Have you ever met a child psychopath?

[TheJuryIsOut]

There's some debate about whether psychopaths are born like that or made as a consequence of their environment/upbringing. If they are born that way (which I believe they are) have you ever met one? What were the signs?

I say this because there is a child in my wider family who I think may be a psychopath, there has been signs from when he was very very young and as he moves through his teenage years things have only got worse. I can't get on board with it being an environment thing as no one else in the family behaves the way he does, it's quite terrifying to think that no matter what you do your child could still go on to do horrific things and not feel a jot of guilt.

What do you think? Are they born or made?

Well no because in the case of James Bulger as i keep repeatedly saying, John Venables the main perpertrator came from a stable,, middle class family. The only neglect he suffered was his mother was working long hours and had no idea what he was watching on TV.
Given how long ago this was, it's terrifying to think what kids see online now.
We have many violent young kids now and it's only going to get worse.

This case is so sad 😭

I knew someone who might fit this profile: charming and charismatic but very impulsive and with a sadistic streak. I remember he told me of an incident when he was 5 or 6 when he made a conscious decision to hurt another child by pushing them down the stairs and he enjoyed doing it. As a teen he was involved in inappropriate behaviour, liked to embarrass people, got involved in drugs and stealing. Eventually he made threats of such a nature that he had to be expelled from school. This was all by age 15.

He had a terrible upbringing so in this case I think it was caused by trauma.

As she didn’t act on these thoughts at all, it could have been a form of OCD in her case, that causes intrusive, horrible thoughts, and can be really distressing. It’s not the same as psychopathy, people with this form of OCD don’t lack empathy and don’t act on the thoughts.

I have a cousin and an ex boyfriend , both of whom I expect to see on news/ in jail/ on documentary at some point. You know when you just ‘know’ something is off

Yes, humankind has manipulated the environment. It means to orchestrate or design or set up for itself.

I think they can be more mature and very manipulative from an early age but psychopath, I don’t know?

There is a girl in my daughter’s class who I want her to stay away from. She is very manipulative and knows what to say to adults. I’ve seen it from a young age and I’ve been a parent chaperone Ona school trip and had her in my group so observed how she behaved. I do wonder how she will be when she is older and I’m glad she is not going to the same secondary as my child.

I agree it is an absolutely fascinating watch. That said, I actually thought there was something "off" about his mother. She made me uncomfortable

Might have been mentioned but there is a fascinating book called Sociopath by Patric Gagne about growing up as a Sociopath and then realising as she got older that her feelings weren’t normal.

My mum was a primary teacher and only met one child in her career that really scared her. He was adopted and had been the product of a rape. His adopted parents were lovely, as were their other kids. She always said he would either be an amazing businessman or end up in jail.

I think I know what you're talking about, and I may be wrong, but I think they showed a lot of people have some traits, not that they could be diagnosed. Which shows that these things are a matter of degrees. We all lie, we can all act uncaring or fail at empathy at times, yet.

No I think they probably do assess them as one but they can’t officially diagnose them.

The other thing, as I said earlier, is that even the experts and certainly the media at the time, were taken in by Venables, and believed that Thompson was the "bad" one. There may have been an element of class prejudice to that, but I think it was largely because Venables was able to express (simulate?) remorse in a way that the much more damaged Thompson was not.

This is just my own speculation here, but I think it's quite likely that Robert Thompson, whose own brothers beat each other (and him) up and threatened each other with knives, likely had a strategy of NEVER showing weakness, and that's why he refused to express any remorse, whereas Venables, whose childhood was spent with "normal" people, would have been used to his parents wanting him to apologise for bad behaviour and so was able to put on that performance for the court.

What's concerning is that that worked so well for Venables.

That's very disturbing, @TheJuryIsOut . What do his parents think? Are there any support agencies involved? I've always understood psychopathy to be more common than we think but most can get what they want without criminal or antisocial behaviour; they are aware that apparent conformity can be rewarding. I think criminal/anti-social psychopathy is rare but does exist and I believe it can have both organic and learned elements. Psychopathy might not, through caution, be diagnosed in childhood but there is a CU (Callous - Unemotional) scale than can be applied to children. It sounds like he warrants intervention because there is evidence it can improve the outcome - although I gather there is not always a clear cut path, with or without intervention.

Many people who have multiple kids know that they are born with markedly different personality types that manifest from their earliest years and persist into adulthood. So I agree, some are born, as well as made.

Such an interesting read. I found it fascinating.

While working in paeds just 2. It was awful on the families. Extremely manipulative, charismatic kids.

My brother. Enjoyed hurting animals and insects. He was very much protected from consequences by my mother. One of my few clear childhood memories is him jamming his fork into the back of my hand at the dinner table and I was yelled at for crying. I have a huge scar on the back of my hand now and I was about six years old at the time.

I am adopted ( adopted at 8 weeks old )
I have a biological sister and she was brought up by our biological parents I didn’t meet her until I was in my late teens early twenties.

I had a very nice , you could say privileged upbringing
My parents were very law abiding and very good people. we lived in a nice house in a nice area.
They weren’t really rich but we never went without anything and I had no trauma in my upbringing . Big extended family around holidays abroad paid for driving lessons and got me my first car .

However despite having a very normal
upbringing I will bend and break rules if I think it’s ok with my own set of morals . I have very little problem in lying if I want something .
i have a horrible horrible temper which scares me sometimes but I rarely lose my temper as I’ve learned to control it over the years . But I can hold a grudge against someone for years

I have no problems in wishing ill on people I don’t like either .
Someone I knew from my school days died recently and honestly I felt quite happy when I was told ( I know that’s not normal ) but she was a bully in school to lots of people and I just felt glad she was dead and I know her death was most likely quite painful . My immediate thought when I was told was serves her right .

But i don’t really like people that much and have no problems with cutting people off completely .
I have never smoked, done drugs and i am
an occasional drinker never been in trouble with the police .
Got straight A in school ( many years ago )
I have been happily married for over 25 years

my biological sister id the complete opposite grown up with a drunk and mentally ill mother and a father who had other kids and didn’t really want to deal with a kid that had “issues”

smoking at a early age led to drugs and drinking , and crime she’s been in and out of prison many times once for 8 years and both her kids have been in and out of the care system for pretty much all of their lives . She’s also been sectioned twice last I heard .

she would take and do anything if she thinks she entitled to it and not give a shit if she was to physically hurt someone

whereas I would think hard about the consequences and if I can get away with it 😂. 😂
I will conform to rules & laws if I need to get something but otherwise I’m quite happy doing what I want
I absolutely hate hate being told No or what to do by anyone.
Years ago an optician told me I couldn’t wear contact lens again gave me such a feeling of rage towards him I felt like hitting with the paperweight on his desk 😂

But i think my sister is just the bad side of me and that if I hadn’t been adopted i would have been just like her as I can see so much of myself in her especially looking back when I was a teenager and a bit wild .
but I think because I had a very stable and loving upbringing that nasty side of me didn’t develop as much

I don’t have anything to do with her anymore as there was a period many years ago where she was incredibly vile towards me and my family because she didn’t have what I had growing up ( her words not mine )

Both of us can be very charming and sociable if we need to be . And surprisingly people seem to like us both .
I have never had a problem making friends but I tend to get bored very quickly of people
I’m quite happy with my own company

There is no cure because it's a neurodevelopmental disorder. Children - and adults, but better if it's picked up in childhood - can be taught about how society works, why it's advantageous to be considerate even if you can't feel empathy, and to manage their aggression.

You almost certainly know a psychopath/sociopath or two. The worry is that, when a psychopathic young person finds a destructive pathway in life, it's probably too late to interest them in social integration. They don't feel fear.

There are, I think, a few in my family but only one was diagnosed (and doesn't tell anyone). The others seem to be getting along OK. And I worked in an industry notorious for rewarding ruthless egotists. Some eventually got fired, but still came out smelling of roses.

I also don’t have a lot of empathy for people in general but you wouldn’t know that by taking to me I can fake being interested in thr most boring shit 😂

I do like animals though and have always had dogs and cats but I don’t get upset when they pass away . I just get another one in a few months

There was a fantastic story line in New Amsterdam season 2, following the psychiatrist's efforts to coach a young psychopath, Juliet. She's really well played by Emma Hong - in this clip, she delivers the perfect 'psychopathic smirk' (at 1:22, when the doctor loses his temper).

I have been teaching 25 years so probably well over 5000 kids and I would say there have been three that fit the criteria. All three were very cold and disturbing kids. Talked about and wrote an about hurting others, animals, weapons. There was just something about them that set them apart from the average naughty kid. I remember a discussion with a colleague following a school shooting in America that if it happened at our school it would be the first boy mentioned below.

One is now serving 20+ years for a machete attack on someone, one murdered an old lady in her home for money and the other died at 21.

It wasn't out of the blue. They didn't act on impluse when cornered. They lured the sweet little boy to his dealth.

There is no explanation for it. It isn't understandable in any circumstances.

A symptom of shit childhood isn't becoming a murderer. There are many who go off the rails and in self destruction mode as a result of ot coping with the memories. But very few could ever possibly bring themselves to do this

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more fitting example of someone intentionally taking a comment out of context and framing it in the most narrow of perspectives

I disagree with this. Children at a very young age have no way of knowing, much less caring, if animals feel pain or distress. We teach them. If they carry on doing it afterwards, we might have a problem.