This is a very tragic story left by one of our readers:
My daughter was misdiagnosed with ADHD. Then bipolar disorder, then Oppositional Defiance Disorder. I stormed out of her psychologist office when she told me that she saw something “dark” in my child. That was when she was 7. When she was 8, her sociopathy increased and she purposely drowned my poodle. She also tried to smother my baby by my second husband. The strain of her and my carrying the baggage from my last relationship has driven he and I apart and we currently trying to file for divorce.
She steals daily, has even stolen as much as $500 from my wallet. I lock things away, and she will simply pry open the lock, break the lock or disable locked windows so she can climb in for access to everything. My son sleeps with his father at night at his own home, while I sit here at night, catching her lurking through the dark, stealing whatever she can get her hands on (i.e., money, jewelry, food, perfume). If I try to discipline her, she simply runs off and screams to the top of her lungs “don’t kill me”, which causes the neighbors to call the police. Just this morning, I discovered money missing and brand new snacks I bought last night for the baby and all of us to share GONE. Every single day she steals. I have to sleep at night and when I do, she lurks in the dark, prying open things, destroying things.
It’s like if she is alone for a moment, she does something way over the edge. Like this morning, I caught her chopping blooms from cacti I planted with a mini shovel, I mean she looked like the LAST SAMARI. I am being victimized everyday and feel like she is the hunter in my home and I am the hunted. I have arranged for an IEP at her school and it is my goal to get her placed in a facility in Utah where they house and treat child psychopaths or excuse me, Oppositional Defiant children because liberal America will not allow her to be called what she truly is until she turns 18.
The issue of likely outcome is more difficult in child psychiatry than it is in any other aspect of medicine. Think for a moment, if a child has cancer and we know that 65% of children with this cancer die, what does that tell us about our particular child? I chose the number 65% because that is the percentage of conduct disordered teens that went on to develop antisocial personality as adults in one study.
When we consider studies of conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and symptoms of psychopathy in children we have to consider that most of these studies are done on a special population of children that are being treated at University based clinics. So the information about prognoses we get is likely pessimistic. Sill not even these studies show that 100% of children with these symptoms have them into mid adulthood.
I would like to tell you about three children, I watched grow up. These children show us that we have to be careful about trying to predict adult personality function on the basis of what we see in a child.
The first child is a neighbor of mine. When she was 7 she was so fearful and shy that she refused to go on play dates. I spoke to her mother about this and her mother indicated that symptoms of anxiety tended to run in their families. Well, I saw that girl again at 14 and I can tell you she is “popular” and not at all shy. I asked her mother about what happened. Her reply was, “Yeh, she grew out of it.”
The second child is a boy who was a sibling of one of my daughter’s friends. At 7 he was a mess, very impulsive and easily angered. So much so he got into trouble in religious school. At 13 this boy is controlled and polite, a fine young man.
The last child is a boy I grew up with. I was always an animal lover. This boy’s behavior disgusted me because at 7 he captured lizards, stuck sticks through their mouths and killed them. He then put his kills in the street for cars to run them over. I hated that kid! Well, he did not grow up to be a psychopath. He is a loving husband, responsible father and business owner.
Video of 7 year-old Latarian
After introducing this background, I would like you to watch the video of Latarian Milton, a 7 year old who stole his mother’s car. (This video was recommended in one of our reader’s comments and I appreciate that.)
Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itgcNy3L_Xc This boy demonstrates for us what psychopathic personality traits look like in children. He shows no remorse and says he enjoys doing bad things. He doesn’t care about the consequences of his actions because for him the fact that he gets enjoyment justifies everything. The comments left on Youtube reveal that many people have one of two incorrect views of psychopathy in children. The first is that it can be cured by beating the child. The second is that it invariably leads to a disordered adult.
If there was only a 10 percent chance that a child’s cancer could be cured, most people would still advocate that the child get aggressive cancer treatment. The odds for disordered kids are at least that and yet many people say they should be written off and secretly believe they should either be euthanized or imprisoned for life.
What should be done to help psychopathic children?
Psychopathic children do have the same issues as psychopathic adults. Namely, their pleasure system is warped and their impulse control system is defective. The difference is that these two systems are more changeable in a child than they are in an adult.
Psychopathic children enjoy “being bad” (to quote Latarian in the video above) more than they enjoy anything else. What they need is to be taught how to enjoy loving human connections. If they can learn to enjoy loving, then they have a chance at developing a modicum of empathy and conscience. This is where our pessimistic view of psychopathic children can become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Studies show that the parents of such children often dislike them. The people who advocate writing off these kids do not help these parents. Parenting an at-risk child is the most difficult task many will ever have to face.
We have to support the parents of psychopathic children and encourage them to try to find something in the child they do like and can connect with. Psychopathic children require constant adult supervision and affectionate adult companionship.
Psychopathic children also need to be taught about the nature of impulses and morality. They need verbal lessons as well as real life lessons in the form of consequences. Studies show that when parents of psychopathic children dislike them, they often pull back and do not provide the consistent teaching of impulse control these kids need.
There is also another side to the prognosis coin. That is that many children who appear to be “normal” grow up to be psychopathic. I know this from two sources, scientific studies and people who write me. Dr. Hare has said the antisocial behavior that leads to sociopathy/psychopathy begins during childhood and adolescence. I agree with him, but the problem is that this antisocial behavior can take many forms. For example, lying, stealing and being aggressive toward a sibling are all behaviors that many sociopaths showed during childhood. Many children engage in these behaviors and so again we may consider them “normal.”
How can we prevent sociopathy in adults?
Behavioral science has revealed a great deal about what we can do to give all children the best chance. I was at a conference this week and one of the speakers noted that the State of California bases its estimate on the future need for prison space on the reading scores of children in 3rd grade! In addition to effective parenting, at-risk children need to have quality education. Right now our practice is to take troubled children and group them together for school. Not only do they all then get a substandard education, but they get to teach each other more antisocial behavior!
As a society, we are far from doing our best for psychopathic kids. Some children will develop disordered in spite of the best parenting and professional help. YOU WILL NOT KNOW IF YOUR CHILD IS IN THAT GROUP UNTIL YOU HAVE GIVEN HIM THE BEST PARENTING AND PROFESSIONAL HELP AVAILABLE. Medication may be necessary for some children. If you have done your best as parent and your child still has problems, forgive yourself. Rest assured that his problems would be much worse if you had not done your best.
I want to end with what I believe are the 10 attributes of effective parents:
Summary of Effective Parenting
- Effective parents are warm and empathetic.
- Effective parents reward good behavior.
- Effective parents establish clear rules and enforce them through limit setting.
- Effective parents model good behavior.
- Effective parents teach impulse control, respect and values.
- Effective parents surround their children with positive influences.
- Effective parents protect their children from entering into situations they won’t be able to handle.
- Effective parents teach age appropriate life skills.
- Effective parents have fun with their children.
Dear Jlarue,
I think you will find peace with your decision to send her stuff over there and I am glad that your cousin was of help to you and was direct with them about NOT contacting you ever again. That doesn’t mean they won’t contact you, I can almost predict they WILL or she will or she will use and abuse him and then he will contact you, it is NEVER OVER as far as they are concerned. BUT, stick to your guns and NO contact, if she calls or contacts you for ANY reason don’t even say “goodbye” just hang up, or refuse to listen to any messages she sends you via someone else.
Peace will be wonderful and allow you to heal. She’s out of your life now, and soon out of your mind. Glad everything went well.
You must all listen and listen carefully. I grew up with a sister that was, and still is to this day a sociopath. I was the young sibling who much like the above toddler was almost drown by my sociopathic sibling. Several attempts were made by my sister to rid me from the picture. From hand feeding me safety pins at the age of two, to turning scoulding hot water on my in the tub at age 3, and yes even attempt to drown me in the bath tub as well. So much went unseen, and my sister was a professional pathological liar by the age of six. If not for my brother (the eldest of us all) I would not be alive right now to write this….. My father was a business man that was never home which left my extremely lazy mother to tend to the three of us children. My sister being a walking replica of my mother was seen as a golden child. My sister would intentionally break things and blame it on me just to watch me get beatings and would stand by and laugh at me as I was being punished. My sister never grew out of her EVIL ways, and just this past year at the age of 36 made headline news for stealing two vehicles, one of which was a bank courier vehicle. She is a drug addict that has verbally, physically and emotionally neglected all three of her children. She prostitutes, and finds almost great pleasure in OIany and every man for what ever she can… And finds even greater pleasure in succeeding in having intercourse with my boyfriends. One of which was my fiance… LISTEN TO ME!!!! I dont care if some doctor says that a sociopath should be addressed with as much love as someone dieing from cancer or not…. That is the biggest line of crock i have ever heard… someone with cancer never asked to have cancer. A sociopath (NO MATTER WHAT AGE) knows EXACTLY what he or she is doing…..And they are asking for it. Bad attention is still attention… They are highly intellegent, they seek to manipulate EVERY single person that comes in there path. From doctors to parents, teachers, and even a man of the cloth. My advice…. GET A VIDEO CAMERA…… IN EVERY ROOM IF NESSESARY….. Do not let the child know it is present…. The only way to help them is to call them out…. My sister would wait until my mother was out of the room to commit unspeakable acts of violence upon me…..almost torture. And the end result would be additional beatings from my mother for things i had never done…. in turn only increasing my sister’s satisfaction….. I do not agree with physical punishment of any sort (partially due in part to my up bringing) but catch the child on video then make him/or her sit it out….. i mean really sit it out…. remove any form of pleasure from the child. if he/or she likes their xbox or wii…. dont let em have it…dont leave your other children in the same room with that child not even for a second…AND FOR THE LOVE OF G?D GET BACK UP!!!! Mom you cant do this on your own…. Mom should be sleeping with the toddler and dad should be addressing the sociopath. Male dominance is essential…… If there is no man in the picture then you better find a live in to help because the sociopathic child finds pleasure and satisfaction in hurting, destroying or creating chaos within a home…They choose it, they feed on it. and no doctor, pill, or man of the robe is gona stop them…. the best thing to do is protect yourself and the rest of the family, and find suitable punishment to address each outrage from the child. And pray in time it breaks the child….. Im sorry but giving more love and compassion to that child IS NOT THE WAY TO GO…….. NO FRICKIN WAY……. Once they can change then they get the love…. thats the reward….. oh, and in regards to the boy that would mutilate animals as a child that grew up to be a loving father and business man….. So was the BTK. And he portrayed himself as a loving husband, father, and community business man that meanwhile tortured, and murdered innocent women. No one knows what perverted and twisted thoughts and tendencies lay within ones mind.
A troubled soul suffers in times of blue and gray, but If a trained professional tells you there is something “dark” inside your child then its already too late… save your self…………….
There is no treatment for a sociopath, and it is against medical law to diagnosis an adolescent as a sociopath until they are the age of 18. They will label it as ADHD, or a defiant disorder, and there is no “for sure” explaination as to why one suffers from such; parental disipline (or) the lack there of, heredity, or a traumatic experience. Some may even say on a spirtitual note that the child is evil. Lacking the ability to poses compassion, empathy, remorse, sorrow, or a conscience. Seeking pleasure in inflicting pain upon the innocent. What ever the cause may be know this……. if you care enough not to see this child in this state, then it was not you that created his fate. For, just you doing so he has seen compassion, he is aware of what it looks like, he is aware of what it consists of. As well as empathy, sorrow, and a conscience. He just can not poses them, can not obtain them, he can not force himself to feel them…..He just doesnt have them………… Which makes for a very unpredictable, very heartless, and very dangerous child.
If you fear this child….. you should.
If you want to make it out alive……. never let him know your afraid.
Well hello again all. In my last post about my SP neice, I finally let her go and sent all her clothes to her uncles house. I have been getting back to my life or at least trying. It has felt so good to have her totally out of my life until recently. You were right, she showed herself once again. I was served with court papers. She is helping her neglectful and abusive father sue me for money he claimed to sent her. She also had my parental rights completely revoked, which is funny because I considered them over once she turned 18. My attorney is telling me to ignore them because they are just trying to have a show down. I agree, however, I dont want them to go to court and lie on me. I wonder if I can get a cease and desist order.
Dear Jlarue,
QUOTE: She is helping her neglectful and abusive father sue me for money he claimed to sent her.
If he/she files SUIT I would answer it in court through your lawyer because if you don’t answer a suit, then you lose by default.
QUOTE: She also had my parental rights completely revoked, which is funny because I considered them over once she turned 18.
Did this happen via court order? Were you notified at the time? Yea, I’m like you, I thought they ended at age 18.
QUOTE: My attorney is telling me to ignore them because they are just trying to have a show down. I agree, however, I dont want them to go to court and lie on me. I wonder if I can get a cease and desist order.
Ask your attorney if you can get a cease and desist order. The thing is that each time you go to court it will cost YOU $$$. If they have not filed anything in the court I’d do like your attorney says, IGNORE THEM. If they FILE something in court then I would RESPOND via my attorney. They CAN LIE about you on the street or in court, and they WILL lie about you I am sure, but best if possible to ignore them. Responding is what they WANT.
If they sue though, I IMAGINE you can counter sue for attorneys fees and harassment but check everything out with your attorney.
They had me served with a motion. I dont know what they are doing and I am waiting on my attorney to contact me.
Jlarue
Well, if you were served they have filed something…If it is in small claims court you can probably not have to take a lawyer with you into court. But consulting one is a very good idea. Good luck. Keep us posted.
I live in the Washington, DC area. Do you know any attorney who can help me, possibly pro bono? Trying to get in touch with my attorney is causing me great anxiety. I would like to stay with her because she has been there from the beginning and know the case very well but I am ready to move and get this over with.
Jlarue finding a pro bono attorney in DC is going to be a big if not impossible job…how much money are we talking about they are suing you for? Is there ANY basis for the suit…in other words, did he actually give that money to you? If so, can you prove what you spent it on? Like clothes for her, part of the house hold expenses for rent, utilities and transportation if she lived with you, food, etc.
If he sent you say $5,000 for her and you can prove that she lived with you for say 1-5 years, and that you fed, housed, transported, and dressed her then you ought to be free and clear of any obligation to give her or him back any money….if it was millions of dollars and you lived in a cardboard box and didn’t feed her but you bought fur coats for yourself then you might have to find the money and give it back. Laugh!
Ii would stay with your current attorney if she knows the situation, just keep on calling her. or send a copy of the service to her office along with a letter asking her to represent you. Good luck.