness at all.

When you were growing up, your toys and other belongings weren't really yours:
Signs:
* An abusive parent breaks your toys on purpose, or gives your toys away to punish you, or in anger.
* The parent does not respect your ownership of your toys and other belongings and they don't ask permission to move them, destroy them, dispose of them, give them away, throw them out or to take them from you.
* They use toys as leverage for control or punishment.
* Projects or toys that you make or sew yourself are re-made by the parent without your permission, or tampered with. Or, if your parent does not like or approve of your creative projects, throws them away, or they go missing, or found destroyed, or used as leverage or punishment. Sometimes disordered abusive parents also take away tools (sewing kits, pencils, crayons, paint, paper, wood, nails, etc) in order to sanction you from making projects or toys they don't want, or that they judge not to be good enough, or that they do not approve of. Unless the projects or toys that you make are promoting bigotry and hate, there is no need for a parent to take charge of deciding what to do with your projects.
* Abusive homes also often have blatant favoritism happening in them, so in some abusive homes, the parent takes away the toys of one child and gives them to the favorite child. Also, favoritism is shown during gift-giving where you receive a card for your birthday and your sibling receives a birthday party, many gifts, a trip, etc. This is meant to hurt unfavored children, plain and simple. Belongings, and who has what, and maintaining an imbalance, is meant as a means of power and control, and to divide and conquer the siblings.
* Some parents sell their children's toys in yard sales to raise money for themselves without asking a child's permission.
* You didn't believe your toys were really yours; you believed your parents owned them, even if they gifted them to you initially.
* Your toys are used for IOUs and guilt-trips.
* Your parent gets clear satisfaction over your pain at ruining or giving away your toys.
If you experienced any of these situations more than just a couple of times over a couple of toys (and especially with some of the other signs in this post), then this is a red flag of child abuse. Normal parents respect personal property, even their child's.

If your abusive parent is divorced from your other parent, they disparage the other parent while aggrandizing themselves in stories
This is called Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) and it is a huge problem in this country. PAS usually means the narc or ASPD parent disparages his (or her) ex to the children, tries to "win" the children's loyalty for themselves. They are known to punish or blackmail a child who feels close to or loves the other parent.
In some parts of the USA, disparaging the other parent is illegal and can mean you lose custody (it is where I live). In other places in the country, free speech laws take precedence over PAS laws.
It is common for narcissistic and sociopathic parents to fight tooth and nail for custody of the children (because life to them is about them "winning" everything they can, not what is best for the children). However, after they have gained custody, it is common for them to feel burdened and bored with parenting (and neglectful of the children), so it is common for them to either ask you, the child, to leave, to live with the other parent -- even after they have told you so many "derision stories" about that other parent!
If you listen to them talk to their peers, they will always be talking about how the child's other parent was an awful, selfish parent, while referring to themselves as model parents.

They use erroneous blaming to justify punishments, shaming and retaliatory parenting.
The punishments are over something unsubstantiated and fallacious. They are also usually severe, the shaming seemingly endless and retaliatory (note: normal parents do not retaliate against their own children).
Erroneous blaming is:
"You need to be punished for that look on your face." -- very common
"You deserve to be punished for that attitude!" -- also very common
"How dare you give me that tone of voice! You will be punished for that!" -- also very common
"I know you better than you know yourself! And you are thinking x, y and z! Therefore you need to be punished!" These kinds of phrases have many variations. It's also a perfect example of gaslighting and perspecticide besides falling under the category of erroneous blaming.
"I know who you are and what your attitude is, and you are not fooling me, so you are getting smacked whether you like it or not."
"I know what you are thinking! You think I'm a bad parent! Just for that here's this!" -- kicks the child in the kidneys really hard, knocking the kid on the floor.
"I hate you, and I hate that you were ever born! You're going to stay in this room until the day you die!"
"You think you are so great! Well, you're not! You are nobody! Got that? Nobody! No one likes you! You are a nobody and I'll spell it out for you because you're too stupid to spell: N-O-B-O-D-Y! If you're going to think you are great, then I'll cut you down to size every time! And you'll get it! You'll really get it! I'll take everything away from you so that you'll get it through your thick skull that you are no one, a big fat zero, and that no one cares! Get away from me now with your pathetic crying! You're disgusting!"
You get the idea ...
Go to my post on erroneous blaming and erroneous punishments for more information.

When you were growing up, your pets weren't really yours and were used as blackmail, or for torture, or used as weapons:
Torturing or killing pets to get a reaction from a child is more of a sociopathic trait (antisocial personality disorder) than a narcissistic trait.
However, using pets for blackmail is definitely in the realm of narcissistic parenting (though sociopaths are known to do it too).
A typical story I see in forums from survivors of sociopathic parents goes like this:
The children are being punished severely or sexually abused by the sociopathic parent. The sociopath brings home some little bunnies for the kids. The kids are taught by the non-sociopathic parent how to care for the bunnies, what food to feed them, how to handle them, and so on. The children become really involved and attached to the pet bunnies to the point where they are worried sick that something might happen to the bunnies. But the non-sociopathic parent assures them that the bunnies are safe.
One evening their sociopathic parent goes ballistic over dinner, or over the chatter at the table, insults everyone, leaving everyone in the family crying.
The next morning, the sociopathic parent gathers the kids and brings them out to the bunny cages. All of the bunnies are dead. He laughs at seeing his children distraught.
Here is a typical story of blackmail over pets:
The narcissist does not want their child going to see their other parent (custody arrangement), or on a vacation trip, or a sleep-over with a child friend. It can be anything the parent is trying to keep his child from doing.
The parent tells the child if he or she goes away on the trip, or on the custody visit, or what ever it is, the pet will not be fed or cared for. "Don't be surprised if when you return home that your pet is dead from your lack of care! That pet is your responsibility, not mine! If you insist on being irresponsible, deal with the consequences!"
These are just some instances. Pets are used as pawns to get children to trauma bond with their disordered parent.

They compare you negatively to others, or to your own siblings
Normal parents appreciate all of their children and try to make things as fair as possible. They see the drawback for themselves of spoiling one child and scapegoating another. They also do not like to hurt their children. They want their children to be able to work together, to compromise, to be kind to one another, so that the family can rally together to take care of each other, the parents in old age, or one of the children, or one of the grandchildren, in the case of illness or strife. They abhor a family divided.
Narcissistic and sociopathic parents go out of their way to produce a divided family by insisting on their children being sycophants competing for the parent's or grandparent's love (the most fawning child is rewarded). If children are deemed to not be enough of a sycophant, they are derided and rejected, sometimes by the entire family (to get them back in line). This eventually produces a favored golden child and an un-favored scapegoat within the family unit. If the golden is used by the parent to discipline, hit, abuse, deride or gang-bully a family scapegoat, the golden child is likely to turn into another abusive narcissist (or lying sociopath). The bullying by both the parent and the favorite child will mean that scapegoats will leave the family, and the parent will only have one child left in their old age (very common). This eventually becomes a problem for the parent, something normal parents would be able to forsee as undesirable, but which disordered parents cannot see because they act on impulse, entitlement and anger.

After they discard you, they try to hoover you back to avoid social derision or fall-out
Believe it or not, a lot of narcissists and sociopaths become exposed no matter how much they try to blame-shift and explain things away. The simple explanation for why family bullies are exposed is that bullying means they have to talk. Bullying does not exist in a silent vacuum. The typical ways they are exposed is being over-heard. Their own children often expose them too, because they grew up seeing and hearing abuse. Usually it is the scapegoat who does the exposing (and that is why he is called "the crazy one"), or it is a group of scapegoats. One of the reasons it ends up to be a "group" eventually is because when one scapegoat leaves (and no one knows what is happening to him), someone else in the family is put into the role of scapegoat next, whether that is an in-law, or a grandchild, or a step-sibling, or just another sibling. A family with scapegoats becomes a chorus of voices.
At any rate, bullies also don't have just one victim; they have several, even if they only try to target or destroy one person at a time. In other words, bullying is done for bullying's sake, to arm-twist and to feel they are in the superior position.
The problem with a life time of bullying is that it means going from one person, to the next, to the next, to the next, and leaving behind victims. It's the never-ending search for narcissistic supply (the search for an ultimate live marionette/sycophant who will do exactly as the bully wants, at all times -- an impossible ideal).
So, in order to avoid exposure, or if they have been exposed, by you or one of their other victims, they will usually try to hoover you or someone else back into the fold of the family with sweet talk and gifts.

They scapegoat one of their children
If they have a child that they continually blame for all of the family's troubles, or if they say they are estranged from one of their children, this is a definite sign that they are abusive parents. The exceptions are a child who has a severe addiction or a child who is often incarcerated. Sometimes parents of children who have a severe mental illness can be estranged from children, however realize that most parents are heavily involved in their child's or adult child's treatments for mental health disorders (in other words, it is not common at all for parents to ostracize a child who has a real mental health problem).
Also be aware that many abusive parents use a tactic to make themselves appear infallible (to appear as un-abusive parents) and make up "psychological disorders" for the purpose of gaslighting their children, and pretending to their friends that they are victims of their insane children.
Scapegoats of a family are most often gaslit and treated in this way.
If someone is always deemed to be at fault in the family, it is a sign that the family is continually scapegoating the member. When you find a scapegoat in a family, you usually find abusive parents behind it.

They play favorites with their children
Rampant favoritism is always a sign of narcissistic and sociopathic parenting. These kinds of parents also tend to be highly abusive parents.
The favorite child is either groomed to be an ultra-empath or another bully.
The ultra-empath golden is groomed to take care of Mom or Dad's every ache and pain, to have the same interests and perspectives, to help with Mom or Dad's career, and to either live very close by, or live in the same house as the Mom or Dad. In other words, they are brought up to be caretakers and to sacrifice their own dreams and autonomy to be at the parent's every beck and call. While many of these siblings end up feeling "better than" and more entitled than their other siblings, they are not allowed to bully or discipline those siblings, or even let on that they are "the favorite" (without being reprimanded by the parent for having a "high and mighty attitude"). Roughly half of goldens are brought up this way.
The other half are the bully golden children. The bully golden child repeats the parent's attitudes and is complicit in bullying the sibling who is the present family scapegoat (assigned by the parent). The parent grooms the bully golden to look at his sibling as "less than" himself, and as "crazy" (see gaslighting). The parent looks to the golden as someone who will help in disciplining , "setting an example" and getting the family scapegoat, the family lost child and the family mascot "back on track". So the bully golden becomes part of the parental disciplinary team. Because he has "the okay" to dominate his siblings in the way he wants, sibling abuse is almost a given in these situations.
It is further enabled because his siblings are also always expected to apologize to the golden, just as they are expected to do with the parents, even when the golden is highly abusive.
Bully golden children are at high risk for alcoholism or drug addiction, and they are often criminal or in high stakes activities. They feel they can "never mess up", or "get caught", or will always be perceived to "do no wrong", thus they take wild chances with their health, and with gambling their lives and fortunes. They also usually take the bullying into other relationships (abuse their own children) when they grow up. They are often swaggering, cavalier, charming, deride people in a humorous way and are pathologically dishonest and hurtful to those who they deem to be "under them" or "less than them", which often includes their own children. Indeed, they often have full blown narcissistic personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder.
See my post, favoritism in the family for a more in-depth post on how the narcissistic parent and bully golden child effects the entire family.
There will be another more in-depth post about the two types of golden children.

They infantilize you
This is so extremely common in abusive families that it is a given.
Some signs of infantilization include:
* baby talks when you are not in the baby or toddler stage
* condescends you, even when you are an adult
* when you are an adult, talks endlessly about what you were like growing up
* treats you physically as if you were still a child: kisses you on the lips, or has you sit in their lap, or pulls you by the hand to go to the kitchen to chop vegetables, or cuddles you, or cradles you, or rubs you on the head, or gives you a pat on your ass.
* talks about you to others as if you are still a child -- as unable to take care of yourself or unable to protect yourself in the "big bad world". This can and does graduate to your parent treating you as though you are too disabled, too stupid, or too crazy (gaslighting again) to take care of yourself or to make your own autonomous decisions.
* coaches you when you are an adult on how to talk to their friends, their parents, or other adults they know
* punishes you, or isolates you from the rest of the family when you are an adult as though you are a "bad girl" or "bad boy" -- i.e. still a child.
* expects your siblings to treat you like a child when you are an adult (i.e. condescend you, lecture you, punish you, arm-twist you, give you unsolicited advice, teach you -- in other words, to view you as a child instead of as an autonomous adult)
* tells you that you can't get married, or that you shouldn't get married, or that you don't need to get married (all are also signs of control). If you do get married, has a fit: doesn't show up at the wedding or makes a scene at the wedding (very common), doesn't recognize your wedding with gifts, congratulations or affection, doesn't acknowledge your spouse and family (inlaws) as part of their family, makes their adult child feel guilty for getting married, tells their adult child they will not get anything from the last will and testament if they get married, tells their adult child they will be disowned until they get a divorce, etc.
* tells you that you can't get a job, or tries to keep you from a certain kind of career, or tries to keep you from advancing in your line of work, or tells you that you need to "come home" right after work (when you are an adult), or tries to keep you from going to college, or tries to keep you from working for anyone but them, or their company, calls you every day on the phone to distract you, etc.
* tries to make you cry or make you hurt (getting you to cry is a victory for parents who are narcissists or sociopaths; it is a sign that you are back to your infant stage of crying). It also shows them that they have the power to effect you emotionally.
* decides what kind of job you will do, what the hours will be, what kind of career you will have, etc. Tends to pick jobs and careers for you which will keep you dependent or co-dependent on them.
* decides when you are going to baby sit their children (i.e. your siblings).Tries to keep you and arm-twist you into the role of babysitter even when you are over 18 years of age.
* pretends that you are their under-age child who they can lecture, give unsolicited advice to, punish, control, arm-twist, blackmail and terrorize into doing things for them. Infantilization includes trying to get you into a dependent, co-dependent or trauma-bonded role, and it usually includes giving you money (fully supporting you, or partially supporting you, or insisting you live with them under the guise that they will take care of you -- as though you are still a child). Infantilization is mostly practiced in tandem with parentification; i.e. the parent tries to get you dependent on them in some way for the purpose of controlling you and getting you to take care of all of their needs, wants, desires, demands, etc, in the guise of taking care of you as an adult as if you are their non-grown-up child.
* gives you gifts when you are an adult which are more appropriate for a child than an adult.
* Note: the golden child tends to be infantilized more than the scapegoat, but both are controlled by rewards and punishments for how much they go along with infanilization and parentification. The golden child tends to be rewarded for doing exactly what Mommy or Daddy tell them to do (even when the child is forty), and the scapegoat is unrewarded, cast aside, reprimanded and punished for not doing, to exact proportions, what Mommy or Daddy tell them to do (again, even when the child is forty). However, since these roles tend to be decided by Mommy or Daddy for life during the child's toddler stage, even when the scapegoat is working very hard, and the golden child is acting entitled and doing as little as possible, the scapegoat is still likely to be blamed and punished and the golden child is likely to be rewarded. This is because narcissists and sociopaths tend to see things in black and white terms (splitting), their opinions never change, and they use perspecticide to keep their opinions and beliefs about people fixed and intact, i.e. in their black and white thinking mode forever. In other words, they live in a fantasy world of their own making and manipulate people to adhere to their fantasies of roles.
For more on infantilization see this Psych Central Article by Rachel Lee.

They parentify you
This means  they groom you to be a parent for them.
They groom you continually take care of their needs, to be sensitive to their feelings, to babysit their kids, to cook, clean and care for their children, to discipline and punish their kids, and for you to parent them: i.e. to cook, clean, and help your parents with school or work assignments. You may be changing your sibling's diapers more than they are changing them.
While normal parents expect children to perform some chores around the household, disordered parents can expect children to be slaves who parent them.
Some other signs of parentification:
* They consistently cannot make up their mind, so ask you for your opinions.
* They talk about their sex lives and sexual experiences with their children, and ask for advice about their sex lives.
* They give you alcoholic beverages or supply you with marijuana on a consistent basis when you are under eighteen years of age
* They let you have an affair with an older married man (for instance) when you are still under eighteen years of age
* They talk about their extramarital affairs with their children and ask advice as to who they should be with (even when your two parents are still married) -- it happens.
* They talk about the problems they are having with your other parent consistently (even normal parents who have been wounded by your other parent do this sometimes, so it is not just abusive parents who do this ... However, abusive parents will aggrandize themselves in stories while putting the other parent down, something that normal parents rarely, if ever, do).
* They expect you to be loyal to them while sacrificing your relationship with your other parent
* They expect you to hold them in higher esteem than your other parent (this sometimes goes further into expecting you to tell others that they are the better, more generous, more loving parent -- this is because narcissists and sociopaths are in perpetual competition with everyone they meet)
* They expect chores from you that would typically be for an adult
* They tell you to drive on public roads when you are too young to have a license or driver's permit
* They expect you to operate dangerous machinery that is typically meant for adults only
* They expect you to do dangerous duties for them, putting yourself in harm's way, so that if something happens to you, their lives will be spared
* They expect you to give up other relationships and put them first
* They expect you to give up caretaking of others (such as your spouse or child) to care for them
* They expect you to take care of them in old age and reward and punish in order to get you into that role, starting at a very young age
* They expect you to care about their feelings, while they make constant excuses to not care about your feelings (and in fact, it is obvious that they do not care about your feelings at all if you have abusive parents)
* They expect you to care about their thoughts, while making it clear that they do not care about your thoughts, learning experiences and beliefs.
* They try to talk you out of anything that is an autonomous decision. If you do make an autonomous decision, they shame you or punish you.
* They insist that you don't get married, or that you don't need to get married (i.e. they try to control you so that you are not autonomous from them, or having children of your own, and are serving them).
* They infantilize you first to keep you at home for their entire lives in order that you will take care of them later in life (infantilization turning into parentification: this actually does not happen in the way they want it to).
* They expect you to be a parent figure for your siblings
* As an adult, they compare you negatively to your siblings, and use cartoon characters or children's book stories to explain why you are "less than" your sibling as a way to get you to do more for them (i.e. to get you into a parentifying state of mind).
* If you are not in service to your parents in the way that they want and like (i.e. they expect perfectionism from you in deeds, looks and thoughts), you are either ostracized, degraded, demeaned, insulted or some other threat or sanction.
Parentification is typical in alcoholic homes where the parents are so inebriated that they put unreasonable and inappropriate demands on children that are not fitting for their age or development.
On the other hand, narcissists and sociopaths groom children too, but the difference is that children are inappropriately controlled by the parent figure. They also expect children to walk on eggshells around parental rages and disapprovals (which either manifest as shouting and threats with verbal abuse, or passive aggressive shaming with tactics like the silent treatment -- both are bullying tactics).
Both styles of parenting are detrimental to the well being of the child.
Abusive parents often punish you if you cannot be parentified, or are unwilling to be parentified.
Note: parents who parentify their children often infantilize them first (or use parentification in tandem with infantilization).

They try to sanction you or blackmail you if you do not go along with their false narratives
A false narrative is rewriting history, retelling history in such a way that it is false, retelling events in such a way where they are heroes (when the opposite is true), retelling events that "protects" their image. In other words, it is falsifying for the sake of an agenda.
Narcissists and sociopaths tend to spin a lot of false narratives and try to pass them off as the truth with all kinds of explanations, defenses and word salad.
Child AND adult "punishments" tend to be severe if you do not go along with the parental false narrative. The severity of the sanction or "punishment" depends on where they are on the spectrum of their Cluster B disorder. Borderlines tend to be on the milder side, narcissists tend to be in the mid-range and sociopaths (antisocial personality disorder) tend to be on the extreme side.
In other words, the sanctions and "punishments" will be more severe if your parent is a sociopath than a borderline.
Narcissists tend to develop a fixed narrative about their children when their children are pre-verbal. Children of narcissists tend to be put into roles, including a scapegoat role and a golden child role. These roles do not change because the parent decides very early on who of the children is ALWAYS right, and who of the children is ALWAYS wrong (based upon the narc parent's own black and white thinking). In other words the black and white rigid thinking determines how the children are to be treated and disciplined.
Sociopaths do the same thing except to more of an extreme. Their "punishments" also tend towards the illegal too. If you listen to them carefully, most sociopaths have at least the fantasies (if not the actual carry-through) of torturing children and adult children with false imprisonment, tying someone up, tying someone's hands behind their back, tying them to a post, leaving their child in a locked room with only a blanket and a bucket to pee in (a real live case I have been following and made a comment on), of wanting their child to be destitute or homeless, or locking them up somewhere, anywhere, where their child is a virtual prisoner.
The false narrative exists because narcissistic parents care about their reputations more than anything else in the world, and will do just about anything to protect their reputations (so that they can garner narcissistic supply from unsuspecting moral or high society people). Sociopaths care about getting away with cruel acts without being detected or held accountable.
They are unwilling to change their false narratives (and threaten, sanction and punish) in order to keep the false narratives from being changed.
Some examples of false narratives with "punishments":
* A young girl is molested by her uncle. Her mother who is the sister to the uncle believes her daughter is evil (and probably assigned a scapegoat role). The mother's false narrative is that the molestation never happened, that her daughter is making it up to get attention, except eventually it becomes clear, after years, that she is not making it up. That is because a video surfaces. In order for the mother not to ruin her own reputation at being wrong, she tells her daughter over and over again that her daughter caused the molestation. In addition, the daughter is "punished" by locking her in a room for "being evil" and "sexualizing herself towards MY own brother"! This is mainly done to keep the daughter quiet about the abuse too, so as not to wreck the mother's reputation. Do you think this doesn't happen? The forums for survivors of child abuse are full of these stories.
* A young girl is beaten repeatedly by her brother. When brother or sister ask for the parent to intervene, the girl is punished because "We brought him up to be nice. Why would you ever say that about your brother? He would never do that to you! So you must be at fault!" The girl is punished by being sent to her room. If she protests the "wise parent's" decision, her toys are either broken, thrown away, given away, or given to her brother. This is a typical scapegoating situation that happens to just about all scapegoated abused children brought up by narcissists.

They try to isolate you from the family, or they try to keep you from forming attachments with other family members or they have "issues" with the idea of you being attached to people besides them (including getting married)
Since narcissists are very insecure and manipulative, they don't enjoy your attachments to others, and they certainly do not want you making decisions on your own about who you will attach yourself to (they are control freaks, and often want to know about every conversation, every detail of your love life in order to feel indispensable to you as "the expert adviser" on every aspect of your relationship(s) ... and, when their advice is not taken, or when they feel upstaged, then they generally try to retaliate).
One of the relationships that almost all narcissists try to effect is the sibling relationship. Many siblings from abusive narcissistic homes become estranged, whereas from normal families they are very close, often closer to each other than to their common parents. There are many reasons why the sibling relationship is destroyed in narcissistic families: favoritism, roles, triangulation, gossiping about one peer to the other in a derisive way, gang bullying (scapegoating) and enmeshment with one of the siblings (the parent putting preference on the parent/child relationship rather than the sibling relationship -- see my post on Jon Benet Ramsey's story). They also are known to tell one sibling that if he or she contacts the other sibling, then they will destroy the relationship between them (i.e. between the parent and their child ... the child, therefore, is pressured to choose between the parents and his sibling).
I have been on enough survivor forums over the years to notice that anyone with a narcissistic mother has a nightmare wedding (for the most part). The narc mother either wants to meddle in their child's wedding, or they have a snit and do not attend, or give "poison presents", or get wildly drunk, or show up with a wild "costume" to bring attention on themselves, or insist on controlling the guest list, or mouth off many threats and verbal abuses -- all to upstage their child's wedding. Weddings seem, especially, to set off narcissists, and never in a good way. Some survivors have seen their siblings' weddings destroyed first, and decide not to invite their narc Mom to theirs. This, of course, sets off another torrent of smear campaigns, silent treatments, guilt trips, and shaming sessions. I asked a self-proclaimed narcissist in this interview (at the end) about why narcissists love to ruin their child's wedding. His brief explanation was: "They can't stand their child belonging to someone else. They thought the child was all theirs." Whether you invite your narc Mom to your wedding, or not, there seems to be no way of having a wedding that is peaceful and joyous.

They run smear campaigns against you or one of your siblings
Smear campaigns are covered in this post.
If there are silent treatments, retaliatory parenting, and many other signs of abusive parenting, expect the smear campaign to be used on you, and for you to be dis-invited to family events or not invited at all.

They are physically abusive
Abusive fathers usually shove, throw and punch.
Abusive mothers usually slap or smack (mostly across the face or head).
In the 1930s - 1960s, some mothers and fathers asked their child to cut off a switch from a tree so that the parent could use the switch for whipping and beating the child. Today it is not so common because parents risk losing their children to social services and foster families (it was regarded as extreme child abuse by the 1970s and 1980s).
Laws are still being refined, and they depend on your country.
Generally, in the USA, depending on the state and county, any kind of physical abuse that leaves a mark, redness or black and blue on the skin is regarded as physical abuse and the parent is at risk of losing the child.
However, because abuse is a pattern of behavior, being hit often, or slapped often, is a sign of physical abuse. The parents are not working things out with their children, so resort to some form of violence as a means of control.
Great Britain has much better child abuse laws than the USA at the present time.
Even so, the going trend among psychologists and therapists in the USA is that there is no reason why children should be hit or spanked at all, that it often does more damage than good. Here is one take on it from Richard Zwolinski, LMHC, CASAC & C.R. Zwolinski.

They are either sexually abusive, or they didn't respond to sexual abuse in a way that would keep you safe from harm (i.e. they do not react appropriately if you are sexually abused or raped: their attitudes are lax)
If your parent's attitude is lax or neglectful over you getting raped or sexually abused, this is another sign of narcissistic or sociopathic parenting. Sometimes alcoholic parents do not respond appropriately to traumatic events like this either (this is because their main concern is drinking ... they are also forgetful from black-outs).
If you were under the age of 18 and your parents knew of you being sexually abused, what kinds of steps did they take to keep you safe, to keep other children safe, and to make the offender accountable? Note: normal parents talk to a police investigator.
If you were over the age of 18 at the time of a sexual assault or rape, how did your parent react? Did they try to help you, or did they blame you for your choice of clothes, for how you looked? Did they blame your other parent? Did they say things like "You had it coming!" or "That was your (other parent's) responsibility"? Did they try to get you help in the way of counseling, gynecological care, police involvement? Or did they, in their self aggrandized way, insist that you were safe because they tried to make sure you were safe (even when it did not work in providing safety).
Or were they neglectful? For instance, did they tell you that you should work it out on your own, that they are sorry but they booked a flight to a resort and they can only deal with it when they get back, or "it's your problem to deal with"?
Lack of concern, lack of empathy, putting the blame on others, making a child feel responsible for the abuse done to them, is a definite sign of abusive or neglectful parenting.

Your parent puts on a mask in public and pretends to love, care for, and admire his or her children when it is clear they do not in private
Narcissistic and sociopathic parents have their public face and their private face and they drastically differ. The only time they might not differ is when their child or spouse is in the public eye, so the public face is worn a little more often to avoid being exposed and derided.
In forums for survivors it is not uncommon to hear the following story (which is often referred to as "the bitch switch", for lack of a better term, but it is actually a form of psychological splitting):
A mother takes her daughter to a public event. On the way to the event she tells her daughter, "I wish you were never born!", "I hate your guts!", "I wish someday you would just decide to jump in a river and drown and do all of us a favor!", "I can't stand the sight of you!" Then when they get to the event the mother switches it all off in front of an audience and says the exact opposite: "My daughter is so talented!", "We love our daughter! We adore her! We love her just the way she is!", "Yes, she's exceptional! Thank you! And I'm sure she appreciates all of the attention too", and so on. Thus the term "bitch switch".
This is just one instance of the drastic changes from private face to public face which most narcissists and sociopaths do.
It is a Jekyll and Hyde thing.

Rejects you or has a tantrum at the worst time of your life (perhaps to try to form a trauma bond with you)
Narcissists and sociopaths tend to terrorize their children when they are on their knees with tragedies or life altering events such as being diagnosed with a terminal illness or the death of a close family member.
Narcissists primarily use it in order to get attention on them instead of on the issue you are dealing with (because most of them are pathologically envious of anything that takes your attention away from them). They also do it to try to leverage even more control than they had before (trauma bonding again). They may assume that the child might or will need some sort of help, so they reject or insult the child to see if the child will still run after them. If the child runs after them, then they  feel they can comfortably call the shots in the relationship (i.e. gain more power and control).
Some narcissists become frightened of their child's needs (because they are so self centered and are not good at maintaining a healthy relationship), so they reject their child on that basis.
Many narcissists take off  and abandon after the child makes a suicide attempt, or is going through major surgery, or is diagnosed with cancer, or is traumatized by the death of the other parent or their child. Trauma bonding basically boils down to "I can treat you as badly as I want to because you need something from me." Ultimately it poisons the relationship even if, in the short term, the narcissist gets what he wants from the situation initially. Trauma bonding is a relationship killer.
In other words, trauma bonding is a relationship with a parent where a power imbalance is in place, and the narcissist uses the power he or she possesses to wield over their child to gain more and more control over his or her child. It is meant, in the end, to get the child to bend to the will of the parent over any degradation. It often doesn't work in the way the narcissistic or sociopathic parent wanted because the child will remember the pain first, and how the parent responded to the pain. Minimal caring is given in trauma bonding, and only after the narcissistic parent has his or her needs met first. There is also a constant threat that love and empathy will be withdrawn at any time, and at any moment, during the child's traumatic time.
Sociopaths, on the other hand, love to see their child's heart break after a traumatic event because they are sadists. They will find some excuse for why they withdrew from their child at such a time. Since they are devoid of empathy, and love to extort, they become energized at the thought of causing pain to their child. They also use the opportunity to try to extort IOUs, especially during their child's most traumatic experiences. "She (or he) had it coming to them" kinds of statements, smear campaigns to make it look like the child is making up the tragedy or illness, and trying to make their child focus on what is owed to the parent rather than on what the child is enduring, becomes the sociopath's agenda. Trying to get a further rise out of their children (anger, grief) is typical sociopathic behavior.

They use the Last Will and Testament as a Weapon
Unlike normal parents who set aside money for their children in equal amounts, narcissists use the Last Will and Testament to reward and punish.
Often the rewards and punishments have to do with these issues:
* Whether you gave them enough narcissistic supply
* Whether you were willing to go along with their false narratives and lies
* How much you were willing to go along with how they viewed you
* How much of your time and esteem was given up for the other parent for their benefit
* How much you favored your narcissistic parent over your other parent
* How much you tolerated your other parent being derided by your narcissistic parent
* How much you derided your other parent to make them feel better and whether you allowed them to interfere in your relationship with your other parent in whole or in part
* How much you put them first place in your life (above your spouse, children, other parent, siblings and other family members)
* How much you let them dominate you and all of your decisions
* How much you "gave" them
* How much you lied for them or held up their false self, and whether you approved of their false self
* How quiet you kept about their immoral or sketchy dealings
* How much you tie your self esteem to their opinions of you (they'll probably rage if you don't)
* How much you allowed them to interfere in your relationships, such as:
   - "Don't talk to her or him!" (commands made by your narcissistic parent)
   - Letting them decide guest lists (weddings, funerals, parties, vacations, holidays)
   - Letting them decide on the hierarchy of every family member, and who should be favored over whom
   - Letting them decide how you should act and what you should say to other family members
   - Letting them decide which family members you are allowed to have in your life and which ones you are not to have in your life, who you are allowed to speak to, who you are not allowed to speak to, what you are allowed to reveal and not reveal
   - Letting them decide how much you need to be dominated and told what to do when it comes to your other relationships
* How much you were willing to allow them to interfere in your career (in whole or in part)
* How much or how little of their advice or commands you followed
* How much you were willing to accept abuse
* How much you were willing to go along with the role they assigned you
   Note: if you were assigned a scapegoat role, you usually don't want to be in that role, and often the only way to get out of the role is to leave. So the scapegoat role has a double bind: you are punished if you stay (because everything "wrong" that happens in the family you are blamed for and punished for, and if you leave, you are punished for that too because you are rebelling against the role that the narcissist put you in). Since narcissists feel "right" in everything they do, are exceptionally poor at self reflection, think of people as either all good and all bad, and do not have the empathy to care about you and how the scapegoating is effecting you, it means you cannot win whether in the role or out of the role, at least with them. Scapegoats generally get left out of the Will whether they are the main caretaker and ass kisser or whether they are living outside the family. There are exceptions to this sometimes, but the exceptions are the rarity.

They practice some or all of the abuses above with or without apologizing
... they paint themselves as all good and you (or one of your siblings) as all bad in their family stories. Narcissists and sociopaths rarely apologize unless they feel they absolutely have to, to save face. Notice I said "to save face".
Some of the other reasons for apologies are:
* to see if you can be conned into another round of idealize, devalue and discard
* to see if you will take them back after they have treated you horribly (to see how far they can abuse you and still be forgiven by you)
* to spy on you to see how much destruction they have caused to you and your life
* to get their grandchildren back (to triangulate with in order to abuse you through your own children -- yes, it happens frequently)
* to get a sense if their threats against you are working to keep you quiet about the abuse, or to re-mediate the situation before you expose them
* to use it as a Trojan Horse (i.e. to retaliate against you in the guise of feeling sorry and wanting to love you again)
* to see what your reactions are, to get attention from you
* to see if they can talk you into things the way they used to do
* to see if they are able to control you, how much they can control you, what kinds of control they can exert on you again, to see if there is anything left that they can control in your life.
* to see if you will accept any of their abuse, or excuses for abuse

They have ostracized you or given you the silent treatment, but grill other family members about how you are doing in the guise of caring about you
This is typical behavior of abusive parents. They do go on and on and on to others about how much they love you and value you, and that they want to make sure that you are okay (in the guise that they care so much about you). But most often it is to send in family spies that they can grill for information about you and finding out about the extent of the damage they did to you, to your psychological well being, and to your life.
Don't be a flying monkey to a parent who is estranged from his or her child! If they want to know what is going on with their child, make them responsible for finding out!
If the parent has been served with a restraining order, there are reasons why offering information should be off-limits.

They seem like they expect you to think that abuse is perfectly normal and that you should take it without complaint
This is called normalizing.
Narcissists and sociopaths always try to place the blame on others when things go wrong, which is the precursor to abuse.
That means that there will always be a lot of injustice in homes headed by a narcissist or sociopath. Since they decide where blame and punishment should go (often over very little or no evidence), it means that their child will be burdened with a lot of injustice and trauma.
Phrases where abuse is normalized:
* If it is between siblings: "He didn't hurt you; you hurt him!" -- this phrase should never be used, and unless a parent has ironclad proof, it will cause trauma to the child who has gone to the parent for protection.
* "I know you! You're always at fault! You are the trouble-maker!" -- this is a typical scapegoating phrase where the scapegoat is expected to endure abuse because the parents have deemed the character of the child to be bad -- so wrong.
* "You had it coming from goading him!" The child answers, "But I didn't goad him! He's getting out of control with the punching and threats!" Parent answers "I don't want to hear any more of it!" or "I don't want to hear any more of your problems!" -- again, this just helps the out-of-control person hitting the child escalate abuse. The parent is also condoning the abuse with the phrase "You had it coming ..." Abuse should never be justified under any circumstance at all.
* "If you can't behave yourself, you deserve it!" -- similar to the one above.
* "I can't believe she is so violent! What did you do to deserve it?"
* "Siblings always fight!" -- not an excuse for abuse -- so wrong.
* "Your getting hit is not my problem to deal with! It's yours!"
* "If you can't grin and bear it, maybe you need to get out of the family!"
* "I'm not going to hear about your uncle sexually abusing you! You have no right to say that! You need to apologize to him NOW!"
* "You're a bad child! You deserve to be hit!", or isolated, or given the silent treatment, or any other form of abuse that is about arm-twisting the child to accept bullying and abuse because of a demeaning, false, parental label (unless children have been mercilessly abused by a parent, they want to please a parent).
* "No one likes you! I, personally can't stand the sight of you! And I'm certainly not going to stand around listening to you talk about how you have been abused!" -- very damaging!
For more on this subject, see my post, Forgiving abusers: the "You're better than that" family culture that expects victims of familial abuse to make up with their abuser

When you were under the age of 12, did you think about suicide or running away with any consistency? Did you cry a lot, were you depressed or anxious a lot? Did you under-perform in school?
How did your parents react? With concern or without concern?
Thinking about or talking about suicide:
If your parent reacted with concern, brought you to a mental health practitioner, asked what they could do to make your life and state of mind better (without any of the other abusive signs above), then this is normal parenting.
If they were flippant or unconcerned, then this is generally termed child neglect.
Some of the phrases abusive parents use when their child talks about suicide:
"Good! Then I don't have to take care of YOU any more!"
"Bwahahahaha! You would never do that! I know a liar when I see one!"
"Good! Then I don't have to see your little face again, or hear you caterwauling!"
"I don't care how you feel! If you don't like it, lump it!"
"If you kill yourself, I'm not going to be sorry about it! I'm not going to suffer at all! But you will! You'll burn in Hell forever!"
"Bwahahaha! What are you going to do? Put a bag over your little ugly face and kiss your ass goodbye?"
Any phrase that shows a lack of empathy for your plight.
Thinking about or talking about running away:
If your parent reacted with concern, asked you to talk about why you want to run away, what is turning your feelings and thoughts towards leaving home and putting yourself at risk of the elements (without any of the other abusive signs above), then this is normal parenting.
If they were flippant or unconcerned, then again, this is a sign of child neglect.
Some of the phrases abusive parents use when their child talks about running away:
"Bwahahaha! Don't forget your toothbrush and some P.J.s!"
"Good! Why don't you run far, far away? Let the bears eat you for all I care!"
"Good! I can't stand the sight of you any way!"
"Maybe you need to run away just so you know that you have good parents!"
"How dare you say that after all I have done for you! If you run away, you'll be confined to your room for months! And you won't be allowed out for any reason! Don't say I didn't warn you!"
"I could care less what you do! Don't talk to me about it!"
Any phrase that shows a lack of empathy for your plight.
You cried or were depressed a lot: 
Normal parents know that a child crying a lot, or who is withdrawn and depressed a lot, is not a normal way for a child to behave, and will try to get to the bottom of it. If they promise the child comfort (especially if they do not have any of the abusive traits and signs above and can gain the child's trust), they can usually get to the bottom of what is bothering the child, they can also get relief for the pain that their child is enduring.
Disordered parents, however, are so self involved that they put the blame for the crying on the child: "My child is always depressed. That's just the way he (or she) is", or "My child cries a lot. And she (or he) drives me nuts with it. But what can I do? I just have to endure it until he (or she) calms down."
One of the reasons why depressed and sad children cannot talk to a disordered parent is because disordered parents twist events and feelings. Sometimes they make their children feel guilty if they were a victim of abuse by a family member or bullying at school. This, of course, makes a child feel much worse, so the parent will have a child who cannot talk about why he or she is sad or crying. This is also a sign of child neglect.
Children who cry in a grocery store when Mom or Dad won't buy them a toy is one thing. Children who cry by themselves in their room is another thing.
Typical non-empathetic phrasing from narcissistic and sociopathic parents include:
"Stop your caterwauling! I don't want to hear about it! Grow up!"
"If you cry one more time, you're going to get it!"
"Okay, I've heard about enough crying out of you! If you're going to keep crying like that, then you'll be punished! Is that what you want?!"
"I really don't care! I don't care! You have nothing to gain from all of this crying! Shut up!!!"
"If you keep crying, I'll give you something to REALLY  cry about!"
"If you can't stop crying, you won't be coming with the family to the amusement park and the ice cream parlor afterward! You can stay home all day and all night and keep crying!"
"Shut the hell up! Don't you have any consideration for the rest of us! Just stop crying NOW!"
"You'll do anything to ruin the peace around here, won't you!?"
"You wanna cry? I killed your kitten! Now you really have something to cry about!" -- more likely with sociopathic parents
You were anxious, spacey or preoccupied in school to the point where you had learning disabilities:
This is a sign of childhood PTSD (or C-PTSD), which is what children who are exposed to abuse or trauma-related episodes go through. It is called amygdala hijacking. You cannot learn when your brain is in fight or flight mode, frozen from fear, or preoccupied with keeping safe.
Typical non-empathetic phrasing from narcissistic and sociopathic parents include:
"You really are stupid!"
"If you can't pass your tests, you're going to stay back another grade! Is that what you WANT?"
"You're an embarrassment! Such a stupid kid!"
"How come all of your sisters and brothers can do well in school and you can't?"
"What's the matter with you!? I helped you study for that test, and now you're showing me a D? I have had it up to here! Do you hear? I just give up on you! You didn't even try and this grade shows it! I guess you'll never amount to anything!"
"I'm so disgusted with you! If you're going to be stupid, you'll just work at Wooly-bear-marts in the toy section for the rest of your life!"
"No one likes you! You're just stupid!"
"Duuuuhhhhh!"
"Retard! Weirdo!"

They let you be abused, or they excuse the abuse, or they punish you or ostracize you if you are abused by a family member
Note: this part of the post will have a lot of similarities and redundancies to "the false narrative" part of the post above.
When you take a look at survivor forums, it is quite common to be ostracized when you are the victim of the abuse of a family member.
For instance we'll take the classic story that shows up in forum after forum:
Let us say you have an alcoholic Dad or stepdad or uncle who is sneaking into your bedroom some nights, really drunk, and demanding sex (incest). You tell your narcissistic Mom, hoping she will protect you, but instead of focusing on how traumatic this is for you, she doesn't want to hear another word and demands you apologize right away to her and to your Dad or stepdad. She also states: "How dare you insinuate that about your own father (or stepfather)! You little tramp! Maybe you were trying to seduce him!"
Narcissistic Moms make snap judgments without research, they think people lie about sexual abuse (because many of them lie and pretend to be victims themselves: it is projection on their part).
Many of these situations end up where parent and child are totally estranged. If the estrangement does not come right away, it usually does when the survivor has her (or his) own children and doesn't want those children exposed to the "condoned family practice of incest".
One of the reasons why narcissists DO get married to incestuous or child abusing men is because sociopaths and other cluster B personality disordered people are attracted to each other. They lie for each other; they work in tandem to punish other adults; they extort together.
The other common one is golden child abuse (note half of golden children become ultra-empaths; the other half become bullies):
Let us say that your parent consistently favors one of your siblings. They use one of your siblings to discipline the other siblings, or gang up on you. If you do something they deem "not perfect enough", or express emotion for being hurt, you are punished, and the golden child is told not to let you out of your room, or some other sanction. In other words, your sibling is used to discipline you, becoming another "parental figure." Obviously this will cause sibling estrangement (it is a divide and conquer strategy from the parent because narcissistic and sociopathic parents do not want their children to be close; they want them competing for parental love).
The other golden child abuse goes like this:
The golden child constantly beats up the scapegoat of the family. When the scapegoat complains or cries, he (or she) gets further abuse from the parent because the parent has deemed the scapegoat to be showing up the bad parenting. They deem the scapegoat to always be wrong, and the golden child to always be right in every altercation between the two children. So the victimization of the scapegoat goes unchecked. The black and white thinking of the parent is called splitting and is typical of narcissists and sociopaths and NOT typical at all of normal parents.
The reason why these situations happen so readily in a family headed by a narcissist is because narcissists primarily live for themselves. Their reputations come absolutely first and front-center. They don't care who is being hurt so long as it does not touch their reputation.
The reason why these situations happen in a family headed by a sociopath is because sociopaths live to punish others, as they get satisfaction from it, even if they have to do so by proxy. They scheme punishments and retaliations against their own children constantly. They use the disappearance and destruction of toys and pets as a way to further punish. They want absolute control over every aspect of their children's lives.

If your parent uses some or a majority of these tactics
They aren't a real parent in any normal sense of the word.
Sometimes we have to accept that they are not out to help us; they are out to hurt us. Giving birth does not equate to empathy and caring for children. It does not necessarily equate to a healthy relationship either.
You have to make the choice of whether your constitution can take your parent's abuse of you (most people, over the long term, cannot withstand it, especially when they have been through a number of cycles of abuse and can no longer believe in the honeymoon stage). Also, abuse escalates.
If you are an adult, and you want to make steps to disengage from your parents, you may want to visit a domestic violence center. They will also be able to assess how dangerous the situation is, find you counseling, get you connected so you are not experiencing it alone, and in general, get you help.
If you are under age, asking to talk to the school psychologist at your school or calling a domestic violence center usually helps to get you on a healthier track.
Remember: parents who abuse their children are not healthy. Their abuse of you has nothing to do with you; it is their dysfunctional way of coping and most likely learned from their own parents.
Also remember: if you go to a domestic violence center, and bring to light and expose the abusiveness of your parent, it puts the family in crisis and the abuse can no longer be ignored or excused. There will be members who are opposed to what you are doing (perhaps because they have a lot to gain from the present system), and who denounce you as a troublemaker, but even they will eventually be challenged to look at the situation for what it is. Scapegoats are often whistleblowers and canaries-in-the-coal mine within their families; taking it outside of the family is the natural progression when they have been told to put up and shut up for so long.

From my own experience:

Narcissists and sociopaths can act like normal parents for a long time.

As long as you are, more or less, going along with what they expect you to do, going along with their views on everything, accepting blame even when it doesn't belong to you, and talking in the way they want you to talk, and at least going along with perceiving things the way they want you to perceive things, they can seem as sweet to you as any other parents. They can even seem exceptionally normal as grandparents too. They can shower you with affection and gifts. They can appear to love and adore you just like any normal parent.

But ... there are ways they won't be normal. They will give too much advice, pump you constantly to the point of claustrophobia for information about all aspects of your life, which can include questions about your sexual life. They will deny that they ever hurt you (insisting that you hurt yourself, which will make some pain hard to heal and fester for a long time). They will want to know what your relationships are like with other people and give you constant advice on how to act towards those other people. They will tell you that your decision making is flawed in some way constantly, even if ever so slightly (gaslighting). They will lecture you (in an overtly haughty manner, or an ever so slightly arrogant manner, lowering the voice, or raising it in a flippant aire). They will show signs that they "will take care of you" if only you give up your career ambitions, or your job, or some other thing that is about getting you into a co-dependent role -- they will seem to want to be enmeshed with you, all without revealing much about themselves (for covert narcissists) or reveal their problems and issues too much, and make sure the conversation always turns back to them and how wonderful they are (the TMI type -- for overt narcissists). They also will react very badly to criticism (giving silent treatments or deflecting blame -- it will be obvious to you that they will want to be praised no matter what they do or what they say). And there will be a huge range of subjects that you cannot talk to them about to get resolution.

If you were gaslighted or scapegoated by your parent in childhood, my advice is not to let your guard down, ever, and certainly do not allow for any enmeshment (i.e. allowing them to manipulate your decision-making so that you are co-dependent or trauma bonded to your parent -- narcissistic parents will NOT do what is best for you; they will always do what they think is best for them, and scapegoating is one of the things they do for them). If they have used gaslighting, scapegoating, silent treatments and word salad arguments before, these tactics may be dormant, but they are ALL likely still there.

Covert narcissists who have loved bombed back their children and seem to be repentant and sorry for their past "mistakes", can, and do, use old tactics again. They are not good at keeping promises or of rehabilitating themselves. They tend to fall back eventually on "It is ALL your fault" strategies when they are caught at immoral underhanded behavior again.

When you are going through hard times, formerly abusive parents will suddenly start to be abusive again. They discard, blackmail, extort, stonewall and break promises to their children when their children are going through the worst tragedies of their lives (and not kidding about that). The last thing you need when you are going through a hugely challenging time is extortion, blackmail, gaslighting, discards, your parent hitting you up for an IOU, having to please an impossible-to-please parent, and ever more trauma, from someone who has, up until then, professed their undying love and devotion ... so, this is why it is always important to set boundaries and distance which is much more firm than other types of people in your life.

The focus needs to be on you, and your recovery, when you are going through extremely difficult and tragic times ...

Also, a relationship is not normal where you are expected to keep things uncontroversial for them at all times, to accept altered versions of the truth for their comfort, and provide peace for them, while sacrificing your own. This never bodes well for a relationship of longevity. There will be a time when you cannot accept a demand, or extortion, or an abuse. That is because narcissists and sociopaths  escalate at pressing your buttons and trying to make you uncomfortable.

You can feel that you have lost years of your life trying to placate a parent that can never be placated, can never have enough power or control, can never alter stories enough to their liking, can never have enough drama in their lives (i.e. making people suffer over their temper tantrums, and through their blackmail and extortion).

further reading:

Is "No Contact" a Brainwashing of Masses of Adult Children to Hurt Their Parents? -- my  own post (please feel free to join the discussion)

How to Tell if Your Parents are Abusive -- a WikiHow article (the question and answer section is also worthwhile)

How to Deal with Abusive Parents -- a WikiHow article (the question and answer section is also worthwhile -- many are children asking for help)

How to Protect Yourself From Violent Parents -- a WikiHow article (the question and answer section is also worthwhile)

How to Deal with an Abusive Father -- a WikiHow article

How to Cope with a Controlling Parent -- a WikiHow article

How to Forgive an Abusive Parent -- a WikiHow article (note: forgiveness is not necessary: it is up to you)

How to Reconcile With a Rehabilitated Abusive Parent -- a WikiHow article 

Some videos I hand-picked that show child abuse

Why You Didn't Get What You Needed From Narcissistic Parents -- by Mark Zaslav, Ph.D. for Psychology Today

An excerpt as to why you can't get narcissistic parents to acknowledge the pain and damage they caused you (hint: it is because their main focus in life is to self-aggrandize and seek others who will aggrandize them):

It is important to note that even if your parents are living and sound of mind, they will likely be of little assistance. Having paid scant attention to your needs, they will produce a highly distorted picture of events, if they even remember them. Therefore, this is where the support of a competent, experienced therapist can be of great value as you identify and confront your actual history of trauma and neglect.

It will probably be necessary for you to relinquish any expectation that your parents will acknowledge any part in your difficulties or change their behavior in any appreciable way. Owing to their need to distort or disavow deflating truths and to turn away from honest self-evaluation (Peck, 1983), their version of events will be dramatically different from your own. But healing will inhere as you begin to dissent from internalized parental invalidation and take ownership of difficulties developed in response to very real childhood neglect.

6 Signs of Controlling Parenting and Why It Is Harmful -- by Darius Cikanavicius for Psych Central

4 Reasons Why Controlling Parenting Doesn’t Work -- by Darius Cikanavicius for Psych Central

4 Effects of a Controlling Upbringing People Struggle With -- by Darius Cikanavicius for Psych Central

excerpt:

In the previous articles we talked about the signs of controlling parenting and why it doesn’t work in terms of raising a healthy, happy, self-sufficient individual. Today, we will look at the common problems people raised in a controlling environment have as adults.
If you have been raised in a controlling environment or know somebody who has, you may recognize some of the signs described below.

How to Tell if Your Parents Are Abusive -- a Wiki article

discusses everything from physical abuse to emotional abuse

How to Recognize Abusive Parents -- from the No Bullying website

Child Abuse and Neglect: How to Spot the Signs and Make a Difference -- a HelpGuide article

7 Types of Parental Abuse -- by Christine Hammond, MS, LMHC for Psych Central

I Am Permanently Estranged From My Toxic Mother, But I’m Still Sad We Aren’t Close -- by an anonymous writer about her experiences with a shaming and insulting mother. Written for the Scary Mommy website

Child Abuse Can Increase Risk of Adolescent Misbehavior -- by Rick Nauert PhD

Unquestionable Uberparenting: The essential manual for aspiring narcissists who want to take their parenting to the next level, as befits their infallible special status and god-given rights. -- a satire blog on atrocious parenting.

Parents That Bully Children and Others -- from the Bullying Statistics website

Stop Bullies: Especially Toxic Parents -- from the Bullies Be Gone website

For Adult Survivors of Child Abuse -- from The Invisible Scar website

Abusive parents who try to shift blame may face tougher sentences -- from the Guardian, a UK publication, on the ever-changing for-the-better child abuse laws

Narcissists Hate Seeing You Happy - by Darius Cikanavicius for Psych Central

I Was Complicit in My Own Narcissistic Abuse -- by Lenora Thompson

This post talks about a survivor who is complicit in punishing herself for not being perfect for her narcissistic parents.

11 Things NOT To Do With Narcissists -- by Dan Neuharth, PhD MFT

Narcissistic Parents Are Literally Incapable Of Loving Their Children -- by Joanna McClanahan for Scary Mommy website

The Narcissistic Personality: How They Think -- by Joe Navarro, M.A. for Psychology Today

Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the Antisocial Personality Disorder -- A Lot in Common -- by Stanton E. Samenow, Ph.D. for Psychology Today

Narcissists Already Know What You Think of Them, But Do They Care? -- by David D. Salvo for Psychology Today

11 Struggles Children With Abusive Parents Go Through -- from Witty Feed website

Excerpt from the article:

Children are the gift of God! But is every child treated like one? The abusive environment at home makes the child toneless, expressionless and dull. Parents mean the world to children. Everything else is a second priority for them, but when such things happen at home, they start becoming monotonous and depressed. Their innocence is being murdered ruthlessly by their parents.

For Kids, Mental Abuse Can Be Worse than Sexual, Physical Abuse -- by Rick Nauert PhD, for Psych Central

How to help your children when their other parent is a narcissist -- by Sharie Stines, Psy.D, for Psych Central

When Parents and Children Are Estranged -- by Janet Singer for Psych Central

8 Toxic Ways Narcissistic Mothers Emotionally Abuse Their Children -- by Shahida Arabi for Psych Central

Narcissists and Children -- my own post

Sociopaths and Children -- my own post

found on facebook:

found on The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Children's Bureau) website: 

found on Pinterest:

found on Pinterest:

Found on I'd Rather Be Alone Than With a Lying Cheater's facebook page:

A quote from Tina Fuller:

A video featuring Dr. Ramani Durvasula

on Med Circle,

Narcissism in a Parent [The Signs You Need to Know]: