"Me First" Families

We’ve all met a Me First family. In such a family, the parents, and ultimately their children, operate under the principle that everyone else (and their children) should be elbowed aside, stepped upon, or excluded, just so the Me First family can grab at any given opportunity, person, or resource. They are insanely jealous of anyone else’s friendship or good fortune, and they often operate from an extreme sense of insecurity or inadequacy, and most bullying children or parents come from Me First families. 

Faced with a bullying Me First family, some parents claim that they would never let their children know their true feelings about the Me First family. They claim that their children should make their own decision about this family. I think that is a mistake. Your silence can be interpreted as concurrence (or even collusion) with the exclusionary or bullying party.

Faced with a bullying Me First family, parents must be explicit when they explain to their children their own values. Here is an example of how this can be clearly explained: 

“Look at how that family acts. They are morally bankrupt and emotionally desperate. We do not use their lives as a blueprint for ours.” This gives the child a vocabulary to intellectualize and dismiss the pressure, rather than internalizing it.

Does any of this resonate with you? If so, and you would like to explore this together, get in contact.

Chris Warren-Dickins
Psychotherapist in New Jersey and the United Kingdom