To think some children are budding psychopaths?

[brasty]

I know being a psychopath does not mean that you will be violent or criminal. It does mean that you do not really feel empathy for anyone else and have a lack of a conscience.

I think rightly children are not labelled as psychopaths, but I do think children who are showing these traits should get proper treatment and their parents should get proper advice and support.

Children showing psychopathic traits are those pre puberty children who are bullies, setting fires, lying routinely, showing no empathy for others, deliberately cruel to animals, and for whom punishment has no impact. A child has to have a number of these issues, many children bully for example, but still show empathy towards people they love.

But at the moment, parents with children showing these traits, receive little help, and are often blamed for causing their child's behavior. There seems to be resistance to seeing this in young children.

Wouldn't be a whole lot of point. There is no cure for psycohopathy, so little point in referring anyone anywhere. If they weren't psychopaths, labelling them as such will do nothing for their self-esteem or mental health, and if they are, well there's nothing that can be done anyway.
Psychopathy is not a result of poor parenting, and not every obnoxious child grows up to be a psychopath.

Outcome for these children might be improved though with early intervention.

Children with psychopathic traits have unrealistically high self esteem and confidence. Hurting their self esteem is not an issue. There is work going on with teenagers and young people with these traits to identify what works. You can't cure it. But you can't cure autism either. It doesn't mean that certain parenting techniques can't help though.

I know a child who has...

1. Threatened to kill his mother
2. Attempted to push her down the stairs
3. Attempted to strangle her with scarf
4. Bit her on the upper thigh - grabbed her just below her privates
5. Bit his sibling 15 times (both arms)
6. Wrapped flex around a girls neck at school
7. Exposed himself in public
8. Arrested by police
9. Kicked a pigeon across the street

He is 12.

I think CAHMS should have the money and people to offer decent intervention for any young person with MH problems.

However, there's no sign of that yet, so I see little chance of their remit being widened and even more services they have no chance of delivering being promised.

I don't believe this, or many other conditions are simply "nature" or "nurture". Or even nature x nurture.

A combination of factors being inherited and/or life experiences influence who a person is.

So a psychopath who hasn't inherited OR developed aggressive traits would be psychologically manipulative rather than physically manipulative and therefore function and do very well in society.

I am surprised and saddened by how many people on this thread blame the parents (and usually just the mother). It leads me to suspect that this happens with a lot of other conditions- ADHD, ASD etc- but people have just learnt that is is not socially acceptable to say it about those conditions out loud.

Interesting thread.

DH is convinced there is a psychopathic genetic trait in his family due to the behaviour and attitudes of his sister and one of his cousins. He's very serious about it, and went out of his way to read about and research the condition because he felt so strongly that something was so evidently wrong.

And I have to say I can definitely see why he believes this of his sister, now in her 30s. It's quite difficult to describe how alarming she is on all sorts of levels; she has no empathy whatsoever, no conscience, and does things to others that have "slighted her" that would make your hair curl.

She's also got an incredible ability to be extraordinarily superficially charming, and is a pathological liar and manipulator.

There was no abuse of any kind in their family. DH says her personality was there from being very young and he personally first noticed something wasn't right when she was about 7 and a family member died.

My pils also know deep down there's something not right with her, and now osciliate between acceptance and denial (probably as a way to protect themselves).

So I'm afraid I do suspect there's a nature aspect to the condition and that it can manifest in very young children.

There is no real input/understanding from CAMHS - these children should be supported. Truth is, they are not. It's easier to shift blame towards the parent(s).

A lot of child to parent abuse goes on behind closed doors.

In 24 years of primary teaching I've only come across one child who really struck me as having psychopathic or sociopathic tendencies. He was in year 2, a bright boy with a strange blankness/deadness behind the eyes. He was calm and had no empathy whatsoever and frequently hurt other children, who were scared of him. He enjoyed hurting animals. He was banned from his grandmother''s house after hurting her cat. I remember once some y2 children called me over to admire a beautiful iridescent beetle they had found in the playground. He came over, stamped on it and walked away calmly. Another time on a class trip the children were hand-feeding deer fawns. All the other kids were petting the fawns gently and going "aww, cute", etc. This boy chased one of the fawns into a corner, it was terrified, I had to pull him away. He showed no understanding when we talked to him about kindness to people and animals. I've taught ASD children who've found empathy difficult but he was different. He had doting, rather ineffective parents. After we asked for a psychologist referral his parents took him out of school in year 3 to homeschooling him "because he's always being told off at school". His mum was about to have a new baby and we felt genuine concern about what he might do if ever left alone with a baby. I don't know what happened to him - he'd be in year 10 now - bur it wouldn't surprise me if he ended up hurting someone. The only child in 24 years I've ever felt a really disturbing vibe from.

Nurture overwhelmingly overrides nature.

Do not agree. If this is the case why are there so many failed adoptions?

Nurture overwhelmingly overrides nature.

Most recent studies on this show the absolute opposite.

Of course nurture matters. Otherwise as parents we would not bother at all. But babies are not a blank slate.

My sister studies childhood psychopathy as part of her job (academic). It's fascinating.

Some of these children do end up in the care system/adopted - the FC and adoptive parents may receive slightly more assistance/support than the parents - placements still break down.

I believe psychological assessments are carried out on people prior to entering the prison system, however, not the care system.

The boy I spoke of up thread was diagnosed with ASD at 3yo - the sexualised behaviour (exposure) happened when he was 11yo - he would pleasure himself after these incidents (also after harming his mother).

All the parent blaming (and let's be honest it's nearly all blaming mothers) reminds me of the Refrigerator Mother theory which basically blamed women being cold to their children for autism and schizophrenia.

I'd hoped we'd moved past that, but it appears that it's just so much easier to say "well it MUST be the mother's fault" if children have issues rather than actually providing any kind of support.

Children’s services, SEND support, the NHS & everything else that should support children has been cut to the bone. Basically, there’s ‘not enough’ money to help children anymore. It’s utterly disgusting

Yes!

Nurture overwhelmingly overrides nature.

I'm a geneticist - it's a complex mix of both ( as almost everything is.) the proportion of each will depend on exactly what you're looking at, the life circumstances of the person etc etc. It's complex

That must be an interesting and distressing line of work, tellme

What's her opinion on it?

TheMadGardener That sounds terrifying. I really worry about kids like that for the future.

And yes all the research shows nature and nurture matters.

Yes she sounds sadly like a classic budding psychopath who was born with a different brain.

Look OP, I agree with you about support and empathy for the parents.

But "born with a different brain?? Stop! Everyone is "born with a different brain"! Try born evil -- now, that's one in thousands.

PickingOakum Yes that sounds like psychopathic traits.
I wonder if boys/men with these traits are more likely to be criminals? Because women and men could have these traits in equal numbers - nature; but the specific way they are manifested could be nurture?

By born with a different brain, I mean what MRI brain scans are showing us, that certain parts of the brain in those with psychopathic traits, but no known history of abuse, is different in a similar way.
I understand this is not scientific language I am using. But there are discernible brain differences which seem fairly significant.

Re brain differences:

It's important to note that differences in the brain can be caused by behaviours/environment too. For example, taxi drivers who've done the knowledge have differences in the hippocampus (I think) and abuse etc can cause differences too. Science needs to pin down whether these differences are caused by or the cause of various traits.

It's also extremely hard to say x difference causes x behaviour.

Yes I know that brain differences are also caused by environment.

"I wonder if boys/men with these traits are more likely to be criminals? Because women and men could have these traits in equal numbers - nature; but the specific way they are manifested could be nurture?"

What I read was about serial killers, but I assume it would apply to other crimes/abusive behaviours too. And it was that men who are that way tend to commit their crimes over large areas, out and about. Whereas women who commit similar crimes tend to stick to their home and/or workplace.

The reason being that both groups commit their crimes where they feel safe, relaxed and happy. Men are socialised to see the whole world as being safe for them (even though that's a bit of a myth), whereas women are socialised to believe that "out there on the streets" is dangerous for them, so violent/sadistic women keep to the more familiar places.

It's interesting, because it suggests that they do absorb some kind of socialisation.

Part of the problem, I think, is that our culture discourages anything other than ostentatious displays of empathy. Low-level, everyday compassion for other people is seen as an impediment to ambition and productivity. So no-one is getting the socialisation they could be getting, and a lot of us who are good people have only turned out this way by swimming against the tide. Which I could have done without having to do, on top of everything else I've had to deal with, and a lot of people simply don't have the strength to do.

But I agree with your main point, OP. It amazes me that anyone would think that identifying a child's behaviour as abusive, and getting them support to give them the best chance at rehabilitation, is writing them off. Writing them off would be not bothering with them at all, in the vague hope that they'll magically "grow out of it". Which is what our society does at the moment. Because money.