In response to last week’s entry, Sociopathy and the fearless child one of our readers (Bobby) wrote of his brother, “He was often punished – usually by being sent to bed without his meal – but he would repeat the same behavior as if nothing had happened.” This statement illustrates why the usual parenting does not work with children at risk to develop into sociopaths. They do not respond to punishment!
Parents of sociopaths are often blamed
Tragically, the parents of sociopaths are often blamed for the presence of this condition in their offspring. The belief of many is, He wouldn’t be a sociopath if his parents had taught him right from wrong.
The belief that “discipline” will cure the problems of the at-risk child is illustrated by the fact that there are over a thousand books on disciplining children offered through Amazon.com.
The tool most parents use to discipline, to teach right and wrong, is punishment. But, as stated above, at risk children do not respond to punishment.
Punishment of at risk children often makes their behavior worse
I was in a department store with my three kids last month and my son threw an enormous tantrum. We had to finish shopping because my daughter really needed something for school. A passerby seeing the situation said to me, “Why don’t you just spank him?”
Believe me, if spanking children cured them of behavior problems, there would be no need for over a thousand books on discipline. We would simply tell parents to spank children when they misbehave.
Recent studies of at risk children reveal that parents who emphasize discipline often fail with at risk children. At risk children are punished more often, even though this punishment has little to no positive effect. But if punishing wrong doing doesn’t help, what does?
There are likely two paths to developing a conscience
Scientists are now actively investigating and writing about two pathways to conscience formation. The first is the usual pathway, conscience through guilt. Guilt develops from fear of punishment. The fearless child does not develop conscience through guilt because punishment has no effect.
But, I am sure you have noticed that not all fearless people are without conscience. There are many relatively fearless people who have morals and do good. A beautiful example of such a person is the late Steve Erwin, the Crocodile Hunter. His good heart shown brightly each time he was on screen.
Conscience through empathy, the second pathway
Conscience can also form as an extension of our ability to love. Fearless people who have a conscience also have large amounts of empathy. To see this for yourself, watch the clips of Steve Erwin, he was clearly an extremely loving man. Animal Planet also has clips of his parents discussing his upbringing. He was not an easy child! What comes through the clips is the exceptionally close relationship Steve Erwin had with both his parents.
To develop empathy, a fearless, at risk child has to have an especially close bond with his parent(s)
Excessive punishment alienates the fearless, at risk child and often worsens his behavior.
To develop a consceince, at risk children require huge amounts of nurturing attention. Next week we will discuss this second pathway for conscience formation in more detail.
I am the single stepmom of three boys (22, 20, 17) who have a psychopath father. All three have different relationships with their dad, primarily guided by FOG (fear, obligation, guilt). The youngest rekindled some type of a relationship with his natural mother after I had asked his dad to leave in the beginning of this year. Two of the three boys (the oldest and youngest) clearly show the characteristics seen in their dad and the youngest has every single feature/risk factor that was mentioned in one of the posts on “children at risk.” If the answer is: a close bond with their parents, how do they stand a chance?
Obviously gulit and punishment don’t occur in a sociopaths mind and so as you said there is absolutely no point in spanking that child. I agree and I hope that you do find something that will tell you how to control your child if something like that occurs again
My ex is a sociopath. He has a 4-year-old son with his ex. The childs behavior is totally out of control, whenever I would say anything about it to my ex, he’d become angry. His ex wife has no control over the boy either. Whenever he had his son, his son was in total control of our entire day. My ex ofcourse never showed any real affection to anyone, including his son. I don’t know how affectionate his ex is with him. I think we know how this story is going to turn out. It’s a shame.
my ex has gone to jail and spent time there numerous times but it doesnt seem to have the same effect on her as it would me. I would be scared of going to jail. I wouldnt want to spend time behind bars. And because of that fear I dont do things that would land me behind bars. She on the other hand keeps plowing along doing things to make her situation worse and them blames everyone else for her misconduct. That everyone is out to get her.
Everyone didnt make her rob two of her employers, everyone didnt make her trash three different houses and steal all the furniture from them, everyone didnt make her steal food from a grocery store, everyone didnt make her write all those bad checks.
My point is her going to jail has no bearing on how she reacts. If I went to jail I would turn my life around and think to myself now what did I do to get put in jail and what can I do to not get put in jail again. But people like that dont respond to punishment as the title of this post states.
This is an interesting story where parents took steps in the RIGHT direction, for once! In the summation, the term “pathological lying” was used.
http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/new-details-on-harvard-hoax-19910219
How many people out there are getting by doing the same thing??? Do people even check references, anymore? I sure did whenever I was hiring. Perhaps, it might be something to consider: check references and do a background check, always, especially with possible romantic involvements.
And, if you watch this video, just take a look at how PISSED this kid is! This kid has the very nerve to be pissed! How can anyone not be embarassed or shamed to death for getting caught AND having his own parents put the kabosh on his deceptions??? I’d sh*t twice and go blind if I got caught doing something like this! And, this kid………..let me say it, again……..has the very nerve to be pissed. Wow.
This is weird, reading this article after talking to my sister-in-law about her parents today, how they influenced all their children. She told me that her siblings did not receive much (if any) nurturing from either mother or father. In my opinion, the family dynamics affected my h-spath adversely. What’s done is done, but they were not the best of parents. My sister-in-law said that she didn’t think that any of them (growing up)were emotionally attached to either parent, bonded to them. The conversation was interesting.
You know, my P-son was nurtured plenty and frankly I didn’t have much need to “punish”him as he was about as good a kid as they get (his ADHD brother drove me nuts though) but when he did get punishment at age 11 for holding on to a LIE when it was obvious he was BUSTED, he became furious and ran away from home. When caught at that, he coldly looked me in the eye and said “You can’t watch me 24/7, I’ll run away again, and you can’t stop me.”
The little chit was RIGHT! He3 knew it and so did I. I ended up putting him in a private school and about having him watched as close to 24/7 as possible, and he SEEMED like he was back to being a “perfect kid” again—until puberty set in when it was open definance and sneeky lies etc. alll mixed together.
NO consequence, not jail nor prison ever taught him to not do something if he wanted to do it. He just got mad at whoever turnn him in to the laws, it never dawned on him if he hadn’t stolen or robbed or murdered, they wouldn’t have turned him in to the cops. DUH!
(Head shaking here in disbelief) It just never dawns on him that the cops or anyone else will actually be able to lock him up or keep him there. Even after 20+ years! He actually seems to think he is invincible!
OxD, I think that’s one of the inherent aspects of spathy. This kid in the video’s attorney said that he didn’t have “a record.” That translates into: “He’s never been CAUGHT.”
They (my spath son, included) believe that the Law is for others – they are impervious to consequences. And, if somehow, they are faced with consequences for their own decisions and choices, it’s ALWAYS someone else’s fault. Bad parents, bad teachers, bad orange juice……..NEVER is it the result of their own choices.
Yesterday when I was in town, my son went into a store to buy something (A SMALL SHOP) and the woman clerk in there was talking about her “psychopathic son in jail” and when son D came out and told me that, I ran into the store and introduced myself to the woman, and told her I also had a P son. We talked a few minutes and exchanged phone numbers. I intend to call this lady and have lunch with her later this week.
She is the one who called the law on her own son and put his arse in jail. GOOD WOMAN!!!!
I also feel sorry for the parents of that Harvard fraud young man that got outed on national TV not long ago. THEIR good names are being smeared across the nation for what he did. I finally did get enough internet connection to watch that video of the new about him.