Are some children just born horrible?

[Courteneycrocs]

Hear me out. I know there are environmental reason, poor upbringing for example. Learnt and even taught poor behaviour being another. Attention seeking being a common cause too.
But aside from those reasons causing poor behaviour/bullies, have you come across children who are just plain horrible for no reason and with no cause?
As there are adults who are just generally nasty whether at work, relatives, acquaintances and the likes, everyone is capable of being horrible and it isn’t age dependent, sometimes it’s a choice.
If you ever mention a child who is known for poor behaviour or attitude, they’re often labelled SEN or ‘they can’t help it, it’s xyz’. Sometimes noted as the ‘naughty child’ if no excuses are made. But the general gist is that there are always excuses. The parents are always blamed even if they have done their best. No one ever stops and thinks, actually that child is just horrible.
If a 10 year old child broke your baby’s toy, damaged something expensive in your home and laughed, stole something from a shop, told lies to hurt someone, called someone names, disrespects rules and adults and never uses manners would you consider them a horrible child or just raised poorly? Would your answer be based on assumptions from seeing the parents or only if you know how they’re being raised?
If the same child was 5 years old would your answer be the same?

(No offence meant to anyone who may not like this post, it isn’t aimed at anyone or to start a heated debate, posting out of genuine curiosity after a conversation I had with a teacher friend).

Cruel kids have been around since forever.

Some grow out of it, others don’t.

How much of it is down to bad parenting, bad schooling, bad experiences like being bullied, witnessing violence and other factors which impact self-esteem and awareness are like branches on a tree in when it comes to psychological analysis.

In fact, it’s often easier to assume a kid is just horrible than to find out what makes them tick and ascertain what they might actually be good enough at to provide a pathway to a better outlook.

Trying the same things that didn’t work the first time over and over again will probably only make things worse.

DH is one of 4. He and two of his siblings are lovely well adjusted people. One is a nightmare. DH had always disliked her even from a young age. Recent events have shown she is a complete narcissist. Same upbringing etc as siblings.

A girl at school who always seemed 'off'. She had lovely parents and sibling but she was just so full of a simmering rage you'd only catch glimpses of. She seemed to enjoy causing upset to people.

I met and grew close to her again as an adult when our dc started in the same year. It would not be an exaggeration to say she is one of the kindest people I know now.

It turned out as the oldest dc she had been forced to grow up early by her parents. Her dad had affairs and would get her to keep secrets for him. Her mum would cry and confide in her from a young age about what her dad was doing. She had lot of therapy and said she had a lightning bolt realisation one day, that she needed people to be as miserable as she was.

I've got to say I'm sceptical of people being 'born' bad. You never know what is happening behind closed doors, and siblings may not even be aware of what treatment other siblings are getting.

Even most psychopaths are law abiding and often highly successful people.

I think it's pretty indisputable that we are all a mixture of external and internal factors - we have our innate personalities for sure but those are also influenced by the things that happen to us (our parents' behaviour as they raise us being one of these elements). And we also have free will, so we can choose to be better or worse, whatever our predisposition and environmental factors.

The only thing that's arguable is the significance of the relative factors. And that's so hard to research reliably - too many variables.

"Horrible" is a strong word to apply to a child. But some people are born who have unpleasant personality traits for sure.....

I think just like you meet adults that you find annoying and don't get on with, you will meet children that you find annoying and don't get on with. It's just how humans work.

I don't think there's ever such a thing as a 'bad' or 'horrible' child just by chance though, no.

There is ALWAYS a reason? Yes. Sometimes the reason is - that person is shit. It happens. Often I suspect

In 43 years of parents' evenings, only once have I met parents and thought: Well that's a surprise, though to be fair sometimes there was one nice parent one an absolute arsehole.

I still think individual personality of the child is a significant attribute.

Yes a child can be born that way. Someone with a severe personality defect such as psychopathy might have easily been showing signs as a child, despite coming from a nurturing background. Lack of empathy being a main symptom. Lack of empathy also is a narcissistic trait and all adult narcissists were children once. Severe lack of empathy leads to all sorts of awful behaviour. I’ve seen it first hand with a child of a good friend. Spent a lot of time with friend and child. Child was so difficult from the start and as a baby : toddler would never laugh or smile or play games like peek a boo etc. Then the lack of empathy became very apparent early on. Lead to much unwanted behaviour. Child is NT been tested over the years. I strongly believe it’s just a personality trait

@Courteneycrocs , all of the revolting children I’ve encountered have been entirely the responsibility of awful parenting. 😔

I think there are truly horrible people in this world... that have nothing to do with their environment.

I asked my childminder that. She said in 36 years of looking after hundreds of children, she'd only come across one who she genuinely worried was naturally nasty and aggressive/violent.

Plenty react to poor parenting or difficult circumstances but are fine when given the consistency & support they needed to develop.

I found it quite reassuring.

I think this is interesting, in that we're not really talking about people we find "annoying" or don't get on with, as we all have those! Part of life.

But specifically, can a child just be born a horrible person? A wee bit of a different question.
I've met a few truly horrible people throughout my life. One of them I highly suspect had a bad childhood, who has gone on to have 2 children and then subsequently post online about how depressed they are. This person also bullied me terribly when younger, so I have no sympathy for them, but that's not the question.

I'm not sure I believe every child is a 'blank slate'. I do think we are just born certain ways sometimes, i.e it was certified in the womb certain aspects of our personality. May sound slightly ridiculous, but has there ever been an experiment performed where say, 10 newborn babies were raised in the exact same way and then their personalities analsyed when older?
Also important to keep in mind the drawbacks of experimentation, say baby 1 cries and is attended to within 2 minutes, whereas baby 2 cries and is attended to within 10 minutes.. small but very significant things, I think, which can also massively influence the integrity of an experiment.

Happy for anyone to come and correct me!

I have only ever met one child who l would be worried about his future. This was many years ago and I think he had psychopathic tendencies almost from the beginning. He had absolutely no conscience and appeared to be unable to feel either empathy or remorse. Most small children cannot tell a convincing lie even when they try - you know that they ate the chocolate they weren't allowed because the evidence is all round their mouths - but this child could lle like an expert even at the age of four. He was very sneaky, too. He even had the clichéd eyes very close to each other. He will be in his early twenties now and I have not seen him since he was small. I do hope that he has outgrown his early behaviour and learnt some empathy and remorse so that he can lead an ordinary life.

Yes, there was a bad lad at our school. He ended up in all sorts of trouble. He was never a nice person, since he was a small boy. My mum always said that his parents were lovely, and would never blame them. She hated him, though. He was caused loads of problems for us & my male cousins who were his pals.

Most of the time there is a reason, such as
SEND
Poor upbringing
Abuse

I have the utmost sympathy and understanding for these children as they cannot help their reactions and behaviours and must be adequately supported.

But sometimes, some children/young people, are just nasty little shits who need bringing down a peg or 2. There is no excuse, no back story, no special needs, they are just a piece of work.

My mom always sad she knew one of my siblings wasn't right from babyhood. As an adult diagnosed with personality disorder and is a very scary person.

Some argue that narcissistic personality disorder is formed around the age of 2 or 3. I'd imagine sociopathy might be similar. Thry can't be diagnosed in kids but that doesn't mean it isn't already in them.

My oldest memory is being around two and a neighbours child the same age, squeezing my hand so hard as she sat next to me on the sofa that it hurt. And she wouldn't let me let go.

She grew up to be my childhood bully. And was horrible as long as I knew her (till she was 17).

I suppose you could argue that even babies can be hateful out of say, jealousy over attention and maybe that's what was going on. But if I'm honest...I think she was evil from very young.

If you ask your kids they'll probanly know the evil little shits in their class after a few years with them. Definatly by the age of 7 or so. Most frustrating thing was seeing adults giving it 'they're only young, thry don't know any different' bs. Most kids have an understanding of right from wrong by 7. If they're acting like they don't...there's something up.

I dunno if people can be born evil. But I believe most evil adults were evil children.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is essentially about this. It's a fiction book but well worth a read.

I actually couldn't finish this book as I didn't enjoy the author's writing style, but I would have to agree a really interesting story/perspective, especially the film.

Same upbringing doesn't equate to same experiences. She may have witnessed or experienced something others didn't that they may not know or understand. Sexual violence or discrimination being examples a girl might experience but not her brothers (or vice versa but I use the example since your post implies a SIL).

Brains scans of the differences in psychopaths' wiring would suggest so.

I think it is possible but unusual. Out of the hundreds of children I’ve taught in my career, the children who exhibited what would be classed as very naughty behaviour (violence for example) have so far all been either SEN or have had traumatic lives. Low-level naughtiness can come from anyone but is generally easy to deal with. I have taught some children who have been arrogant or self-centred but it’s fairly low-level. The really shocking behaviours in my career so far always have another factor (such as ASD or neglect) at play.

I think so yes. DB was a monster from a young age - when he was about 5 he thought it would be fun to stamp on every one of my gerbils.

unfortunately his behaviour was downhill from there so it wasn’t even a slippery slope it was a gentle roll.

my sister and I are are lovely, well rounded and respectable people. He was like some bizarre genetic fuck up to create a monster with the worst traits of both my parents ramped up to 100.

Yes,my brother

I'm the eldest and only girl of 4 siblings (last two are twins)

3 of us are 'normal' but twin 1 (child no3) came out different

It's like he got my mother's narcissistic personality-she should have been his twin not his brother

He's not wired up right-even as a baby he had that nasty glint in his eye-his twin didnt ( I have a photo of them as babies and it's how I could tell them apart in the picture)

He loves feeding off others pain and causing pain and suffering

Can be very charming but is a nasty arsehole

I'm not sure how much is 'him' and how much is how he was brought up,as he is my mothers favourite but he was odd growing up

I can't explain it but an aura about him,even as a baby

Definitely. Within the kids in my friendship group there's a girl, 8, who I'm sure has psychopathic tendencies. Group holiday about 3 years ago and I had to jump in the pool to get her off my DS as she was holding his head underwater. Never trusted her since. She is violent but very subtley, manipulative and sneaky. Also very innocent looking. I will always check on my kids if they're around her and not leave them alone. She has a very loud older sister who regularly gets the blame and for reasons I can't fathom, her parents still think she's a cherub.