Today’s New York Times Magazine has an excellent article on the signs of psychopathy in children. It presents a heartbreaking story of parents trying to cope with a “callous-unemotional” 9-year-old, and covers much of the current research on the disorder in children. Very well done.
Read Can a 9-year-old be a psychopath? on NYTimes.com.
Story suggested by a Lovefraud reader.
Mark Dadds, a psychologist at the University of New South Wales who studies antisocial behavior in children, acknowledges that “no one is comfortable labeling a 5-year-old a psychopath.” But, he says, ignoring these traits may be worse. “
I have worked with this type of kid in inpatient facilities and they ARE SCARY—but to fail to “label’ them because there is no effective treatment is I think STUPID!
If a kid were severely mentally retarded and there was no treatment there would be no one who would say, I think, “Well, we can’t LABEL this kid MR because he might spontaneously grow a brain and be the next rocket scientist”
I think to say that you can’t “label” this kind of kid because they might turn out to be the next Mother Theresa is about as crazy.
Of course not every kid that “acts” out as a child turns out to be charlie Manson or Hitler, but those that are over the top cruel should be labeled I think. The parents should have some support and help and the kids controlled so that they don’t hurt others. Like the one that threw the baby into the water to watch it drown.
I read the article.
I was a bit dismayed to see statements like this towards the end, “Early test scores, in other words, were necessary but not sufficient in predicting who ultimately became a violent criminal.”
If “violent behavior” is their understanding of what makes a P, then they are going to miss a lot of unrecognized/untraditional “violence” that Ps cause, e.g., destroying people’s finances, reputations, careers, family relationships etc.
It seemed to me that the article leaned to Ps as serial killers and murderers. I don’t know if that was due to the author’s lack of in-depth knowledge of the subject and/or if it was due to the researchers’ bias.
It was troubling to me to read that they are trying to “save” these children and make them “more normal.”
The two children that she talked about at that school, Michael (the main child discussed) and L. (the girl he liked) were chillingly and disturbingly calculating.
I’ve read in multiple places (I think one significant study was done in Canada) that therapy is very dangerous to give to a P because they learn how to use that information not to get well, but to be more convincing when they manipulate others.
Look at the example that they gave about the kids learning to bypass the school’s rule of one teacher for every two students. The kids developed a code word and at its utterance, the kids would all run away.
It felt to me that the researchers were horrified that there are people that can’t be helped or treated. Good people with good intentions, I guess, but if these kids can learn to develop code words to misbehave in school, what exactly is getting through to them?
I didn’t read anything in that article, which is not to say that it doesn’t exist and simply did not make it into print, that is showing any real success with the students in that school. If it was there, I’d appreciate it if somebody could point that out to me.
Yes, they are studying and working with these kids, but I think they’re going to need longterm, followup studies to see if and how this schooling impacted these children. For all we know, they may be unknowingly creating a school of highly skilled psychopaths.
Case in point, it certainly sounded to me like that statements Michael was making at home were simply Michael using the information he had gotten elsewhere to his advantage. The mother got that Michael is very manipulative.
For example, his father was going to discipline him and Michael came back with that his father was more bonded with Michael than the mother. It was Michael’s attempt to get his father to stop. What nine-year-old talks like that? He heard that from an adult, and it sounds like it came from a therapist, his parents, or other mental health worker.
I wonder how much Michael’s parents are aware of psychopaths as adults and the full range of the harm that adult psychopaths are capable of doing.
It’s perfectly understandable if the parents are just concentrating on children at this point. I really had to wonder if they are aware that Ps are much more than serial killers and rapists.
I was glad for the article because I think it’s a great start, but it left so much unmentioned. In the end, I thought the author was naive. But at least she’s on the right track.
G1S, oh, you noticed the “bonded” statement as well. .NO normal 9 year old says “I’m bonded to dad” LOL it is a “therapy” atatement and something he learned in therapy. I thought too the kids getting acode word for “scatter like a bunch of cats” was totally showing manipulation rather than impulsive behavior and the fact that they could plot and plan and work together to get the desired chaos.
My son was NEVER like this, not even close, though he did look me in the eye the ONE time before puberty he did anything which was steal some money and a check and trade it for a radio and then when confronted deny deny deny in the face of the evidence. then when I spanked him for lying, he ran away from home. when we found him he looked me coldly in the eye and said “you cant watch me 24/7, I’ll do it again” and I knew he was right!
Later he was oppositionally definant and if I said go north, he went south, or if I said go south, he went north. He was showing “duping delight” in being definant and in doing things he knew were wrong (theft etc) He palled up with my foster son and the two of them together were as my late husband used to say “siamese twins joined at the rectum” The foster son later seemed to do pretty well, but ended up committing suicide about age 33-34. My life was chaotic at the time of his suicide but I think was about 2005 not long after my husband’s death in 2004.
I’ve seen other kids who were teenagers who decided to rebel to the point that they were involved in all kinds of bad behaviors and risky behaviors and a FEW of these kids might “straighten out” somewhat as adults, at least enough to stay out of jail….but these kids who were unbonded to anyone, and were totally off the wall by 7 or 10 years old….????
The father in this story though, apparently had had some behavior “issues” as a child as well…but supposedly didn’t have as an adult and was a “fully functioning adult” (??) we are assuming.
The whole thing is disturbing, but I am glad that there is some study going on with these kids. I do find it difficult that no one had the “guts” to come out and “label” these kids.
I remember my P sister getting caught doing wrong things when she was little and just standing there, totally cold, and not caring.
I would have been freaking out. I would have been terrified of the consequences.
What made it even more troubling to me was that my S mother seemed to admire my P sister for what she did and her reactions.
There have been a number of comic book hero movies lately involving schools teaching these “different” or “exceptional” children.
I’m not feeling warm and cozy over this school in Florida. I’m concerned that they’re just teaching these kids skills that will turn them into Super Ps.
They “hate to label” kids. Maybe they wouldn’t be getting funding if they did.
This father not really being upset or angry over what Michael was doing must be having an impact on the other children.
Dr. Liane Leedom talks about helping children at risk for sociopathy. The ideal time to start is when they are infants, or as young as possible. They need to be taught to enjoy connections to human beings – this is exactly what they are born without. By age 9, it is a lot harder.
How much of the population actually knows what a sociopath really is? We know but how about those reading this NYTimes article? What do you think their opinions are on “what to do”?
And what to do? What would be the early intervention? I recently gave the book “Just like his father.” to someone who can use it. Her child is sweet, compassionate and gentle. But she can use it still, as it is a great book, making sure to make sure we influence and nurture kids.
Bad seed…..some kids just seem the spawn of Satan….no matter what is done as Oxy experienced. I know my own daughter got into drugs and acted sociopathic….Later off drugs, she became more her normal self but never the same. Now she is borderline and depressed, which, since she started drugs at 16, is hard to say if she always had been depressed.
Punishments won’t work, they will manipulate and echo the right responses….I remember as a child getting caught doing something I shouldn’t and lying about it. I lied and fooled my parents…..I felt shame and horrible about myself and thought I was a monster, a criminal, and very badly. I saw other kids lie and smile and lie again and again….acting like nothing happened…all normal….one of those kids tried to entice my little brother into the woods…..told him he would get ice cream. I was 8 and my brother was 6. This boy was 11..
My brother followed the boy and his brother, age 9 into the woods. I ran after them to protect my brother. In a clearing, the older boy said ” Lift up your arms and you will get the ice cream”..I yelled to my brother ” Don’t do it!!”….but he did and when he raised his arms….the boy started to take off his shirt. He said he was going to rape us. His brother started to take my pants down and I socked him real good in the nose and hit him in the stomach. (My Dad had taught me what to do as we had a bad neighborhood)….
I then said I am getting a grownup and telling his mother….They ran after me but I was too fast….I went to his mother and told what happened. She said she didn’t believe me. My brother came running with the boys ahead of him and I got him and took him home. My Dad went out and found those boys down the road, and being the year 1961, dragged the boys by the scuff of their shirts to their house and told the father he beat him up if his sons ever touched us again….
They never did. I learned how to fight at an early age and this was real fighting. I beat up all the neighborhood boys who bullied my brothers. Some were just bratty kids but some had to be labeled as budding sociopaths…They learned to stay away from us…what a way to spend your care free days of youth!!!
Vision, I am sorry that you had to spend your youth physically defending yourself and your brother. I’m glad you were able to SUCCESSFULLY do so. In the 60s it was possible, I’m not sure that now it would be quite as easy for your dad to threaten the parents of those kids.
This idea that “all little kids are born innocent and a blank slate” is not totally GONE from our society. this idea that “everyone can be helped” (well “except maybe the completely mentally retarded or brain damaged, but they can still live in the community”)
In many areas a child with the IQ and mental abilities of a 2 year old is put in a class room with his age peers…because he has a “right” to learn in a class room of kids his age. Of course it is not taken into consideration that a child age 16 who is not potty trained or trainable and who cannot walk or talk might DISRUPT THE LEARNING of the kids who are NOT retarded.
This was the total REVERSE —-for years these kids were segregated into group homes (there are still some of these homes in Arkansas but they are considering closing them) The gravely mentally ill used to be segregated into institutions as well, and during the 80s, they were “freed” to live their lives on the streets in the community instead of in institutions…they filled up our prisons which now have a high percentage of the violently mentally ill as well as a high rate of the psychopathic “children” who grew up to be adults—-and the professional community is STILL RELUCTANT to label them anything and can’t even agree on the NAME OF THE DISORDER.
How can you label a kid a “budding psychopath” when the term PSYCHOPATH doesn’t exist in medical/psych diagnostic criteria?
The professional community has “danced around” the “labeling” question and the “treatment” question—-without anyone manning up and TAKING A STAND and people say “well they CAN be successfully treated”—AS MEASURED BY WHAT STANDARDS?
Maybe–MAYBE–as infants they can be “loved” into having a conscience,by a mother who is PRE-WARNED what genetic potential “junior” has from his psychopathic father. There was one mother here who was separated (and in hiding from) the psychopathic sperm donor for her child. she corresponded with me a while off the blog—-she was breast feeding her infant and trying to do EVERYTHING possible in God’s green earth to bond to her infant. to teach him to bond to her, to teach him empathy and instill a conscience in him.
HOW are you going to KNOW if she successfully “treated” a budding psychopath or if she just raised a kid who would have been “normal” anyway?
By the time these kids are seen in “clinics” they have been ACTING OUT severely for years before they are taken for testing etc. Even if say this mother had done everything she could have to prevent him turning otu to be a psychopath let’s say at age 5 or 6 years she started to see signs he might be a problem and she took him in, what are the professionals going to say—“whoops, you shouldn’t have potty trained him so harshly.” He would have been fine if you had just waited and let him potty train himself.
THERE IS NO WAY to KNOW OR FIGURE OUT what did or did not help that child with the genetic potential to become a psychopath either become one or not.
Look at Pit Bulls which have been bred for generations to be fighters….some of them ARE and some are not, depending somewhat on environment and training, but when one becomes violent and eats a child everyone who loves the breed (my husband’s grandson is one such) who says, “Oh, no they are a loving breed of dog, it is just how they are TRAINED”
BULL CRAP!
Do they have the “running of the milk cows” in Spain before the bull fights and men jump out before these placid cows? Nah, they have the RUNNING OF THE BULLS and the fighting bulls are run through the streets and stupid youths and not so young jump out and run before them sometimes being killed. BY WHAT? Bulls BRED to fight and kill anything on foot in its environment.
Unfortunately, humanity has some GENES in our mongrel mix for “natural born killers” and also for “natural born con wo/men” and all the environments in the world in my humble opinion are not going to tame them down. Some environments might bring out the worst in any child as it grows, but at the same time, not even the majority of children who are sexually abused become abusers, many and most just become victims who suffer.
Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning” pointed out that the victims of the camps became bitter and enjoyed hurting other things and people in response, some became quiet and suffered and died in silence, and others found meaning in their suffering. The genetic make up in my opinion is heightened somewhat in dogs, in people, in cattle….and humans…by the environment. “The same sun that hardens the clay will melt the wax” and so our environment plays on us depending on what is our “make up” but it doesn’t DETERMINE what our make up is. Wax won’t melt and clay won’t harden if they are not exposed to HEAT so I think that in a way, adversity brings out our cores…good or bad.
Though my son didn’t show signs like this duping delight displayed at such an early age as these children, they are scary. I can’t imagine the pain felt by their normal nurturing parent at the behavior displayed by these children on the far end of the bell curve at such an early age.
Where did these kids come from? Were they present in our society 50-100-150-500 years ago? If so, how were they handled? Treated? Labeled? Surely there must be some indication in the cultural literature about kids acting like this prior to 2000 if they are “here” now. How were kids like this sanctioned in the past? Was it successful? If so how so? If not, how not?
Was “Billy the Kid” and the other gun fighters one of these kinds of kids? Were the “gangs” in London, Belfast and New york composed of this kind of kid? Are the gangs in LA and New York and the Hell’s Angels composed of this kind of kid grown up? Is the mexican Drug cartel and the killers that work for it composed of this kind of kid?
Remember that Hispanic but American Citizen age 14 who was captured and had been a killer for the cartel since age 11 or some such and decapitated people without a second thought. Was he a kid like this? Was it his chaotic back ground or was it his genetic make up that made him into someone who killed and enjoyed it, instead of someone who would spend 16 hours a day on his knees picking lettuce?
I think we better start “calling a spade a spade” and getting the professionals into agreement on what to NAME THE FREAKING DISORDER, much less how to “label” the people (of any age) who show up with the characteristics.
I realize Dr. Leedom has a vested interest in believing that early intervention might change what happens with the kids….how early? what interventions? by whom? but at what age can we say THEY ARE A PSYCHOPATH, they ain’t gonna change?
I agree with you, Oxy. We need to call them for what they are.
What bothers me about determining “normal” is by whose criteria is that measured? I’ve seen enough therapists and other mental health professionals with major issues who refuse to address those things in themselves. Because they have degrees, suddenly they can speak for all of humanity to determine what is “normal?”
My older sister has a son who has cerebral palsy. He has then mental ability of a 2-year-old.
They turned him over to state care when his hormones started kicking in as a teen. He went after my sister and made a pass at his sister. They realized that he had no idea that what happening needed to be controlled or that he was doing anything wrong.
Now he is in his 40s. He is still had the mental capabilities of a 2-year-old. He has never talked because he can’t. He lacks the ability.
Wow, Oxy, so well said!!! I agree with you…
So so so true….so many mind boggling questions..
I think society labels one a psychopath after they commit horrific crimes
Not before mostly. So how can society label an “innocent” child. If the child does something morbid like murder…the label still doesn’t apply….although some are tried as adults….then maybe they might label….
My little 6 year old grandson who was labeled as the most compassionate,kindest, sweetest, caring boy and he is,trust me, decided to tell me his mother didn’t want him to brush his teeth at my house….I took him aside and explained to him that Mommy did want him to brush his teeth. That what he was telling me was not truth. How he should talk to me about the things he doesn’t want to do but he must not lie…I treated him with kindness as I explained. I told him he can tell me anything…I am Grandma….I loved him. I believe in God so I am teaching about loving God and He wants us to be talk truth..
I hope he understood. I am sure he did….He told me the other day that we have to tell the truth….He also will call me if his mother is frustrating him as she is depressed etc….We talk….Just being able to get someone to understand is probably a good thing for him…but I am doing my best to keep him as sweet and kind as he is….His teacher said he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body….
But how does a parent cope when the kid says he will do it again and sulk and then keep it up? How does a parent break through to them? If ever….how utterly devastating and how sad…
Well, I don’t know, but in my opinion, the mental health profession is to be credited for their interest in these kids and their desire to study them, in an effort to (possibly) understand adult psychopathy. We aren’t experts. We are survivors. We aren’t victims anymore. It seems to me that we should be applauding any effort to understand the disease… or disorder, if you prefer. At what age is it okay to write off a kid? How do you distinguish a fledgling psychopath from an angry battered child…or a spoiled child, or any child with a behavior problem, that is not a psychopath? Children are resilient, and they change rapidly, that’s the most blessed thing about kids. Should the cut off be at 5, or 8, or 10?
I’m not saying that a child that is totally out of control should not ring the alarm bells, but, I am one that believes they deserve every possible opportunity to grow and change, before they are labled. Furthermore, the fact that we refuse to lable them as hopeless, allows us, as humanitarians to seek a solution via continuing to take interest and study them, rather than just packing it up and walking away.
I am aware that there are real differences in the brain structures between normals and psychopaths, but who is to say that there is no intervention that can happen at a young age to lessen the severity of the disorder. If there is, I’m all for it. All I’m saying.