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.
Holywatersalt, The original post from which the above is excerpted was on the thread of “Can Victims Become like Psychopaths” and was about halfway down thru the thread. I believe the Father was a P and had a baby with another woman, so the 10 yr. old’s Mother divorced him when her own baby with him was about 6 weeks old. Plus I think a couple of other posts on the same thread gives even more detail about the child’s behavior such as the school not allowing her on the bus with other children now etc., but I can’t recall if the biological Father has contact.
Yeah that kid need to be somewhere else.. maybe for her own sake as well as mom’s. Some kids just act like monsters when they can’t express what they need. I know there are sometimes we have felt like there is no hope for my 9 year old. I finally had to let him go live with his dad two years ago, because I literally couldn’t stand it anymore. 90% of what he does is merely annoying, not evil, but still it’s impossible to relax or have a life with him around.
But I keep plugging, I give him lots of love, listen to all his stories, and stand up to him. It’s important never to show fear to a child like this. If they think they are gaining power it’s all over. That poor mom that feels like the hunted.. I feel so bad for her. But if I were her I would do what I sometimes do now, I would lie down to sleep in her daughter’s room blocking the door, and express sorrow that I can’t just enjoy cuddling with her because of her bad choices. Then I’d outline the good choices and encourage them.
I know it’s sooooo hard when they do stuff that’s just absolutely insupportable… but if you show shock or dismay it just makes their little antisocial day. We’ve had to give away pets and plants and stow prized possessions. And ever so slowly, he’s making progress. He shows much more love than hate now, apologizes for bad behavior usually… and only gets kicked out of school about once a month now.. oy.. and the think I like best, he laughs a lot now.
But ya know, chopping up that old plant, you just gotta..bite your lip and say.. hey.. are you angry about something.. and.. I hope you know I love you more than that plant.. or that money. but it’s my job as your mom to help you grow up to be a good person.. so.. now you gotta help me clean up this mess.
It is like the old adage of raising a tame elephant.. they tie them up with a rope when they are young, and they get used to the limits. Because once they are grown up , it’s too late to teach them the limits.. but they also have to feel loved.. or they will turn on you sooner or later.
This is such a horrible situation it’s hard to comprehend. And it’s impossible to give specific advice because how could an outsider know enough.
But it made me think of the 2-3 really extreme s/p’s I have known (personally I don’t think there’s any doubt that s/p-ness is a continuum disorder) — individuals who might as well have been aliens masquerading as humans or who might be thought of as extremely fast calculating machines who could duplicate any human reaction but feel nothing or who might even be considered the organic arrangement of inorganic molecules (I’m not sure that makes sense, but I can’t find the right words). So my question is, was there a point in their lives when they were at the proverbial “fork in the road” leading to alternate futures? Obviously I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.
Personally, I would never second guess a parent who cried, prayed, searched their soul but finally had to say goodbye to a s/p child saying, in effect, you are from me, but not of me, your body possesses my genes but your soul and your motivation are something other, how can this be, this is more than I can comprehend, but you are a changeling and I can’t help you.
And loving parents are the best equipped to give a child a chance. No one else can do the job a dedicated , loving parent can. Obviously a child who is threat to others must be removed. The situation above seems to work as the baby is safe from the anti social child.
Aa Kat said it difficult and trying, takes determination, but our children deserve this. After that- you can say at least you tried. Kat also made a great point about providing “negative attention/ reaction” yeah- antis love that. Better to be indifferent and insist on proper behavior for attention.
Shock the child, take her to the zoo. Provide her unconditional, normal attention and distance, calm correction when she acts out.
TDP – Your goal of getting her placed in a residential setting that specializes in helping children like you described is, in my opinion, a viable option and the right thing to do if you have exhausted the less restrictive measures and feel it is best for your child and you. As a person who has worked with children like you describe I do understand how frustrating it can feel and how lost it can feel when even the professionals seem to be at wits end as to what to do.
There is hope. I have seen some really big turn arounds on children from being in residential treatment, turn arounds that I did not expect on some of them.
Honestly- you sound like you want to wash your hands of her. You don’t need LF, the state or her to do so . So why haven’t you?
You write about her being cured by parenting plans in two weeks as if that’s
what anyone on here (ME) has proposed. No- the opposite…long, hard work you may fail at…at one point I wrote “at least you can say you tried.”
You love her. Get a break-find a day program for her or some way to get time, or don’t.
Release her to the system- and know you stopped before you exhausted all options. With all the assets you have – it sounds as if you have more means than most people with troubled children to help them.
Life is not easy- and is not fair-and often our only reward is doing the right thing regardless of outcome.
tdp……..fellow bloggers hear your cry for help….we are here to offer emotional support and a sonding board for you…..your pain and exhaustion has understandably put you in a place that you are finding it difficult to see your way to the other side of this tunnel…you must take care of yourself in order to take care of another this is not your fault…….we certainly have no right to walk in your shoes or judge any decision you have made or will make….i am sooooo sorry for your pain……i am sorry i know of no places for children, not my specialty…i see you are trying any suggestions that others may have…..as silly as this sounds, dr phil has several child experts with facilities that offer suggestions and have temporary in pt facilities that may be able to guide and advise you further…you may give that a shot…………. and contact their offices or ask for references….you certainly dont need to talk to him, but many of his shows mention these facilities and these seem to be child experts in all type of behavior issues and they may have some suggestions that you can live with free of guilt knowing you are trying your best….. and i hear you this is not a behavior issue, but perhaps some of their behavior modification treatments will have a benefit for you daughter…..these folks dont give up …………….good luck and you will be in my prayers……terri
TDProcessing, I cannot imagine the hell you are going through and the difficult decisions you will have to make. My heart goes out to you, and I support whatever you do. I have heard stories of miracles happening with autistic kids (see the book Son Rise), but I am unaware of any work being done with psychopathic ones. Just throwing stuff up in the air but there is a place called the Options Institute that works with kids with impossible conditions (like autism). Maybe they may have some information for you. I believe they are in Massachusetts. I do think you need to take care of yourself and remaining family before you are totally defeated.
Hugs,
StarG
DEAR DEAR TDP,
I DO UNDERSTAND YOUR SITUATION, I’VE BEEN THERE, When my son did his first thingie that was “P-like” I had no idea what I was dealing with and when he ran away from home (which endangered his life) I was AT MY WIT’s end. I felt fear like I have never felt before, fear for my child.
When he looked me in the eye with the P-look which at the time I did not know what was and said “You can’t watch me 24/7 I’ll run away again” I did the only thing I knewe how to do and still have a life. I sent him to live with my stepfather during the week, who was retired, and could weatch him, I put him in a private school, and he was driven to and from school by one of the teachers who lived near my step father and mother’s home, and I THREATENED to do the ONE thing I knew he would HATE. He had a horse that he was very attached to.
I had never been one to “threaten” any consequence and not carry through with it, so I toldl him if he ran away, I would SLASH THE THROAT OF HIS HORSE. It was a BLUFF and I would not have done that, but HE BELIEVED ME and he didn’t make another run away attempt. To this day he hates me for that bluff, because even though now he knows it was a bluff, it did TAKE CONTROL of his actions and made him behave when he didn’t want to. I struggled long and hard in my heart before I threatened him with this because Iknew how much he cared about that horse. But it was THE ONLY THING IN THE WORLD THAT HE CARED ABOUT and I knew he would believe me because I had NEVER said “the conseqences of X are Y” and NOT carried through.
I think in a way, the reason my son hates me SO MUCH is because I have always been a person to carry through with what I say I will do. At least a FEW times in his life I have “won” and he has never ever forgiven me for the times I “won.” To him it is all a CONTEST OF WILLS. It isn’t ab out getting along or getting what you want even or compromise or caring it is CONTROL and WINNING at any cost.
I empathize totally with the situation you are in NOW–this minute—the situation is OUT OF CONTROL. You have done your best and it has not worked, the child is still IN CONTROL, and other than chaining her to a wall in a bare room, you have done all you can do AT THIS POINT. There is no “shoulda, woulda, coulda” in it, you DID YOUR BEST, and your best didn’t work. NOW, today, she is destroying you, your family, depriving your son of a mother, and your husband of a wife and you of a child and a husband.
SHE NEEDS A PLACEMENT, NOW, TODAY….and maybe in the future, she can return home, but right now, she is DESTROYING you. Yes, she is your child, and you love her, but there comes a point that if SHE DESTROYS YOU, where is she THEN.
IN ORDER TO HELP YOUR CHILD, YOU MUST TAKE CARE OF YOU AND YOUR SUPPORT AND YOUR OTHER CHILD, and then maybe you will have the resources to help her IF SHE CAN BE HELPED. I am not telling you to desert her, but it is obvious to me that the situation right now is that SHE IS OUT OF CONTROL. She is destroying your entire life and your husband’s and your son’s—so something has to give for the GREATER GOOD OF THE MOST PEOPLE.
It is like you are swimming in a raging river, and you are trying to save her and she keeps pushing your head under. If you don’t save yourself, you will not be able to help her. That is the FACT of life.
Yoou have my empathy, my symapthy and my concern and my prayers. Hang on, and please don’t leave LF even if not everyone agrees with your take on the situation, there are those of us here that DO KNOW and I believe that everyone here cares.