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 Lesson Learned,
In hindsight, I would have placed my niece in a facility so she could be monitored 24 hours a day. Trying to do it myself and taking her to therapy was not enough. She is a sociopath and she wont change but I would not have had to suffer through all of her manipulative and dangerous tactics either. You have to act quickly. If he suspects that you are considering this, he may pretend to improve. He will do the right things and say the right things. This is a common tactic. It is temporary because they can not keep it up and they don’t stop doing bad things. He will just work harder at hiding it.
Ox, jlarue,
Thank you for your insights!
But to clarify, Ox. No, this is NOT the child that was molested. I have three sons. The eldest was the offender, middle child victim. Both are doing well and there have been MANY therapeutic counseling sessions, treatment for both. That side of the equation is very healthy now and with a clarification that was done, after almost four years, the older two have been reconciled and are very close and doing extremely well. Amazingly and through it all, they see youngest behavior as major no bueno.
Ox, I would LOVE to toss him into inpatient. I inquired about that route, however, insurance DOES NOT cover that treatment. Outpatient, been there, done that. He’s been in trouble with the law before, and did well, then back to it. It’s very frustrating when you have a system that WILL NOT support you!!! VERY frustrating? I have state insurance right now and they WILL NOT cover inpatient, despite my begging and pleading. Job Corps seemed the last straw. jlarue I’d not thought of that. His pretending to improve.
I just really instinctively feel that this is a bigger apple than I can chew. If there is a chance, it’s now or never. HE has a P father. And that’s enough for me!
Any other suggestions?
Dear Lesson Learned,
Yes, PRETEND TO IMPROVE—and that is the manipulation just like in the older ones, my son was a MASTER AT pretending to improve. LOL
It very well may be that he has inherited his father’s tendency to risk taking and enjoyment of the adrenaline rush. My son loves the RISK TAKING, they are like compulsive gamblers, they want the RUSH —and winning or losing doesn’t make much difference, it is the rush they get from the risk taking. My son actually prospers in prison because he has a continual RUSH of risk taking with the games he plays with the guards and the prison administration in getting “one over on the guards” however small it is. BREAKING THE RULES—any rules—is what they enjoy. The stuff they steal is just a bonus, it is the STEALING ITSELF that is the REWARD.
Witsend, a blogger here who no longer comes here much, has about the same situation with her 17 year old son (I think he was 16 when she started coming here) and in her state she could get NO HELP except some court referred “counseling” that was worse than NOTHING, and the school wouldn’t do anything, and so on, and she was desperate to find HELP FOR HER SON. His father was an alcoholic p who had killed himself in the kid’s presence when the kid was 4. Anyway, they wouldn’t take him into inpatient either and because he had NOT BROKEN THE LAW they wouldn’t jail him, and she was SCARED OF HER SON as he had threatened to burn the house down, etc. but when the kid burned 17 he was “allowed” by the law unofficially to run away, and they wouldn’t hunt him BUT SHE WAS STILL LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR HIM. DUH! Anyway, he talked some buddy of his in to letting him move in with them (the father of his buddy was going to “help this pooooooor abused kid”) so the boy moved out, but eventually wore out his welcome there too….then tried to make his mother take him back (she stood firm) and so he talked his dead father’s enabling parents into taking him in so that was where he went…..poor witsend is off the hook now as the kid just turned 18 this month if I remember correctly (I think his birthday was close to mine in December) but anyway, there isn’t a lot of help out there.
I didn’t get much help from the law either even after he cut off his phone monitor and fled the state they wouldn’t go pick him up until he had missed his court date 3 months later, and the police where he was wouldn’t believe me that he had jumped bail until after the first state put a warrant out after he missed his court date 3 months later. DUH! Then they did go get him and he did like 6 weeks in juvy even though he was already 18 at that time, then he went on parole, which he broke a few months later when he was arrested for felony B&E in the 2nd state and got 5 yr sentence. The first state didn’t come get him for the parole violation within their 180 days so he skated on that one and didn’t have to go back and serve time in state #1. But he did do the murder in state #2 and is STILL in prison 19 yrs later on that one. Parole comes up in Jan so will see if he gets out, gets a set off or how long that set off will be. (could be up to another 5 yrs I HOPE) but the thing is that ONCE THEY HAVE MADE UP THEIR MIND THE RULES DO NOT APPLY TO THEM and that you are stupid, they are not going to be influenced by you or anyone else.
When I was reading through the police reports of the murder my son did, (I had not seen them before recently) I was reading the testimony/statements of people who my son had talked to about doing the murder (before he did it) and the descriptions of the reasons he gave them of why he would kill her, and how he would sit and “play with” a gun, jacking rounds in and out of the semi automatic gun, and how the various witnesses (other ex convicts) were afraid of him—they weren’t so dumb after all.
Him just having a gun and being an ex convict was a FELONY itself.
Yet, NONE of these yo-yos called the cops and told them, “This ex con I know named P just told me he is going to kill Susie-Q on Monday and told me where he is going to dump the body. and BTW he has a gun and is on parole.”
There was MORE THAN ENOUGH TO PUT HIM BACK INTO PRISON Even BEFORE he killed the girl. The gun ONLY was enough for an additional few years itself besides the parole revocation of 3 years….
I agree it IS A BIGGER APPLE THAN YOU CAN CHEW BY YOURSELF. You cannot control this kid, and he will continue to lie to you and PRETEND to “get it” and “be good” but he is fooling you if you fall for it. He is NOT stupid—which way is he best going to get you off his case, by throwing a fit or by lying to you? He will try both and see which one works the best.
The problem is as well, that the authorities are not going to actually help but will “do their best” to cope with the case load they have, but effectively do nothing until your kid does something horrible or gets caught again with the law.
I may get boinked here by those that hold out a lot of hope for the 15-16 and 17 year old conduct disordered males, but I suggest that you give him enough rope to hang himself and hope the law will take him over. If he will not participate in therapy, will not cooperate at home and you are a single mother, there isn’t a lot you can do to FORCE him to do anything. The school and counselors told witsend to FORCE her 16 yr old to take his medication for bi-polar! DUH! Yea, RIGHT! Just FORCE a male that is bigger than you to swallow a pill.
Wonder if they ever tried to medicate a CAT that didn’t want to swallow a pill! LOL When they get done with that they can come give my 16 year old male child a pill he refuses to take—twice a day, every day! Let’s see, I think maybe 6 of them might be able to do so, I’ll wait by the door to let them in. LOL
Ox,
That is incredibly validating, while also incredibly frustrating. This is why I wanted to go the job corps route. It was the only alternative left. He will not engage in therapy, is no longer on probation, so I can do nothing about that (although I know for a fact he smokes pot and if he WERE on probation, would swiftly be taken to Juvie), the system basically gives me the finger. I’ve more than once tried to get help through the state, only to fall on deaf ears. I don’t fall for it, chica. At all. I know what’s happening….and as a mother who loves all of my children dearly, wishing and hoping for a better life ahead of them and doing all I can to try to assist in that, this is by far the most frustrating. How loudly can you scream for help for your children before someone really listens to you? In our state, the caseworkers are incredibly overwhelmed. As far as jail goes, if he did do something that wasn’t considered a “felony”, they’d have his ass back out on the streets in no time. No space.
Why WHY doesn’t anyone care enough to DO something when you’re desperately seeking answers for your child?
Ox, I truly don’t know how you made it through. We give birth to these children, hold them in our arms, love them, change their diapers, do the best we can…the photos I have of him when he was little are precious. But even then he was pulling the fast shit. Lying, manipulating….and I KNEW it. He was in trouble with me A LOT….but it didn’t stop it.
I have thought what you just verbalized many, many times…wait until he does something so incredibly stupid that lands him in prison. What do you do when they won’t cooperate and the system will not help you? I got better help and services for my ex juvenile sex offending son than I can this one. It got major help for my other son who was a victim of said eldest son. The BIG differences I see with my youngest and my eldest son….and that the therapists saw was: EMPATHY!!!!!
A therapist is only as good as whatever a client is willing to divulge.
I’m so frustrated Ox. I love my son so deeply. As I do them all.
Ya know, while my eldest son was incarcerated in the beginning, the pain was traumatizing…how could he do this??? I was absolutely devastated….then he did it AGAIN in another inpatient treatment program…..and lied to me and failed a polygraph….and that’s when the big guns came in. The judge in his case saw he could be salvaged because he had EMPATHY…..and she was right, but I’ll tell you something, had he failed his massive, successful program and had done it again, I would have been okay with knowing that we did everythign in our power to get him help..I did everything I could to get him help…the rest was on him once he had the knowledge and treatment.
He has grown into a fantastic human being. Genuine remorse and genuine concern and care for others. Especially for his brother that he hurt. he has spent TONS of time wanting to give to his brother to make up to him the years lost, the trauma caused. They are very very close and I am blessed…..
But youngest son……How did you do it, Ox? How did you get through that? I truly don’t know what’s more painful….your child as a P/spath….or your significant other……
Ox,
You are NOT getting boinked by me on that one. I agree 100% with you. Remember I have seen the damaged lives from the these ‘little darlings” right here under my nose. I have watched our communities pull together for fund raising, moral support and anything that could be done to help the victims and families. One of the victims and family moved 50 miles north and put him in school there. I have sat and cried watching the devestation that these sick almost adult males have caused. Burning a boy and brain damaging a girl! They need to be locked up the key thrown away!
There is no “fixing” them. They are NOT and NEVER will be a positive contribution to society.
Soimnotthecrazee1!
Ok. don’t boink me too hard people.
Dear Lesson learned,
I hear your frustration and I hear your pain and your sense of losing a child….it is like a LIVING DEATH. Only you see the train that is barreling down on them, about to snuff out their lives and you scream and scream and they laugh, you scream and you scream to get help from the system and the system says “Sorry, our hands are tied.”
Part of the problem is though, Learned, is that even with the best that the system can do for you/him, NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE IT IF HE DOESN’T WANT IT TO. N*O*T*H*I*N*G will change it except him.
In the meantime you keep HOPING THAT SOMETHING WILL CHANGE IT. I know that there are people who will tell you “you can’t give up on him, he’s your son” or that even Dr. Leedom will say “there’s home for him, he’s only 15” but there is ONLY HOPE FOR HIM IF HE WANTS IT.
You can’t motivate him if he doesn’t want to be motivated.
I used to wish there was some way I could open a small hole in my son’s skull and pour in my love and my concern that he was WRECKING his life and that he could SEE that the criminal acts he was doing would WRECK his life completely. I just kept on trying to find the MAGIC WORDS that would make him motivated and make him SEE what he was doing. He kept laughing. It was all fun and games to him. Then the RAGE against me when things didn’t go the way he wanted them to and it was MY FAULT because he got arrested. Then it was MY FAULT he had a record.
I’ve told this story before but once when he was 17 I called the law and turned him in for breaking into our friend’s business and stealing over $100K, in florida they will bond them out to the parents unless it is for murder…I went down that night to get him and he came down with the officer and snarled at me “What the F__K took you so long?” I looked at him and told the officer, “there’s been a mistake, that isn’t my son, MY SON WOULDN’T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT.” My husband and I came home that night and left him there. Three days or so I went to the court hearing and they were going to let me have him then and I told the judge that the ONLY way I would take him was in an ankle bracelet, I could not control him, well, he cut that off about 3 days later and jumped bail.
MY MISTAKE WAS TAKING HIM BACK. I should have let him go back at 17 when he was arrested. he would have turned 18 in 2 or 3 months. I should never have had anything else to do with him. I should never have felt sorry for him or that he was trying to reform, I should have left him to his own devices.
NOW he hates me, has so much RAGE at me—he might have had anyway, but I would have at least realized that there was NOTHING I COULD HAVE DONE TO HAVE FIXED HIM.
I sort of look at that SWEET BABY and that WONDERFUL LITTLE BOY as GONE and the MAN in prison who “got his organs” is not the son I loved. The son I loved is gone. YOUR sweet baby is gone. He is not ever going to come back. If the MAN is not someone you like as a friend, and he is toxic, cut him out of your life to save yourself.
I even had a little memorial for my lost baby boy. The man is a toxic stranger/stalker that I do not know. (((Hugs)))) and God bless.
So very true. They are so crafty that even people you know and respect start to suspect you of being abusive or too hard on them. Regular therapy is like a playground for them. I feel like it helps them to hon their skills as cons. As far as the pills are concerned. I thought my niece was taking her meds ( so naive of me) but her behavior wasn’t changing. So, I went in got her pills and began to count them. I kept asking her if she was taking them and she said yes. She hadn’t taken any of the pills. Then, I began to give them to her and watch her swallow them. It seems that the system doesn’t protect the parent or guardian of these mentally ill folks. The resources are not there. They need to be locked away.
Jlarue,
In an inpatient setting the medications are given and observed, with making sure they don’t “cheek” them and not swallow.
Your niece not taking her medications for bi-polar is not rare as many times the person with bi-polar actually enjoys the “highs” of the mania and/or denies the disorder is a problem, and for them it may not be just for others who have to deal with them.
A combination of bi-polar/ADHD/and-or psychopathy traits is a difficult or impossible one to treat in any case. Without cooperation from the patient it is impossible to treat.
Oxy,
you know I look for patterns in spath behavior in order to try to understand them better and to know when I’m seeing a red flag.
well, some of your words reminded me of something someone else said here on LF, but I can’t remember who it was. The mother was speaking of her daughter at age 5 (I think). She remembers that the girl would run out and stand in the middle of the street laughing while cars were barreling toward her. And she did it just to see her mom freaking out.
Further up this thread you said,
“Only you see the train that is barreling down on them, about to snuff out their lives and you scream and scream and they laugh, you scream and you scream…”
hmmm…now I know you were speaking metaphorically…but that’s because the behavior is metaphorically the same. Your son’s life was literally in peril and his future is certainly destroyed.
We already know that the spaths are infantile, so by superimposing the pattern of what your son did, on the actual behavior of the little girl, we can see that his baviour was meant exclusively to create havoc in YOUR life. He didn’t really care about his own. Follow that up with his need to KILL you afterwards…I think we have something akin to an oedipus syndrome. Not that he wanted to MARRY you, but wanted to control you and torture you. His rage at the girl or his desire for money or anything else that appeared to be his motives, are only justifications.
My own exP, I’ve begun to realize, never did his evil deeds for money or anger, those were just bonuses. His rage was at me, as a substitute for his mother whom he pretended to love but last year revealed his hatred for her. And he did also say he despised humanity. He was talented enough at so many things that he didn’t need to sell drugs to make money. He only does it so he can continue to be in contact with drug addicts that he can use as pawns. And he had money in his pocket, when he begged me and later his millionaire friend Steve, for $700 so he could put a new transmission in his car.
My point is, that their motives are never what they appear to be.
About 15 years ago, a girl drowned in a nearby river and her body was swept away. No one could find her. My P had an experimental helicopter so he invited his friend, F, to join him and they would fly low over the river to look for the girl’s body. Sure enough, my P saw it, did recon, landed the copter, then they went back in a boat to pull her out.
Here’s the interesting part: when he was telling me about his and F’s adventure, he did not mention what the girl looked like, or how horrible or sad it was. He didn’t dwell much on the retrieval or any of the details you’d expect in this story.
But he kept repeating, “You shoulda seen F’s FACE!, He was queebing, you shoulda seen him queeb! You shoulda seen his face!” Years later when he remembered the episode, that’s all he would focus on.
They do the stuff they do just to watch our faces, while they do it. Seems like a shallow and stupid way to make decisions in your life but remember, they are only 2years old.
sky – i started thinking about spaths as 2 year olds. I pulled this off a blog about 2 year olds.
Characteristics of a two and a half year olds behavior.
* 2 1/2 year olds are rigid and inflexible. They want exactly what they want, when they want it. They cannot adapt, give in, wait a little while. Everything has to be done just so. Everything has to be right in the place they consider proper. For any domestic routine, they set up a rigid sequence of events which must always follow each other always in exactly the same manner.
* They are extremely domineering and demanding. They must give orders. They must make the decisions. If they decide, “mummy do”, daddy cannot be accepted as substitute. If they decide, “Me do it myself”, then no one is allowed to help them, no matter how awkward or incapable they themselves may be.
* 2 1/2 is an age of violent emotions. There is little modulation to the emotional life of children this age.
* It is an age of opposite extremes. With no ability to choose between alternatives (it is almost impossible for 2 1/2”²s to make a clear cut choice and stick to it). Children of this age shuttle back and forth endlessly between two extremes, seeming to be trying to include both in their decision. “I will ”“ I won’t”, “I want ”“ I don’t want it”, “Go out ”“ stay in”. If someone doesn’t cut into this back and forth shuttling, it has been known to go on for upwards of an hour or more. The decision of what clothes to wear may ursurp a whole morning for a conflict-ridden 2 1/1 year old.
* Another characteristic of this is age is preservation ”“ that is, the children want to go on and on with whatever they are doing. Not only right at the moment but from day to day. If you read four stories before bedtime yesterday, they want four stories ”“ and the same ones, too ”“ today. It is very difficult with many children this age to introduce new clothes, new pieces of furniture, new things to eat. They want things to go on just the way they have always been or at least hold on to the old as new things are added.
…and then there would be language development – spaths have odd language development. i wonder how that compares to the language development to 2 year old children? i think your idea bears a lot more investigation from the perspective of child development.