Snipped
Interesting insight! How unfortunate she went into the teaching profession (or attempted t0).
One joy in life is developing the maturity when you don't get upset over every little mistake or burst of energy from children. That comes with either experience, natural disposition (some people are just more patient by nature), or a combination.
Interesting to think that a narc doesn't mature into that but are stuck in the anger stage (which is often an immature first response to many things).
jmo
Freud was the first to call it. He said infants are born "narcissistic," meaning that they not only designed expressing every single feeing, but that infants must feel and be allowed to express all their desires and wishes, vociferously if that's their style. Later, Margaret Mahler identifies patterns that cause adult narcissists (she is a famous psychiatrist).
She says that at least one parent, usually the mother, needs to mirror and basically indulge infant narcissism. In other words, if a baby is crying urgently due to a reason, the mother "agrees" that life is awful for Baby and does everything possible to make it right again. If baby is happy and giggling, mother stops her busy work and laughs and giggles too. In other words, Good Mothers (Mahler called them "Good Enough Mothers") mirror their baby's feelings and take all their feelings seriously. Not every single time, which is impossible, but most of the time. Most mothers seem to do this intuitively.
But some mothers scream back at the baby. They stick the baby alone in a room, in a crib or carrier, slam the door, scream at baby more, and may even react by pinching or otherwise harming an infant.
Freud said that infant (primary) narcissism was a survival mechanism endowed by nature, such that as Baby becomes Toddler, they have enough self-esteem to get up and walk when they've fallen, to try speaking even if they can't say words just right, etc
Bad mothers mock their toddlers, set them up for failure, prank them, and do nothing to encourage the child to feel good about themselves. Because these mothers are themselves narcissists, they overestimate their child's abilities and the children get in over their heads, socially and intellectually, at an age where a parent's job is to bend the toddler into a kid - by teaching them how to be careful, how to judge how to cross the street, etc.
Anyway, healthy kids learn by age-appropriate errors (and encouragement). Good parents organize the kid's life so that they gradually learn that other people have needs too (having them play by themselves, sleeping through the night etc) and by around age 4-5, a healthy child (according to Freud and Mahler) has outgrown primary narcissism and will rarely regress to selfishness, poor judgment, expressing every single feeling and reacting with screaming and tantrums to not getting their way.
Those who remain narcissists go a different path - and it's all because of their own narcissistic parent(s) or caretakers. The degree of selfishness shown by the parents of future narcissists is significant (they will stuff food they like into a small child's mouth, whether the child likes it or not, and at a pace that suits the parent not the child - they'll even continue spooning food into the mouth of a crying baby and then complain the baby is choking and crying).
Narcissistic moms give their kids positive attention only when there's an audience and it reflects back on them. This does not produce pro-social values or real self-esteem and teaches the kids that it's how one appears to others that's important, not who one truly is. Being "good" is simply a performance, not a learned experience.
Narcissists don't necessarily become Antisocial Personalities, but they are more likely to do so. There is more of a genetic component to APD. But you can see how an antisocial narcissistic parent ends up with a child who is a lot like them. Narcissists know how to dominate and take advantage of others, just like APD people, and they often ensnare people who are low in self-esteem and if not, they are quick to try and make others feel badly about themselves.
This is perfectly fine behavior for 3-5 year olds (who have difficulty following the rules of games, will cheat to win because that makes them happy to win, who are intensely jealous of other kids having things they don't, who occasionally smack another kid just because they're mad and don't yet understand that others have feelings or that consequences are real). And while it's normal 3-5 year old behavior, parents, adults in general and teachers in particular - as well as healthy play with other kids - will help them grow up.
Certainly by 8, it's noticeable if kids are still in that earlier phase. Most kids are well on their way to healthy, hard won self-esteem and having empathic feelings toward others by 5-6. For some it's even earlier, and some never achieve it.