have you read this? NY Times article about child psychopaths

[Anonymous]

And so we witness the creation of a new self-diagnosis fad ... Now every kid who before would just be a "bad kid" is actually a psychopath ... Line 'em up for their daily risperdal!

[Anonymous]

I think it was ill advised to put all these kids together. Summer camp for psychopaths indeed. Learn how to be even better at being cruel and getting away with it!

I agree that there are indeed psychopaths in our midst and they were children once, too. The traits are there in childhood. If we can diagnose and intervene to keep these kids from growing up to hurt people, that can only be a good thing. Even better if we can actually reach them and instill empathy and a genuine ability to love.

I keep thinking of the men who killed the Petit family in Connecticut. How cold they are even now in interviews. How they just don't seem to FEEL anything. One of them picked the victims, went home and put his own child to bed, then came back to the Petit home to tie those girls up etc. He talks about having to live with what he did, but his statements convey no genuine remorse. If someone had intervened effectively when he was a child, could his victims have been spared?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And so we witness the creation of a new self-diagnosis fad ... Now every kid who before would just be a "bad kid" is actually a psychopath ... Line 'em up for their daily risperdal!

There's a difference from being a badly behaved kid and failing to ever internalize feelings for others. Having no sense of horror at watching someone drown. Having no sense of guilt, however you've used and victimized someone.

[Anonymous]

sounds like bad parenting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly like my nephew but he has been labeled as bipolar and/or early onset schizophrenic. While he is only in 3rd grade he has spent most of this year inpatient on a psych ward for similar behavior. It has been horrible to watch from the outside.

We weren't sure what was going on but around 18 months is when I really started to notice that he was completey different than my similarly aged son. My sister and I both have older sons and he was different from them too. The tantrum were so much more than the other kids. We ignored it thinking he was just more sensitive/emotional than the others. Anyways, as he has gotten older it has become worse. Harming of family members is really when they began to realize that he most likely couldn't even be in the family setting any longer.

So sad. Glad they are protecting family members. Hugs to you and your family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly like my nephew but he has been labeled as bipolar and/or early onset schizophrenic. While he is only in 3rd grade he has spent most of this year inpatient on a psych ward for similar behavior. It has been horrible to watch from the outside.

We weren't sure what was going on but around 18 months is when I really started to notice that he was completey different than my similarly aged son. My sister and I both have older sons and he was different from them too. The tantrum were so much more than the other kids. We ignored it thinking he was just more sensitive/emotional than the others. Anyways, as he has gotten older it has become worse. Harming of family members is really when they began to realize that he most likely couldn't even be in the family setting any longer.

So sad. Glad they are protecting family members. Hugs to you and your family.

More hugs. I can imagine how difficult this is for your family.

[Anonymous]

This was a tough article for me. I dated a sociopath right after college and I still wake at night in panic from a dream drawing on those days. He was not physically violent but emotionally abusive, brutally judgmental, and wholly unrepentant. If you asked my college peers, I would probably be the last woman they pegged being in that kind of relationship. But there I was, ever increasingly isolated from friends and completely baffled by how I could always be so wrong. His family knew he had troubled relations with women and others (folks who had "wronged" him), but they were very clear that he was family and that those menaced by him were on their own.

While the groups of kids sounded troubling, I am not a mental health professional, so my perspective, when reading this article, was "thank god someone is trying to do something." I was horrified when the journalist reported that some professionals felt it was better to do nothing so these folks were not stigmatized. Seriously? People are murdered, swindled, driven to suicide by these folks and their worry is that they will be stigmatized? Wow.

That said, I have friends who are struggling with their DC, who displays some, though no means all, of these traits. My heart goes out to them and I try to support them as best as I can. While I never leave my children alone with their DC, I also don't shun. I guess, because of my experience, I believe I have some insight and hope that positive interactions may help DC's development.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And so we witness the creation of a new self-diagnosis fad ... Now every kid who before would just be a "bad kid" is actually a psychopath ... Line 'em up for their daily risperdal!

There's a difference from being a badly behaved kid and failing to ever internalize feelings for others. Having no sense of horror at watching someone drown. Having no sense of guilt, however you've used and victimized someone.

No doubt - but thay doesn't mean that we can diagnose and medically treat "lack of empathy" - and certainly not withot a whole shitton of overdiagnosis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And so we witness the creation of a new self-diagnosis fad ... Now every kid who before would just be a "bad kid" is actually a psychopath ... Line 'em up for their daily risperdal!

I could NOT disagree with you more. I know a child like this, he is 11 now. He is truly scary. He NEVER accepts that anything he does is wrong. He never apologizes. He plays horribly cruel and physically painful tricks on his younger sisters. When he was younger he would get other, gullible, innocent, kids to do things, dangerous things, and then stand back to watch, and "see" what happened. When the other child got hurt or got in trouble, he always acted like he had nothing to do with it and was "oh so concerned that Jimmy would do such a thing." His rages were beyond shocking to experience. It is scary as hell in an adult and utterly terrifying in a child.

Sociopaths definitely do exist and I have long thought they were born that way. If we can do something to change these people by intervening in childhood then for god's sake we should do so. Even a misdiagnosis is better than doing nothing. A bad kid is very different then a sociopathic kid and that is quite obvious from the article, and if you ahve ever read about sociopaths or even read the diagnostic questionnaire they mention in the article.

To another PP - this IS not parenting. This is a mental condition that needs treatment desperately - I am so happy to hear they are trying to find a way to treat this condition and hopefully decrease the number of brutal and ruthless sociopathic adults in the general population.

[Anonymous]

I feel bad for the parents. What the heck do you do with a kid like this? I guess they only have to wait a few years before they could put him into residential treatment. With any luck, they will get the chance to terminate their parental rights in a few years so they don't drain their savings/retirement paying for residential care.

Terrible to say, but sometimes I think just drug the hell out of them until they are compliant and keep them drugged up. Better than them going out and killing someone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And so we witness the creation of a new self-diagnosis fad ... Now every kid who before would just be a "bad kid" is actually a psychopath ... Line 'em up for their daily risperdal!

There's a difference from being a badly behaved kid and failing to ever internalize feelings for others. Having no sense of horror at watching someone drown. Having no sense of guilt, however you've used and victimized someone.

No doubt - but thay doesn't mean that we can diagnose and medically treat "lack of empathy" - and certainly not withot a whole shitton of overdiagnosis.

Not sure you are right. There are programs that treat kids who suffer from PTSD, RAD and the like as a result of severe abuse and neglect (think Eastern European orphanage type of neglect). They do treat lack of empathy and work to promote the ability to bond, feel remorse and develop the ability,to bond.

[Anonymous]

I am a school psychologist and cringed when I read that the kids were grouped together. I hope they are following up with providing support at the students' schools. They all probably learned how to be more disruptive and manipulative. One kid like that ruins the classroom for all the other students. At one school we have a similar type of student enrolled. The patents refuse to agree to place him at a special school. Three of his classmates left the school. At least once a week we have to evacuate the classroom when he goes on a rampage. He is physically and verbally aggressive (he whispers in your ear in a calm voice that he is going to kill you).

This is terrifying. It is unbelievable that the school adminstrators and counselors are not able to take action and remove this child from the school to provide services for him and to protect his classmates. Our social services/education systems are broken. Heartbreaking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree the article was "chilling". But , I don't see why the author seemed surprised that there is such a thing as psychopathic kids ... their wiring for deviancy might just be there from birth.

The reason for this is that traditionally the mental health profession won't diagnose a person with a personality disorder until they are at least 18 years old, on the theory that personality is still fluid and forming in childhood through adolescence. Psychopathy (called Antisocial Personality Disorder in the DSM-IV) is a personality disorder. All of that aside, I think the research is coming around to show that at least psychopathic traits are present from an early age -- well before adulthood. Officially, the DSM would assign children with these traits as having Conduct Disorder, but there isn't agreement in the field about whether this captures the true nature of psychopathy. A key element of the psychopath is a high need for sensation seeking and a high tolerance for emotional distress. These traits aren't present in many individuals diagnosed with Conduct Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder.

[Anonymous]

Truly chilling. I watched the criminal minds episode, Michael's mother mentioned on pg 8. Not only did the boy kill his younger brother for breaking his plane, he shoved the broken pieces of the plane down the boy's throat. I had nightmares about that episode and was only glad it was fiction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Truly chilling. I watched the criminal minds episode, Michael's mother mentioned on pg 8. Not only did the boy kill his younger brother for breaking his plane, he shoved the broken pieces of the plane down the boy's throat. I had nightmares about that episode and was only glad it was fiction.

too much tv not enough parenting, its all bull shit