Study: Are you turning your child into a narcissist?

"Children whose parents think they’re God’s gift to the world do tend to outshine their peers – in narcissism," a press release about the study said. "In a study that aimed to find the origins of narcissism, researchers surveyed parents and their children four times over one-and-a-half years to see if they could identify which factors led children to have inflated views of themselves."

As I read the study and the news reports about it, my mind went immediately to this weekend's awards ceremony at the Odyssey of the Mind regional tournament at Wake Tech in Garner. Teams from across the region competed in various skits and performances that required them to build structures from balsa wood or create rubber band powered devices or develop their own silent movie.

Not every team could win. And my daughter's team, which I helped coach, didn't take home a medal. It was a tight field and a tough lesson to learn after her team won first place last year. Sure, there were tears and disappointment - among my team members and from other team members, who worked so hard for months and didn't take home anything physical  from the competition to show for it.

It also reminded me of the spelling bee at my daughter's school earlier this year. At each round, kids were knocked down, some crying. It was all on public display.

"It's like the Hunger Games out there," I joked with a friend.

But here's the thing: Losing is tough. But it's good. It's healthy. And, let's face it, nobody is perfect, including that little me you've got tucked under your arm.

Constantly giving kids rewards; praising them for every little thing; awarding them with medals after every sports season regardless of performance; or telling them they are the best at everything does a disservice to them. So does making excuses for them when they lose.

This all doesn't mean that kids shouldn't feel good about themselves.

The study pulls out the difference between children with high self-esteem and narcissists. Kids with high self-esteem didn't see themselves as more special than others, the release says. They just said they were "happy with themselves and liked the kind of person they were."

In fact, researchers found that constant coddling and praising can hurt our kids.

"While parental overvaluation was associated with higher levels of child narcissism over time, it was not associated with more self-esteem," the release said. "In contrast, parents who showed more emotional warmth did have children with higher self-esteem over time. Parental warmth was not associated with narcissism."

I don't know about you, but I'd rather raise a child who turns into an adult with high self-esteem instead of a narcissist.

Lead author Eddie Brummelman, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands who worked with Ohio State researchers, offered some advice for parents.

“Parent training interventions can, for example, teach parents to express affection and appreciation toward children without telling children that they are superior to others or entitled to privileges,” he said.

On Saturday, after the tournament results were in, I hugged my daughter. And then I hugged her some more.

"If we didn't lose sometimes, it means we're not trying new things. We're not stretching ourselves," I told her in my version of a post-game pep talk. "Not everybody is perfect. Not everybody can do things perfectly all of the time. I can't. You can't. But I love you."

"I love you, too," she replied.