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).

Yes!!

Totally agree with the ‘parent to capacity’ (I like that expression!) and the fact so many outside things will affect the way we parent.

I also think we all have our personal background that influence our reactions. MN would like us to think that if you really want it, you can just erase all those issues from our past and be perfect parents. That’s not the case.
Im not saying we can’t change, sort some if our issues etc… but 1- you need to be aware of them (I wasn’t when my dcs were small) and 2- you need to be able to work through them (not always possible/might need support that might or might not available etc….).

Psychopaths can and do go on to live healthy, constructive lives if they are raised in nurturing families.

Or they become violent criminals if raised in trauma.

My best friend has 3 kids. When I held her first 2 I wanted to snuggle with them all day. I loved them from day dot. When her third was born and I held him he made my skin crawl. I couldn’t wait to give him back.
I never felt comfortable around him and would never let my daughter be around him on her own. He is 10 now and I call him the anti christ. He has always been violent with other children. He killed his pet rabbit. My friend rehomed her cat as he was vile to it and was worried he’d harm the cat as well.
He has now been diagnosed with ADHD but there’s definitely something else going on.
When he caused pain to other children you could see the delight on his face.
I haven’t seen him in a long time as I only will see my friend during school holidays. I avoid him like the plague.

He struggles being in school as he attacks the children. Constantly suspended.
The teacher had to evacuate the classroom once and put all the children in the school hall and keep him in the classroom while they called my friend to collect him. No idea why they haven’t permanently excluded him from school.

My opinion is yes - children can be born bad. He gave me Damien vibes from a week old. 🔥👹🔥

'winning' at parenting is generally underpinned by considerable privilege in terms of health, housing and relative financial stability.

There is a reason why the children who succeed best are from privileged backgrounds too….

You are part of the problem. Were you a nasty child, because you certainly are a nasty adult.

@Bibblybumblebee poor child. To be labelled as bad like ‘the anti christ’ right from birth must have been so hard to carry.

i really feel fir him. That must have been horrible for him. 😭😢😢

In my experience there are some people who are indeed just born wired up differently. I worked for a time in a prison law firm of solicitors, then in a barristers chambers, and so came across a large number of people who grew up to be “bad”.

The large majority were indeed a product of their upbringing and socialisation, meaning that they didn’t have to have ended up that way.

But sometimes you would come across someone who was just wrong. The true sociopaths, those who lack any ability for empathy, combined with a desire to see what happens if they do something that at an intellectual level they know the rest of the world would find atrocious. Or they just act in every thought however bad, where someone without those limitations would ignore the thought as intrusive.

My personal theory is that people are also wired differently and bring the opposite. Those who have extreme empathy and direct it into making huge amounts of positive change.

so yes, I think some children are “bad”. By that I mean incapable of having the skills and awareness to treat others with kindness and empathy and unable to resist doing whatever untoward thing pops into their head.

I also wonder if we could do more to understand the human brain and how these things come to pass in order to better identify those with these difficulties and prevent the worst things happening.

I only call him the anti christ to my husband. I’d never call him that in front of anyone.

@Wastedagreatusername or if they are overindulged / overprotected.

Tbh any extreme /over style of parenting is a risk factor and can be damaging. Most parents manage to strike a balance which is why most children, and then adults end up fairly average.

I imagine so, yes. Not every adult is a nice person and not every child is a nice person.

I don’t feel sorry for him. He’s cruel to animals, cruel to children. My friend is constantly covered in bruises and bite marks.
He’ll be bigger than her one day. She cried to me one night saying she fears for her safety.
She wanted another baby but told me she didn’t trust her youngest around a baby.

I do not feel sorry for him. He’ll end up in prison one day.

Actually, sociopathy is "bred". Psychopathy is "born".

That may be right, but it seems too certain a statement to me.

It doesn't matter. How you feel about someone comes to them loud and clear.

Your reaction to a one week old was unhinged.

I agree with pp that its you who comes across badly in your post.

Its not unhinged- my feeling were clearly right. He’s a probably a psychopath.
He tortures and kills animals - I have no sympathy

@WhatsTheUseOfWorrying this is from studies I've read. You're right , it was a very basic analysis of course and I apologise for that. Basically, psychopathy has a genetic link, with various risk or protective factors. Sociopathy seems to be environmental, caused by something, generally neglect,trauma, attachment issues etc.

I just wanted to point out that 1. they are different conditions and 2. at the moment at least, research shows different causes.

A lot of posters on this thread seem to use bad for anything and everything from psychopathy to narcissism to ADHD , like they're all interchangeable and have the same causes, effects and outcomes.

Short answer is yes. Having worked with thousands of children over the years i can honestly say the vast majority were lovely normal children, some were just horrid nasty pieces of work and one was a worrying and one was pure utter evil, middle class home, no issues at home, i knew both parents and they were beside themselves with worry, they couldn't leave him alone with his sister or the family dog and had to lock him in his room at night, lock his sisters room and use a drawer to stop there door being opened more than an inch. One day soon he will be front page news.

It’s egocentric to think you could have known this from a one week old. It just is.

I feel deeply for your friend and her family. The whole family clearly needs intensive support that they don’t appear to be getting. That boy needs to be in a specialist behaviour unit for his sake and his school mates sake.

My friend has 2 dc, one is lovely and the other is not.

He is cruel, hurts people and animals, no friends at school because of his behaviour and is full of rage at times that he takes out on his sibling at home.

He hit and pushed dd once after smiling and calling her over. He then shoved her with all his might (he was 7) and screamed he wanted to break her neck and punched her on the head out of nowhere. Dd was only 1 at the time and he did this infront of me and his mum. I shouted at him and consoled dd and left. The mum told him to say sorry and he said no because he wasn't and he will get dd harder next time. Ive not seen him in person since. He smiled as dd sobbed and I will never forget the look of joy on his face when he did that to her. He's done it to other kids too.

He killed the hamster, hurts the cat, smashes his room up, beats his younger brother up, beats his mum. My friend said it's from something he's seen on YouTube but he's always been like this and still is 4 years later. No additional needs, just a cruel child who will 100% be in prison one day.

Lots of mixed views, very interesting to read through everyone’s theories and real life accounts.
When someone is in the news for a serious crime, you often hear stories of how they weren’t ‘right’ as children and it builds a bigger picture. I went to school with a girl who was very violent and cruel to everyone. She grew into an adult just the same but much worse. Several years back I saw her in the local newspaper as she’d been abusing residents of the care home she worked in. She’s currently in prison for severe violence against someone else, an unprovoked attack. The signs were there as a child, even the teachers were scared to be alone with her.
On the other side of the theory, I was a very abused and neglected child. My siblings weren’t. They are all nasty narcissistic psychopaths. I consider myself a well rounded, kind and good person. Going by scientific theories it should have been the other way around.
I also know of several ‘parents’ who are absolutely horrible, yet their children grew into good people.
And a girl who was raised by wealthy ‘upper class’ parents, went to every club, had tutoring, should have been extremely intelligent and happy, yet she went off the rails and prefers the life style of crime and went no contact with her parents.

Situations like these can question the theory of ‘nurture or nature’ but I do now believe from experience that some are born to be horrible people.
My friend believes it’s always the parents fault even if they are raising their children well.

Mental Health issues caused by how their brain is wired that are hard to diagnose in children so as they don’t know how to cope with their own struggles they act out.
Mood stabilisers could help but again science is still very behind.
My opinion only - I’m not a professional in the fields.

My friend has to lock her son in his room because if she doesn't he gets knives or tries to set fire to the house.

I can’t help how I felt.

He doesn’t have any class mates- he attacks them all

I have experienced kids who are born bad and had badness thrust upon them. Kid in my son’s class gave me the creeps. Every time I picked my lad from after school club he would come up to speak to me. Hyper polite, could have described as fawning over me. Same with teachers. With Other kids a total nightmare. Constantly in fights, cruel and spiteful. They’d discuss his behaviour with his mother and she would go to war over her precious little angel. However, his father was absent and he had a fairly constant string of new stepfathers. I suspect he was trained to tread lightly around adult males.

When I was in primary school my friends cousin was an absolute nightmare. Didn’t help that he had the same surname as the local mental institution and was called nuthouse. He was pure evil. During a childhood game he tried to poke one of my eyes out. The teacher who caught him was absolutely incandescent. We used to share a school bus and he got the bus driver sacked because again, he was holding a pencil an inch from sisters eyes and waiting for the bus to brake. Bus driver, lost the plot and dragged him out of the seat to put him at the front of the bus and caught his head on the shelf causing him to bleed.

Didn’t see him for years but his name came up on a list of BNP members and then took my son to a football game and his son was in the other team. Said hello and chatted for a bit. I listened to him speak about his son, the team, the coaches and he was horrible. No sense of pride or empathy. My mum knew the family, knew what he had done to me and my sister and said his father was exactly the same. Could have inherited his innate awfulness or been nurtured into it but his mum was lovely and the primary carer.

I think you are missing the point.

It doesn't matter if you didn’t say anything to the child. They would have known it wo words (from memory, 80% of our communication comes from body language, facial expression etc…) Just the fact you handed him over straight away was enough. And then the not holding him when you were holding his siblings etc…
Different treatment.

That in itself will have affected the way he behaves. It easily becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

You can’t use the way he behaves now to explain your reaction 10 years to a newborn baby either.

Does it mean his behaviour now is ok? Nope. There are clearly something going on there. Whatever that is.

But there is no way you could have foreseen that from holding a newborn.