We’ve all seen this scenario. Finally, an author has put a name to it: princess parenting. From Megan Basham, writing in the Wall Street Journal:
Of course, it’s natural for kids to try to assert their status over others, but it used to be the role of parents to rein in these impulses and teach their daughters that while playing princess is fun, no one enjoys being around someone who acts like a princess in real life. Now researchers are finding that parents are promoting attitudes of superiority in their daughters. Jean Twenge, associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University, tracks the rising egotism on college campuses in her new book, “The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement.” She has found that college-age women are developing narcissistic traits at four times the rate of college-age men. She attributes the startling discrepancy in part to parents who put their girls on a pedestal.
Ms. Twenge describes moms and dads who lavish their daughters with unrealistic praise. Parents not only tell girls they are the prettiest and smartest but also train them to see themselves as the center of their worlds through clothes and accessories. “You could label that kind of parenting ‘princess parenting,’ ” she told the Associated Press recently. Ms. Twenge notes wryly that when shopping for her own 2-year-old daughter, about “a fourth of clothing available to her says ‘Little Princess’ on it.”
