Can You Call a 9-yo a Psychopath?

[prayers4missing]

My friends 8yo son is currently in a mental hospital. He has put a knife to my friends throat and threatened to kill her, they just found out he molested his 2yo sister, and he purposefully set fire to their barn where 6 animals died.

My friend is an amazing mother, she has tried therapy with him for years, but it was time for inpatient treatment.

So yes in answer I to the article I do believe that kids can be called psychopaths.

 

[concentric]

I worked in the Los Angeles Public School System for quite awhile, and i saw my share of kids with mental health issues and behavioral problems. But I only know of two elementary school students who I believe would be future psychopaths. One did end up in prison for a drive by gang shooting, but I don't know what happened to the scarier one.

We had this one kid who was actually doing forced sexual things to other kids when he was 6. It was reported to CPS and we thought, assumed, he was an abuse victim. But that was never verified and he insisted he was not. But he had very strong and impulsive sexual desires and he was also violent. He got kicked out and was sent to a school for kids with emotional problems, but his younger sibs stayed at our school, so he would come and pick them up and he would come to school events. And we would have at least two adults assigned to watch him like a hawk every time he came on campus.

When he was in kindergarten he 'accidentally' killed the classroom mascot,a bunny. He was the last one to leave the room at lunch because he forgot something and ran back inside, while the teachers aide waited for him outside, and when they all came in from lunch, the bunny was found dead with a broken neck.
He 'accidentally' kicked other kids in the head while on the monkey bars, and stepped on kids fingers really hard. He hid in the girls bathroom and peeked under the stalls. :what:

He would play with himself in class, in full view of everyone. He would have violent tantrums where he would destroy everything he could, before anyone could even stop him. He was big and strong, muscular even, at age 6. And he would bite and spit and kick and pike you in the eyes when you tried to hold on to him.
Other times he would run off and hide or leave the campus all together. And his mom would be really mad, that we let him get away. We had safeguards and security in place, but if a kid is sneaky and cunning, they can escape.

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JMO: I have to wonder if this child was abused by someone outside of the immediate family, or in another social context, i.e., church, child care, etc., etc.

 

[katydid23]

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JMO: I have to wonder if this child was abused by someone outside of the immediate family, or in another social context, i.e., church, child care, etc., etc.

There was quite a long investigation into that. They were not able to find anything. The family did not attend church or have childcare outside the home.
The other siblings had no issues like this at all. So it was kind of a mystery.

 

[Nova]

BBM

I completely agree. Even kids who like to torture and kill bugs scare me a little. I realize that may going a tad overboard but it bothers me. Granted, I'm the one who lets spiders outside rather than stepping on them, so take that for what it's worth.

BBM: It's called "being a boy." (Maybe "being a girl", too, but I was never one of those.) You'd have trouble finding a less violent adult than I, but even I went through a stage (at 10 or 11) of "waging war" on fire ants and cockroaches.

Even then, it wouldn't have occurred to me to hurt a kitten or a human child.

I agree with those who are leery of slapping the "psychopath" label on young children because it will be an excuse to give up on them. I also think the label itself is both overly broad and vague.

 

[impatientredhead]

Mary Bell is a very interesting example. She's been freed from prison for about 15 years and has gone on to live a perfectly law abiding life, so I'm not sure how accurate a childhood diagnosis of psychopathy can really be.

Ack, just lost my post so I apologize in advance if two versions of this show up.

What does law abiding mean? Especially in case of someone convicted of previous crimes of cruelty and violence? Do they really truly become functioning people that have gained the ability to empathize and care about other living creatures? And as huge of an obstacle as gaining those traits, now we are also going to believe that they developed the impulse control and coping skills to not act out during times of rage and frustration.

I would like to believe our "rehabilitation" system is capable of that, but I have to say to my cynical self it seems a thousand times more likely that we just sent them to criminal finishing skills where they improved their ability to not get caught a in future acts.

If we are able to identify and intervene with a potential sociopath child I have to think intervention BEFORE they commit seriously violent and sadistic acts would be key. Kind of like the theory that if you can identify a young man, late teens to very early twenties, that has developed an interest in child *advertiser censored* but he has NOT had any physical acts.... well if it possible at all to rewire sexually deviant desires that is your treatable demographic.

Just my thoughts, MOs, etc

 

[DairyGirl]

I had a friend who's son definitely had issues. He had several different diagnoses, including ODD (oppositional defiant disorder), ADHD, Bi Polar, Depression, Anxiety and other things. She was a terrible mother, very ineffective and not consistent at all. She was a single mother and had no control over him from day one, but he was also a very difficult child, always crying and having tantrums. She had a great deal of difficulty even toilet training him. If she wanted him to do one thing he did the other. I remember joking with her, saying that by the time he went to kindergarten he would be out of diapers. I was wrong. Last I spoke with her, 9 years ago, he still wouldn't use the toilet at age 10. He had accidents at school and the kids would make fun of him and he would get very angry and violent with them but you would think that would give him the motivation to use the bathroom but he refused. He knew perfectly well how to do it but he just wouldn't. She tried everything. He couldn't control his temper at all and one time he killed his pet hamster. At that point I was afraid to have him around my kids since he was so volatile. He took all kinds of medication and had all kinds of therapy but never seemed to get better. He even spent time in a residential treatment facility but the state wouldn't pay for continued care.
He is around 19 now and I would be very surprised if he didn't have a criminal record by now.

 

[crystalgenie]

Mary Bell is a very interesting example. She's been freed from prison for about 15 years and has gone on to live a perfectly law abiding life, so I'm not sure how acceurate a childhood diagnosis of psychopathy can really be.

Just because Mary Bell hasn't acted upon her psychopathy doesn't mean the diagnosis was wrong. We do not know if she still gets joy from watching violent movies or reading about serial killers... we just know she hasn't been caught doing anything.

There is always the discussion of nature vs. nurture and I most assuredly side with nature. Most psychopaths are born.

 

[hollyblue]

Thanks Hopeful One for an interesting article. I'm in agreement that more research and studies need to be done and that many of the disorders, including psychopathy, do overlap, but it does exist in children. I think there are "levels" of it just as with the spectrum of other disorders.

The most frightening to me are the traits of manipulation...with that so cunning skill and no feelings of remorse. It's just a game to win....at all and any costs. I can have empathy for them because they are sick, but at the same time..anyone that makes the hair on the nape of my neck stand up, my lip curl and nauseous all at the same time..I don't care to share any space or time with. It's your instincts screaming at full tilt.

 

[Nova]

I think the whole idea of allowing social scientists to label certain individuals as "likely to commit violent crime" is a very slippery slope. Especially if we communicate that label to the individual and use it for official intervention.

It's not as though the field of psychotherapy does such a good job of predicting future violence in adults who have already offended. Are we really going to trust the field to dictate childhood interventions?

 

[Kat]

I found this the other day. I thought it was interesting. Rather than apply the label of psycopathy to a child or adolescent it's more important to identify certain characteristics in order to provide them with supportive therapies. JMHO

http://news.fiu.edu/2012/05/new-yor...-fiu-research-on-callous-unemotional-children

 

[sleuthin4fun]

Just because Mary Bell hasn't acted upon her psychopathy doesn't mean the diagnosis was wrong. We do not know if she still gets joy from watching violent movies or reading about serial killers... we just know she hasn't been caught doing anything.

There is always the discussion of nature vs. nurture and I most assuredly side with nature. Most psychopaths are born.

I remember watching the television show about Mary Bell- I believe it was in this episode of Killer Kids that they stated "Not every psychopath is a serial killer, but every serial killer is a psychopath."

 

[cluciano63]

I think it is a problem if parents or other adults have seen children abusing animals and don't take some kind of action right then. How many times have we heard, once a serial killer is caught, that "oh, he was always killing kittens etc..."? So people knew about it...JMO

 

[Nova]

I think it is a problem if parents or other adults have seen children abusing animals and don't take some kind of action right then. How many times have we heard, once a serial killer is caught, that "oh, he was always killing kittens etc..."? So people knew about it...JMO

I agree 100%.

 

[drip~drop]

BBM

I completely agree. Even kids who like to torture and kill bugs scare me a little. I realize that may going a tad overboard but it bothers me. Granted, I'm the one who lets spiders outside rather than stepping on them, so take that for what it's worth.

You are not alone my friend.
Unless it's a recluse tho. Those gotta go.

 

[drip~drop]

I had a friend who's son definitely had issues. He had several different diagnoses, including ODD (oppositional defiant disorder), ADHD, Bi Polar, Depression, Anxiety and other things. She was a terrible mother, very ineffective and not consistent at all. She was a single mother and had no control over him from day one, but he was also a very difficult child, always crying and having tantrums. She had a great deal of difficulty even toilet training him. If she wanted him to do one thing he did the other. I remember joking with her, saying that by the time he went to kindergarten he would be out of diapers. I was wrong. Last I spoke with her, 9 years ago, he still wouldn't use the toilet at age 10. He had accidents at school and the kids would make fun of him and he would get very angry and violent with them but you would think that would give him the motivation to use the bathroom but he refused. He knew perfectly well how to do it but he just wouldn't. She tried everything. He couldn't control his temper at all and one time he killed his pet hamster. At that point I was afraid to have him around my kids since he was so volatile. He took all kinds of medication and had all kinds of therapy but never seemed to get better. He even spent time in a residential treatment facility but the state wouldn't pay for continued care.
He is around 19 now and I would be very surprised if he didn't have a criminal record by now.

hmmmm nappys in jail should go over real well.
I sure hope he has learned control by now. over his tantrums and bathroom issues. yikes.

 

[nyc]

It's really astounding to me in that in all this discussion of these serious behavioral and emotional issues in children, there is no reference to possible nutritional causes or treatments. If you research something like the GAPS diet, you'll see a lot of documentation of cases where neurological impairment--leading to all kinds of behavioral issues--was directly tied to a digestive system being badly out of balance (without the proper bacteria to digest properly or with an overgrowth of bad bacteria). In a number of these cases, the bacteria can even produce neurotoxins that are effectively poisoning a person's brain. (The gut and the brain are very closely connected physiologically.) These kinds of issues can be passed down from parents to children, since children end up with the same gut bacteria as their parents, in most cases. In this article, it was interesting to me that the father had had serious anti-social tendencies and issues as a child that he had eventually outgrown. I don't know whether that is the answer for a child like this, but I would definitely look into trying some serious diet modification (and for the children who are the worst off, it's a pretty rigid approach for a number of years). It isn't any easy route, but it's much preferable to the alternatives.

Linnea

 

[x_files]

I think it is a problem if parents or other adults have seen children abusing animals and don't take some kind of action right then. How many times have we heard, once a serial killer is caught, that "oh, he was always killing kittens etc..."? So people knew about it...JMO

I would distance myself fro anyone who tortures animals, bugs or other people.
If it was my child I'd get help for them asap.
scary. It's not normal.
The kids I knew that were violent grew up to have violent criminal records.

 

[Nova]

I would distance myself fro anyone who tortures animals, bugs or other people.
If it was my child I'd get help for them asap.
scary. It's not normal.
The kids I knew that were violent grew up to have violent criminal records.

Not to belabor the point, but I don't know of a boy who never pulled the wings off a fly to see what would happen. If such activities become an obsession, or if he graduates to torturing house pets or other children, I would be concerned.

But as more than one expert has pointed out, we've come very close to outlawing boyhood altogether. Let's don't freak out every time some kid pores bleach down an anthill. You can bet he's heard adults talking about killing bugs and sees no reason not to do the same.

 

[brighidin]

I was watching the show 'Killer Kids', it is on Bio.

Mary Bell was 10 or 11 when she made her first kill. She even knocked on the grieving family's door and asked to see the litttle boy in his coffin. She took great glee in murder and watching the victim's family suffer.

She was diagnosed as a psychopath at the age of 10 or 11.


http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/famous/bell/index_1.html

After reading that, I would suggest that her actions were due to abuse, overdoses and a severe lack of bonding rather than simply bring born an evil psychopath. I'm not saying some children don't exhibit the symptoms, they very well could, but Mary Bell isn't the best example because of all the problems she had in her childhood.

imo.

 

[sharkeyes]

Absolutely! Psychotic illness is not discriminatory. Thorazine, Haldol, Mellaril, all very effective medications.