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).

Your world may be pink and fluffy but in the real world there is evil and many have been touched by it. I hope you never feel it.

Normally children like this have suffered some serious abuse in their lives. And wtf that he hasn't been seen or referred to social services for killing animals or threatening grown men with a knife at a young age? Enough calls and people get seen, middle class or not

Some posters on here would've done great during the witch trials. :)

The only help she has had was a referral to get him diagnosed with ADHD. The waiting list was a long long time - delayed because of Covid. He improved temporarily on the ADHD drugs but it’s like it was a placebo and he’s back to his old ways.

He may have ADHD (whole bloody world seems to have it nowadays) but there is other things going on.

When he was a baby his eyes would move fast as though he was watching an invisible fly buzzing around his face.
Even now he cannot focus his eyes on one spot. Cannot look at you in the eyes. But the minute he’s doing something cruel his eyes lock on what he’s doing. It’s almost like when he’s causing pain he’s calm.

They aren’t always frenzied attacks - when he was at school he asked a boy to come over and help him with something- when that kid went over this kid dogged his nails into his face so bad he drew blood.

My friend had to go pick him up from school as he got suspended. He was 8 at the time.

That's right, humans have been breeding dogs for thousands of years.

Do you understand how selective breeding works? For certain traits? Same with plants to yield bigger harvests.

Human beings are animals and certain traits can appear either as random recessive genes or whatever.

If I feel evil from anyone it is not from a newborn baby. It is from the grown adult who believes a newborn baby is or can be evil.

Of course it is an unpopular opinion. Large swathes of us work in education, health care or social care. We are trying to make society better by nurturing those that need it and if you are right, we are wasting our time! That's going to out people's backs up.

The issue with nature vs nurture, and my own propensity to attribute everything to trauma, is that we never know. Sometimes the parents don't know about a trauma their child went through. So it can't be ruled out.
If course there are people we know went through early childhood trauma who turned out well. They are the people we need to study. The main 'protective factor' is an emotionally available adult. The candidates for that role might stand down if they think the child is beyond helping. Hope keeps them going.

Children probably do have genetic propensities to disordered behaviour in some cases. Whether it is displayed is probably a matter of parenting; unfortunately a lot personality disorders don't show until teenage years and even then a psychiatrist will be reluctant to go for a label.

The truth is that antisocial behaviour can to a great extent to be limited with the right incentives. That doesn't mean it is a nice process or you can always be kind to children who hurt others. Our society suggests we shouldn't make these distinctions but they exist.

Usually with personality disordered kids you will find a significant psychiatric illness such as schizophrenia on one side of the family. It's rarely talked about because of stigma. Unfortunately these illnesses, particularly in parenting can also indicate abusive upbringings and attitudes

The most horrible children are very good at manipulating other children into doing vile things to other children and then standing back and feigning innocence when trouble erupts and adults get involved.

There's a reason they won't diagnose psychopathy/sociopathy in childhood. Young children and even teens go through phases of being narcissistic and of bad behaviour, it doesn't make them 'bad'.

I believe the vast majority of badly behaved kids are the result of an external factor of some kind - an adverse childhood event, their upbringing. Sometimes it may be genetics. And very occasionally they may just be born with a predisposition to psychopathy/sociopathy/narcissism that upbringing can't iron out. But I do think it's very rare.

I do find it quite worrying how many people seem to think children are 'born bad'. I have multiple family members who work with children, particularly within the care system and they all say everything can be traced back to the parents.

In the worst cases severe neglect, violence and drug abuse can lead to a child being unsuitable for adoption at a very young age. My relative who fosters had one child who had been severely neglected and had learning difficulties that in combination meant he was incapable of bonding (his mother was suspected of having the same issues which is why she couldn't adequately care for him). He was very hard work to care for because you got nothing back from him but he wasn't evil, he had very complex needs and he and his mother had been let down by the care system, he was left with his Mum too long, and should have gone to foster care at birth to give him the best chance.

At the other end of the scale I know of several teenagers who have gone off the rails when they had a parent face a serious illness. They're not 'born bad', nor have they received bad parenting, but they have gone through a traumatic experience at a young age and that has consequences.

There is thread after thread on here by children who were the designated black sheep of their family. I bet all their families would say they were 'born bad' but actually they received very different parenting from their siblings all through their life.

My friend has 3 children. Her middle one is in my eyes evil. I wouldn’t leave my child alone with him- I don’t think I’d want to be on my own with him. He’s killed animals, injured children and adult and gets pure enjoyment from it. He came after my husband with a knife.

The parents are lovely. Kind, reliable and very loving. This doesn’t explain why the other 2 are ok.

Hes had no trauma or neglect- in fact the opposite. They pour love into him hoping it’ll change him.

A psychiatrist/psychologist/ doctor may come up with what they think but when dealing with a child, but they can never be sure as the child can't tell you what has happened. It is guess work, educated guess work but still that.
Until you meet a child of just turned 3 that has to be kept away from the family dog because he is so nasty to it and who has to be locked in his room at night because he has tried to seriously harm his sister and his mum, you will never know just how some people are born bad.