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.
YES, OxD…….that’s the saddest part. Though we don’t know the whole story or background of this kid, my gut feeling is that the parents probably tried EVERYTHING to teach this kid right from wrong. And, for their efforts, they have to do what many of us have had to do: recognize and accept that their offspring is spathic.
OxD, did you have a time of grieving for the spath son? I guess what I’m trying to get at is this: my soul was torn apart, at one point, because I could not reconcile the beautiful infant that I so loved with the monster that he developed into. I spent quite some time in deep, deep grief – it was as if my child had died and had been buried, but there wasn’t a death and there wasn’t a funeral. What remained was this Thing that did not resemble anything human.
Still, I have moments when I ache for what should have been, but it is what it is and I never want to hear from the spath son for the rest of my life.
This morning, I ran into a woman at work who is a therapist (working with youth) who understands about sociopathy, so helpful to meet up with someone who knows about the disorder. We stood outside her office and talked, me telling her about myself and what I’ve experienced of late. I called my sister-in-law later in the day and talked to her about the family that she and her siblings grew up in. She basically told me that their father was emotionally distant to his children, not really a loving person (in any way). He was abusive toward his children, giving the belt to their behinds (even when they were pre-schoolers), making them raw at times. Even if only one child misbehaved, all of her siblings would be punished at the same time. She said that her mother was not a good mother, didn’t display affection to her kids and was unnurturing. I personally suspect that my father-in-law was a spath, ignoring his family, but trying to “win” the approval of the outside world. Family dynamics and genetics played a part in how my h-spath turned out.
Dear Buttons,
Yes, I GRIEVED about what should have been for a child with an IQ and charm in the 99.9th percentile, who could have found a cure for cancer, put men on Mars, done ANYTHING he wanted to do! I grieved for the relationship I did NOT hve with him. I grieved for the shame I felt as a parent.
Eventually, I came to see the boy and the man as TWO separate individuals. In any case, no matter how good or bad our kids turn out, those “babies” are GONE. They are NO OMORE.
I began to visualize the little boy, so cute, charming and funny, as DEAD…and the man in the cell, so hateful, so selfish, so toxic, so EVIL as NOT THE SMAE PEOPLE. It was as if my baby boy died and his “organs” were donated to someone who was Ted Bundy-like. Would that mean that the Ted-Bundy Clone was my “son” because he had the heart, the lungs, the brain of my dead child?
\
So, I had a “memorial service” for my child, my son who was gone from this earth. I took all the photos of my son made after his “death” and burned them. I kept only the momentoes of him as a small child, only those photos that depicted fun days with my little boy. Everything else I BURIED in a little wooden box and had my own private little memorial service for my little boy. He is DEAD and buried, but the MAN in the cell, the EVIL creature is a STRANGER.
Sure there are those that would “blame” me for what the MAN has become, would blame me for not raising my boy right, but I did the best I could, and I loved him, gave him all I had to give. Those people don’t know the truth, maybe never will, but I can’t change that. I can only grieve for the child I lost, and then move on with my life….that and protect myself from the evil stranger that wants to kill me.
I hope that can give you some idea of how I “coped”—-I don’t know if it is a healthy way to cope or not, but it works for me. I still love the little boy who is no more, just as I love my late husband, and I can think of all the fun things we did with smiles and good sentiments, but I no longer weep and grieve over what IS NO MORE ON THIS EARTH.
Oxdrover,
I took the therapist’s business card, thinking that in the future I might arrange to have my children see her. As the therapist and I talked, I got to thinking, wanting to get some answers to questions, thus, I called my sister-in-law, the oldest of the siblings. When it comes to my h-spaths family of origin, there was definitely dysfunction there, obviously affecting all my h-spath’s siblings. My mother-in-law actually is a sweet person, so I was surprised to learn about how her daughter perceived her as a mother. What I realize is that she had her hands full, a husband who was difficult to be married to (probably a spath) and five kids (all close in age), no-one being able to get enough attention. My mother-in-law had to do it all, be the actual head-of-the-household (while allowing her husband to be the king) – she worked seven days a week (probably earning more money than her husband) and had to take care of the household (without any help from him). My sister-in-law said that the children were left alone a lot of the time, fending for themselves. It is all sad. None of the kids really had a chance to KNOW their parents well at all. The father didn’t want to know his kids and the mother was gone all the time. Some of my mother-in-law’s experiences are things that I have encountered via her son. History repeats itself.
Buttons and OxDrover,
I think that both of you are awesome! I would like to be as good of a parent as I imagine the two of you are and were to your kids. It is hard when your children inherit something (that you have no control of) that really affects their lives, their persons. I am sorry that your children have this disorder, sociopathy. When I read your posts, how you can encourage each other and relate to each other, it is inspiring. It is helpful to find people who have been down your path, making it a tad bit easier. God bless you both.
Bluejay, thank you – I appreciate your kind words, but I’m not any different than anyone else here. I’ve just had a lot longer to figure it out. Well, figure out as much as I can at a time!
OxD, I think that you’ve laid out some very strong and powerful words of wisdom. The memorial ceremony had to have been a cathartic moment, and I’m comforted to know that the grieving is normal. Yes – your approach makes sense to me. The beautiful child that was no longer IS. I think that the burning of the photographs is also a very important task, sad though it may be. I’ve burned my own artwork as a form of purge, and this might be a good thing for me to do when I’m ready.
Thank you so much for your honesty. God love you!
Dear Buttons and Blue Jay,
Thank you both for those affirmiing words, I do know that healing is a PATH and that each step we take brings us closer to what we need and want, it is just taking it a day, or sometimes, even a SECOND at a time…..
God does love me, that is the only reason I have made it this far, because every one of us here has had enough grief to sink the Titanic in, and we just have to keep on swimming toward the light!
I appreciate every blogger here and especially Donna for making this place that is so healing for us all! ((((hugs)))) and God bless.
OxD, you’ve been on this site since nearly the beginning and I can’t begin to imagine how many lives you’ve touched with your courage and wisdom.
Yes – I am grateful to Donna for providing this site through her courage and I’m grateful to everyone that pours out their stories. It not only helps them, but it helps me to see and to recognize and to snap my fingers in the face of this madness. We’re all going to be okay.
TOWANDAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Buttons and OxDrover,
I want you to know that I am not bashing my in-laws, instead, having compassion for each person, trying to get my head above water. I personally think that my mother-in-law did the best that she could given her circumstances. In her time, she stayed with her husband, even though, I suspect there were times when she would have liked to have exited the marriage. For her children’s sake, I think that might have been a wise thing to have done. You can’t undo the past. I have a ton of emotions, feeling stuck, but wanting to have a better existence for myself and my children. I question if I am up to the challenge. I know that my mother-in-law cares about her children, but she is a person who doesn’t involve herself in their lives. The sister-in-law that I talked to is a “mother” to her own mother, having taken on this role in childhood. She was forced to help her mother, spending her childhood raising her siblings. My sister-in-law is in therapy, having started four years ago and she admitted that she didn’t like their household growing up, the fact that she didn’t have a normal youth. It is all so sad. My mother-in-law has the mother title and the respect of her children, but the one child that she most prefers is the sister-in-law that I talked to yesterday, this person still taking care of her mother, yet resenting it at times (having a tug-of-war of emotions toward her mother). From my perspective, my mother-in-law is clueless about how her children are affected by the home life that they had growing up. It’s too late anyways. I hope the remainder of her life if peaceful, nothing too upsetting happening in her life. I am just praying that the same can happen for the rest of us on this planet.
Bluejay, it’s often difficult for people to see the forest for the trees, especially if they spent their lives in servitude. There is something that I call the Martyr Syndrome – I don’t know if it’s even recognized in the psych community, but I saw it in my own family, in me, and many others who were victims of spathy.
It sort of goes like this: I HAVE to do whatever I must for the sakes of ___________ (fill in the blank). If I have to endure torment, loneliness, isolation, abuse, etc. to keep us together, I will do it. If I take enough, perhaps, the (spath) will truly see how willing I am to sacrifice my Self (my soul) for the good of __________ and REWARD ME BY CHANGING.
This, for me, was a mode of existing. I did not realize that I had choices and, once I did realize that I had choices, I was afraid of stigma (another divorce statistic), retaliation (threatened with murder), and the lot. Eventually, I came to understand that, even if the ex spath had shot me down if I left him, it would be a far better ending than spending the rest of my life having my emotional/mental health murdered on a daily basis.
We are not responsible for the emotional well-being of anyone other than our own. We can hope for the healing of others, but our own healing has priority. Perhaps, if others see our progress as we travel our own healing paths, they might begin to feel that they want to travel their own healing paths and make the hard decisions to do it for themselves.
Brighest blessings!