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.
Thank you. I really do appreciate the feed back. It is such a relief when you are dealing with people like this.
Dear Jlarue,
The only way you CAN “deal with” them is to QUIT dealing with them. Cut them out completely. Don’t argue with them, don’t talk about them to others in your life, don’t listen to others talk about them, don’t keep up with what they are up to, or even worry about what they might have happen to them.
I used to worry night and day about my Psychopathic son in prison, what big Person was beating him up, raping him, killing him, etc.? Well,….shrugging shoulders here now….that is not my problem, it is HIS problem. He did the murder, and they send people who do that to prison. Prison is not a “nice place’–it is filled with people who do violence and robbery and murder (just like him) and they may not be “nice” to him there, oh, well….he PUT HIMSELF THERE, I DID NOT PUT HIM THERE. He chose to go there, to a place where there are bad guys. So what happens to him there is of his own making. Consequences of his choices to kill a young woman.
Your niece has chosen to behave the way she behaves, and you have done what you could to help her make better choices. She has chosen not to take or use those opportunities. Even if it is ONLY because she has (is it bi-polar?) mental illness, there is still nothing you can do to help her. In order to help YOURSELF you are going to have to LET GO of the idea that you can help her and distance yourself from her completely. It hurts when you love someone to do that, but it is the only reasonable way to protect ourselves.
It’s been 2 days of peace. I am so glad. No drama and no SP
Jlarue,
Peace is wonderful isn’t it? It sure is not over rated! I love it!!! It is the most wonderful thing in the world, and it is like the water in the well, you don’t miss it until you don’t have it!
Well, it was fun while it lasted. The SP’s uncle called., he is her new victim. She had him to call to arrange to get her stuff. I called my cousin, who has been helping me for 4 years. He doesn’t want to be bothered. I told him that I didn’t want any of those devils at my house and for him to pick up her stuff and and meet him somewhere else. They are not to step onto my property or contact us ever again. I hope I dont have to get a peace order. I want them gone. My mom has been sick all week because of the stress.
I must admit that it is very hurtful. We gave so much and to be stabbed in the back by these folks is hard. My niece is behind it all and her uncle is in it for whatever money her mom left. They didnt become interested until she turned 18.
I thought you weren’t going to give the stuff back to her, but give it away.
So if your cousin doesn’t want to be bothered, what do you plan to do. How about they can HIRE A MOVING COMPANY TO COME THERE AND GET IT.
I realize that it does hurt to give things to people and then them slam you in the chops with it, or because of it. When we do GIVE something to someone, though, if we TURN LOOSE OF IT, it is gone, it is a GIFT, not a payment on gratitude or control over their behavior.
Jesus gave to us and to others, and even when he healed the ones with leprosy, not even most of them turned to say “thanks” to Him even though it was in effect giving them back their very lives, not just healing a skin disease, as because of having it they were banned from the community, and their families, to living in caves and holes in the ground.
When we do something for others we must turn loose of control of what we give them in order to free ourselves from the anger and hostility that we will feel if they use our gifts poorly. If there are strings attached to it, then it wasn’t a “gift” it was a “business deal.”
“I will give you a car to drive if you enroll in school and make all Bs” is a deal, not a gift, it is CONDITIONAL, and that is OK as long as you are up front with the conditions before the deal is struck. Then when the person doesn’t make the grades you are in your right to take the car back.
When you support someone though, feed them, provide medical care and expenses, etc., buy their clothes and so on, let them live in your house, you are within your rights to make the RULES and if they choose not to abide by them, then you can ask them to leave. Nothing wrong with that at all, but the “look what I have done for her and look how she has abused me when I have been so good to her” attitude is true, but it doesn’t make you feel any better about the situation I don’t think, so LET GO OF WHAT YOU DID FOR HER, consider it a poorly used gift, and distance yourself from her. You are NOT obligated to do anything else for her, and you will be careful next time you feel that someone needs your help that you make any conditions up front before you help them. Once it is done, though, all you can do is to TURN IT LOOSE and let the anger go with it.
It will take time (believe me it does!) LOL but letting go of the bitterness, anger, wrath and hard feelings toward her will help YOU to cope with what is over and done with. You don’t have to approve of what she did in any way, just accept that she did it, you did what you did because at the time you thought it was a good thing to do, but you see now it wasn’t. That’s OK.
I hope your mom starts to feel better with the reduced stress level. And you too. (((hugs)))
Dear Ox Drover,
Thank you so much for those words, I needed it. I wasnt going to give her anything but was giving it away. Then when I received a message from the Uncle, I placed it in my cousin’s hands because I didn’t want to deal with it at all. My not wanting to give them to her is retribution. But with the spirit of letting go, I am trying to do whatever will be easy for me.
Dear Jlarue,
I agree, make it easy on yourself…just get her out of your life, if your cousin doesn’t want to do it, call a moving company to come pick the stuff up, I agree with you, I wouldn’t let them on my place either. You have nothing to gain by getting into a “leg hiking contest” like two dogs marking territory. The only thing we can do with this kind of situation is to distance ourselves from these people physically and emotionally. Sometimes that’s not easy, especially when we loved them and had built up expectations of helping them to help themselves.
Why does this seem endless? We can’t seem to heal because they keep bothering us. I hope they leave us alone.
Wow, Today my cousin picked up my niece’s things and took them to her uncle’s house. He did not engage them but was direct. He let them know that we were done and that there is no reason for them to contact us. All of her things are gone and I am so very happy. I feel relieved.