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).

I don’t know but this is something that if I think about it too much scares me with two young children! I hate the idea of my child being one of these children despite me trying to do everything right. 😩

Isn't there a gene that predisposes some children to be callous? My memory is a bit vague on the details, but I have the gene, but was in no way callous.

I believe it is more likely to be 'expressed' in boys, and environment can contribute. My brother was certainly very callous, though grew out of it. The male side of my maternal line show this behaviour a lot.

A mum I know said she knew her son was going to be trouble from the day he was born. Didn't sleep, screamed incessantly, and wouldn't cuddle. Highly intelligent lad, but lied bare faced lies. Now diagnosed in his 30s with personality disorders and MH diagnosis. He has been in trouble repeatedly over the years. His intelligence hasn't worked for him. She believes he was brain-damaged at birth.

Born or raised is basically the question of most psychological study. The answer is, we don’t really know but brain scans etc suggest you can be born without empathy in the same way you could be born without an arm or a leg. It’s just missing. And lack of empathy can lead to extremely problematic behaviours.

The reason is parenting or a disorder.

Do you not think the fact she felt she "knew he was trouble since birth" may have had an impact on the way she raised him? 🤔

It's a chicken and egg situation isn't it.

I always used to say no, they’re just children. But there’s one particular child that I can think of that’s honestly vile. From the minute he could crawl, it seemed he only focussed on things that would cause others pain. By age two, you’d see him check if the adults were watching before attacking the other children. He was physically much much bigger than other children his age and would cause a lot of damage. I once watched him pull a huge chunk out of another child’s hair from the root because I couldn’t get to him in time from across the room to stop him. His own grandparents refuse to babysit because they can’t handle his behaviour.

His parents are nice people who make all the right noises about parenting. However if you witness them, there’s a lot that I think could be improved. For example he’s left alone a lot (he has a playroom with a stair gate and spends several hours in it alone every day). Yet if he misbehaves their version of a time out is to put him in a huge bear hug and talk to him constantly.

Sounds exactly like my daughter. She had reflux as a baby and had the same traits.

Not sure I'd rely on the word of a woman (I wouldn't use the word mother) who had decided from birth that her son was bad. Personality disorders are often developed.

It's so sad because I can see a lot of our extended families situation here. My second cousin was one of six, often painted to be the black sheep and talked about in the family as he was often angry, aggressive and generally unagreeable.

Everyone agreed, it was a mystery. His parents were so lovely. All his siblings were lovely, and distanced themselves from their brother. Noone could understand it, he must have been bad from birth.

It came to light many years later that his father had sexually abused him from the age of 4. He had never touched the girls or younger boys, but had only gone after the one (less chance of him ever being believed, even by his own family I guess).

I think just assuming someone is bad from birth is simplistic, and often easier to believe than the truth. That some 'lovely' families, even if siblings have experienced it as that, can often be anything but.

I feel such pain thinking about how alone he must have felt, and rage that he was often told to his face that something was wrong with him by the people who should have been questioning 'why?'.

I think of course there are nasty children. Nasty adults don't appear from nowhere. Same as the thing where children can't be diagnosed as psychopaths. Psychopaths don't magically appear from age 18 onwards.

Some people I know have a child like this. He's been expelled from every school he's gone too.

Their other child is lovely.

Put it this way, I'd never leave any other child alone with this one.

It seems to be a personality disorder. He's a teenager now but has absolutely always been this way.

Seemingly no empathy. It's terribly sad actually.

My DS isn't horrible, he can actually be very sweet, but at 7 he is extremely socially smart in a way that neither my husband and I are. We couldn't have taught him this as neither of us see the world the way my son does.

DS 100% sees himself as number 1, knows exactly what he wants and is able to get other people on side to help him get it. He's a natural leader, very popular at school, but also extremely self-centred and unbothered by authority.

We're trying to teach him empathy, kindness and integrity and hoping he'll be more Mandela than Trump.

I have done children and families work for a long while. I once had a job where I was writing support plans for children whose behaviour was worrying for the senior staff in school. The common factor in almost all of these kids was trauma. They had experienced varying degrees of trauma from a young age, and often their parents had too. I only know a the parents trauma if they happened to tell me, for example that they had fled DV. I think trauma needs to be a much bigger part of the conversation around how we structure support services. It is referred to euphemistically under "emotional and mental health needs" but those needs didn't crop up out of nowhere, they were formed out of trauma.

The most unpleasant children I recall from my dc primary school days were the ones from pushy middle class homes where there was pressure to win at everything. There were some dc from families where they had real challenges (e.g parent in prison) but it was the pushy parents who bred the most unpleasant kids in my opinion. There were quite a few like that in my area.

Yes - direct experience of one ghastly child now a ghastly young adult.

It seems odd to me that you'd describe a child with no empathy as being a strong leader.

I hope he's getting some extra support with this issue.

It's also fiction but Catherine in East of Eden springs to mind.

Yes and No.

Children are born as children. They have poor empathy and poor impulse control. They are naturally violent when upset or angry or not getting what they want. That’s not ‘being horrible’. That’s just the nature of children.

It’s the job of adults to support them out of their behaviours and into more controlled ways of handling things. It’s for adults to help shape their developing empathetic abilities.

So a ‘horrible’ behaviour may be entirely age appropriate, but the child needs adult support to learn it’s not socially acceptable.

I believe that children do the best they can given their stage of development and whether their needs are met.

Sure, there are different personalities, some kids are very placid and keen to please, others more strong willed, but I don’t think kids are ‘born bad’. Some may have diagnosable conditions which affect their behaviour, but they aren’t freely choosing that behaviour. It’s programmed into them.

I think we are all programmed by our genes and ongoing environment, if I am honest.

Unpopular opinion… I have two lovely children but one of them was born particularly sweet and kind, real golden child stuff.( We’ll see how long it lasts blah blah)
my point is… thats one end of the spectrum right… there has to be a another end?

He sounds insufferable. All parents think their kids are lovely/amazing/kind. They rarely are.

(Caveat: I'm talking about children who do not have any medical issues explaining their behaviour).

As a teacher, I have met children who are just horrible for the sake of being horrible. For no motivation other than to upset or hurt other people. So they do exist.

But 99% of them come from a family who behave in the same way. I've also met a few who come from pathetic parents who are too wet to parent their child properly.

I've never met one who comes from a family who treated them kindly and set reasonable boundaries.

The vast majority are the result of trauma.

However there seem to be some born with specific deficit- if raised well they can choose to be productive and positive, but can equally choose not.

A psychopath wrote an article saying that she feels nothing. She is empty. She used to get stimulated by creating drama and chaos by hurting people, upsetting situations. It was all she knew to do to get any sense of satisfaction.
if I remember correctly it eventually twigged for her that she could do positive things as well. It just wasn’t very exciting. But that’s what she chose- dull but nicer for everyone else.

You see kids who are sensory seeking, adults who are adrenaline junkies, people who have ‘low arousal’. DS was advised a wobble cushion, chewing gum and fizzy drinks to help him be alert. Otherwise he just zoned out all the time.

Some people are wired differently and need a lot of help to grow straight, it doesn’t come naturally. Combine that with something like a milk allergy or reflux, so they are constantly miserable, and you get even the best, eventually exhausted parents who are tuned out and unable to support the child. Maybe.

Not sure I'd rely on the word of a woman (I wouldn't use the word mother) who had decided from birth that her son was bad. Personality disorders are often developed

I thought that too. I never felt any rush of love when my son was born. Never really felt anything. At two weeks the reflux started. He Screamed and screamed. Didn’t sleep. It was awful. I used to sing songs to him about how much I loved him, even though I never felt it. I had to work at loving him. Sometimes you do have to do this as a parent. You don’t write off and give up on a baby!

I don’t think kittens is saying her child is lovely/amazing/kind.

She’s saying he’s self centred and manipulative. She’s being extremely perceptive and doing what she can to direct him towards positive productive outcomes. Good for her!

I didn’t pick out kittens specifically as saying that, hence the full stop after insufferable.

My friend's DC1(13) has always been unusual.

I've known her since she was born and her parents longer. Her siblings are regular kids, but she is singularly unpleasant: studiously doing all the things we teach children and young people not to do ‐an expert social manipulator who seems to derive some perverse pleasure from seeing how peers (and unsuspecting adults) respond to her. It's only ever a social thing ‐no other behavioural anomalies‐ she just has this inherent knack for orchestrating unease and drama and setting up situations where another person will be awkwardly ostracised, put in an impossible situation or exquisitely humiliated in some way, preferably in front of others. It's as if she's got no sense of 'this far, but no further' or that some things, like disability, illness or bereavement, are below the belt ‐she'll exploit any weakness to get to the person she's 'working on'.
She's never concerned with covering her back or defending her hand in setting things up, she just does this enigmatic expressionless in-your-face stare when called out on things. It's always been like this; the other DC in our friendship group have learnt to be wary of her. Bizarrely, although this girl is averagely attractive, she has come to represent 'peak attractiveness' to the other DC in the group.