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.
Thanks, LIG. I just hate telling that story, but I think it served a useful purpose.
I was thinking about the other guy I dated for 3 years. I never thought of him as a sociopath, though he was very selfish. I remember him telling me he used to live on a farm with his son and the family dog. I think it was a black lab. When they moved, they couldn’t take the dog with them. And they couldn’t find anyone to adopt him. So he (my ex) took the dog out in the back yard and shot him. To him it was the most natural thing to do, living on a farm. I cannot even imagine how you could do that. I’m starting to see the S tendencies in that guy as well. Wow, I must be a magnet for them.
star: i’m a magnet for them too. i realize now that most of the men i have been in relationships were sociopaths or narcissists.
how gross.
this last guy really did a number on me — 20 years of being used when i thought we were moving toward being married and together forever. what a sham! well, good news is that now i know what and who they are.
but i’m staying single for a good long time. i need to become whole myself.
then, i believe, i will be drawn to my right and perfect partner. god knows i deserve it!
we all do.
I may be wrong in this and if I am I stand to be corrected, but it is my understanding that most psychopaths (as adults) did NOT torture or hurt animals as children.
My P-son had strong bonds to animals, but none to humans. He both comforted them and was comforted by animals.
Yeah, but Oxy … it’s their EGOs that take off and is what they believe in … not listening to rules or regulations … from anyone. Not their parents, caretakers, siblings, teachers, clergy, employers, friends, co-workers, the list goes on and on. Just because it’s not what they want to do. All out of EGO … believing their own ego from an early age … earlier than any of us know or care to think about. The only time they listen … is to prevent them from getting into trouble all the time at home or school when they are younger (and even then … it doesn’t work most of the time) … and they only to listen to what they need know not to get tripped up and reprimanded next time … that’s when the lip service starts … get away with it … and then they refine their lip service.
Everything I ever read about their conditions and solutions that were hoping would … didn’t compare to Tolle’s book “A New Earth” and how to quiet the EGO. I’m telling you this guy is really on to something.
Our egos are in us too, just not out of control like theirs. We hear ourselves say something to ourself … and we stop, analyze it … then we accept or reject a notion that comes through our minds. Was it rational? Was it insecure? Was it good or bad for us to accept our ego telling us something? That’s the difference between them and us. We stop and analyze our thinking … weigh it out with different situations and including the outcome for others. They don’t! They care less about anyone else and go full steam ahead to get what they want, when they want it. “Oh, I want that – go for it … and who cares about what anyone else thinks”. AKA what is being a BRAT? Their selfishness opposes all teachings in religion … aka do what is good for you as long as it’s good for everyone involved. If not, don’t do it.
Peace.
I’d just like to thank all those parents with psycho/sociopath children that are courageous enough to admit the truth to themselves and who are seeking help.
Having a staff of trained professionals who have time off to recharge their batteries, who are not feeling guilty, who are able to have some emotional detachment, and the controlled environment of a residential treatment facility would seem to be a good choice for offering the chance of a life to the child with psychopathic traits.
It makes sense that psychopathy and sociopathy are on a continuum, but what’s scary about these two conditions is that part of the dysfunction is that we are vulnerable because we can’t tell who’s in the normal range and who’s in the BTK range. He had a mother and father too.
So THANK YOU, parents. For my part, I would rather my tax dollars go to fund 100% child’s residential treatment than their later incarceration. And if normal life is never a chance, I’d rather we as a society learn that from long term behavioral observation than from the wake of devastation (or trail of bodies) that psychopaths leave.
Here is what I know about children born extremely inclined to sociopathy (please everyone, believe me when I tell you that all this is knowledge gained in retrospect; I misinterpreted almost every aspect of this child’s character while raising him).
It is extremely difficult to get them, as infants, to return the maternal gaze. What came naturally to all my other children did not come naturally to this one. As I held this child and stared, marvelling at the perfection of this tiny thing, he would not/could not hold my gaze for any length of time. I misinterpreted this, at the time, as a shy and retiring nature, and so I treated this child with kid gloves. God help me, I thought him DELICATE and so I took extra pains to treat him gently.
I guess it goes without saying that breastfeeding was a struggle. I tried for two months, then gave up and went to bottles.
This child cried differently than all my other children. First, there was only one “type” of cry–a high-pitched screaming sort of cry, like a siren. I think all mothers (and I was no exception) learn to interpret the cries of their infants as to when they are hungry, or tired, or wet, or sleepy. This child had only cry and again, God help me, I did not even fully realize this until I was playing catch-up in his baby book when he was already a toddler, and I was writing about his crying as an infant. It hit me then that there was only the one type of crying. But I didn’t at the time realize what this was signaling–I knew only that it was a fact.
There were other indicators, but I can’t bear to think back on them now.
And I suppose I still haven’t fully given up hope, because I recently allowed this child into my home. (It was an expensive lesson, monetarily, but thankfully not physcially, and this child is now elsewhere. He won’t be crossing my doorstep again, at least not at my invitation.)
I still hope to this very day that he can at least learn to adopt A BETTER MASK and wear it for a lifetime. I hope, but from a distance.
Dear Tood,
You ane Ii both having raised “one” that there is no doubt about the “diagnosis” can sort of see “the clouds from both sides now. In retrospect I can look back and see almost “NO” signs until he hit puberty (one episode of theft at age 11 where he denied it even in light of the evidence and his coconspiritor’s confession) you mentioning the breast feeding being a challenge, reminded me though, that he did have a problem with breast feeding.
His spine curved BACKWARDS away from me, and in order to get his face to the breast I had to lay his body on the arm of the rocker away from me. He was also a “cranky” baby—but so are a lot of babies who are NOT psychopathic.
He was a self absorbed teenager, somewhat rebellious, but name me ONE who wasn’t, his rebellion was a “bit more serious” and tended to be toward the criminal, but my goodness I have known some kids that before puberty were the most wonderful kids in the world and at puberty you wanted to smother them for the good of humanity, but in a couple of years they were back to being wonderful people again.
I even asked my other sons what “signs” that they saw that might have been kept from me but that they would have been privy to—nada until he reached about age 17 and started the real, cops-pick-them-up-and-arrest-them crimes.
Once he started the “big time crime” and rebellion in less than three years the “turned 21 in prison doing life…” to quote the old song.
Over all the first 13 or so years were not bad at all, but then the next four were what I thought was a very rebellious teenaged period but I never once thought it was psychpathic, I just thought he was like a lot of other kids who “rebell” and “get attitudes” and “get into some trouble” but “outgrow” it. My efforts were focused on keeping him out of enough trouble to “ruin his life” before he “came to his senses.” At those two goals I was a “miserable failure” because he was DETERMINED to do what he wanted to and not give a damn what the consequences were.
Just like most loving parents try to teach a kid to walk, but protect him from running into the street or off a cliff before he “gets sense enough to stay out of the street” we try to teach our teenagers independence by keeping them under a close enough watch that they don’t kill themselves driving too fast or doing something “really stupid” that they thought was a “good idea at the time” or getting hooked on drugs or something else “life ruining.”
Mine has a “good mask” but he wears it only between serious crimes like robbery or murder, so I think mine needs to be in prison for the rest of his life and I hope that I can convince the Texas department of Corrections to oblige me and society by doing just that. Because I know (without a crystal ball) that if he ever gets out on parole either me or one of my other sons will either have to kill him ourselves, or he will kill one or all of us.
How did your court case come out Tood? Or has it gone to court yet? God bless you ((((hugs))))
I agree with you Gentlepath.
Oxy,
As you no doubt know, these legal proceedings sometimes last for years. It will be quite awhile before it is over and the ex is in the penitentiary, but we proceed one tiny step at a time.
Hearings on this, hearings on that. But our side is winning so far. Thanks for asking.
The financial hit I took from allowing the S/P child into my home is a small price to pay if the perp S/P gets put away and other families are saved from his evil presence.
Sometimes it still seems too unbelieveable to be true, especially when I write it down like this. I have to differentiate between parent S/P, child S/P and ex-spouse S/P…when an encounter with only one of them is more than anyone should ever have to deal with.
Dear Tood,
Yea, I think we both lived in a nest of vipers there for a while, but being P-free now is “heaven on earth”—compared to where we came from. (((hugs)))))
my child does not display dangerous tendincys but does not display love or affction. he treats me like i dont matter and is mean hateful and says hurtful things continuousley TO ME . IVE TRIED EVERYTHING TO GET HIM TO LOVE ME , AND THERE ARE BRIEF MOMENTS BUT USALLY WHEN HE WANTS SOMETHING .. HES 9 AND I THINK IF I DIED TODAY IT WOULD NOT FAZE HIM.