11 Signs a Child May Become a Psychopath | Psychopathic Risk Factors

Welcome to my scientifically informed insider's look at mental health issues. If you find this video interesting or useful, please like and subscribe to my channel. Oh, I'm Dr. Big, today's question is what are the

signs

that a

child

could

become

a

psychopath

. In fact, I have been asked this question several times and in various ways. Another version here is one of the

signs

that a

child

has already

become

a

psychopath

and I said. the word psychopath. I also received this question with the term antisocial personality disorder. I got this question almost a year ago so it's been a while and I had to do some research on this and I also want to talk to several doctors before I try to answer this question, there really is a lot to this because it is about a construct like psychopathy which has a lot of serious consequences and then of course you refer to this or it relates to children and a lot of times in mental health we don't like to label children as psychopaths and I'll talk more about that in a moment so first let me explore the difference between psychopathy and antisocial person.

I have kind of a SAN area of ​​confusion and that really brings an important component here to this discussion, like understanding that the difference is important here, so psychopathy is a construct, it's not a mental disorder and it has two

factors

, so that there are really two types of psychopathy, primary and secondary, sometimes also called factor. 1 and factor 2 and sometimes to make it even more confusing, psychopathy, factor 1 psychopathy is simply known as psychopathy and factor 2 psychopathy is known as sociopathy, so we have a lot of terms to actually talk about the same ones two types of psychopathy.

Factor 1 psychopathy has traits such as being callous, unemotional, manipulative, deceitful and factor 2 has characteristics that we normally associate with antisocial behavior such as impulsivity, irresponsibility and committing crimes, so factor 1 psychopathy, secondary psychopathy has a stronger association with the mental disorder, antisocial personality, making it an actual mental disorder in the DSM and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual so that someone can be diagnosed with an antisocial personality classifier and again it aligns with the psychopathy factor and has some overlap with psychopathy factor one, so when you look at the research and see how children could have

psychopathic

tendencies many times they talk about antisocial personality and not psychopathy, so to make the Things a little more confusing, antisocial personality or can't be diagnosed until age 18, so before age 18 another disorder called conduct disorder is often used.

Again, when we work with children and the construct of psychopathy, we have a lot of confusing elements here and when you look at the research it is not always clear what they are referring to: factor 1 or factor 2 psychopathy, antisocial personality disorder or conduct disorder, so Answer this question about the signs that a child will become a psychopath. I titled this video 11 Signs a Child Is at Risk for Psychopathy because that's what I'm really talking about here, since we're not going to label children as psychopaths, really talk about the

risk

of psychopathy in the future and psychopathy is an important topic, this is a topic that really deserves more attention, there are not many psychopaths in the general population, according to the research discussed, maybe 1%, but we know that psychopaths are responsible for a large percentage of violent crimes and the exact percentage is not really known because, again, psychopathy is confused with antisocial personality disorder, so we know it's a pretty large percentage.

Some estimates say that up to half of violent crimes may be related to

psychopathic

traits, so I mentioned earlier that we don't label children as psychopaths and talked a little about conduct disorder. It is important to understand here that, in mental health, psychopathy also has a stigma associated with it, which is why you will often see this term. empty in emotional traits, so a child is seen to have a low level of guilt, reduced empathy, callousness, and indifferent behavior. This is sometimes known as prepsychopathic, but I don't really like that term because again it suggests that someone is definitely going to be one. psychopathic or probably going to be psychopathic, then instead of psychopathy we use conduct disorder and specifically with the callous and unemotional trait component there is what is called a specifier attached to that disorder, so it is an element that explains more about the presentation of the disorder and the The specifier for callous and unemotional traits is called limited prosocial emotions, so when you see limited prosocial emotions, that is the same as callous and unemotional traits, and we know that if someone has emotions limited prosocial, you are at higher

risk

of developing psychopathy, we also know that eighty percent of children who have this diagnosis will not become psychopaths, of course, that means that about 20 percent will, so again we have to take this seriously when we see a conduct disorder with limited prosocial emotions.

So, with all this in mind, I talk about a sign that someone could develop psychopathy and that a child could help with psychopathy. It's important to remember that the sign is essentially a risk factor, so we see multiple risk

factors

and a child and worry that they may develop psychopathy one day, but someone can have many risk factors and never develop psychopathy, so what the signs don't necessarily mean that someone will definitely develop psychopathy, they are just things that we see in the literature and different elements that I have seen in the clinic. experience in talking to other doctors that they are indicators of poor prognosis but do not condemn someone to having psychopathy or do not mean with certainty that they will now develop it again.

I have used a lot of references here for this video and I will put the articles that I have used, I will put the references of those articles in the description of this video, so let's start with the eleven signs that the child is at risk for psychopathy now if you want to stop here in terms of this video yes I mean, well, I don't want to get into the different sciences, that's certainly fine. I'm going to avoid being graphic, of course, I want to try to avoid being graphic like I do in all my videos, but some of these signs are a little disturbing.

So if you stop now, you still learned a lot about antisocial personality, psychopathy, and conduct disorder, so that's a win, you can stop now and you'll have learned something, and that's a good thing, the details aren't for everyone, certainly , so now let's move on to the signs. The first three are known as Macdonald's triad and I've seen all three and they seem to have a connection to psychopathy, but again, they don't guarantee that the first one is enuresis and I'm going to group there are a few different elements together here, so bedwetting. . I have also seen children pee on furniture and pee on other children and I think these are really two separate problems.

Enuresis I think is usually a sign of trauma or at least often is a sign of trauma and that may be how it connects to psychopathy in the future, but urinating on furniture or in places where they shouldn't be urinating or certainly urinating on others people and other children is more a sign of domination, the literature is not very clear about this. Some theorists think it's dominance, others just think it's aggression, but either way it's an indicator of poor prognosis, so going to number two would be arson and it's actually not just arson, but a fascination with fire and destruction.

I have seen this take many forms but Usually with children who are very young you will see lighting matches or looking at flames or candles and become fascinated with it and then you will develop the desire to light small fires and then sometimes this leads again to arson, so it usually doesn't happen. Don't start uninterested and go straight to arson, that would be a pretty unusual presentation, it's usually a fascination that develops over time and the flames, looking at flames, watching videos of flames or fires, really gets the child's attention. , which is one of the Things I've noticed, is not something they can really get distracted from, usually too easily, there is a genuine interest in flames, destruction and the power of fire, so the third sign is hurting to small animals, we sometimes see this referred to as torturing or killing small animals. and this one is particularly concerning of all these signs, this one really stands out is a particularly poor prognostic indicator, so again with this one, just as we see with a lot of these signs, it doesn't necessarily start out hurting small animals, so if anyone It just doesn't go from nowhere to having a house pet and torturing it, we usually see this start with an interest in hurting animals and one way this is expressed is in stuffed animals, so I've talked to several counselors in my career who treat children with conduct disorder and specialize in the area of ​​behavioral problems like deadpan traits and many of them have stuffed animals in the office and may have like a teddy bear or something else stuffed animal and they want to see how Kids do therapy with the animal and sometimes it's really disturbing, we know it's a stuffed animal, not a real animal.

I have had doctors tell me stories of how children would rip all the limbs off of a teddy bear or stuffed animal and put the stuffed animal back on. in the door and slamming the door on the stuffed animal's head, flushing the stuffed animal down the toilet, or trying and even trying to set a stuffed animal on fire, so luckily I've never heard of a case where they've managed to locate the fire. but that's pretty disturbing if someone is going to do that to a stuffed animal again, that's a bad sign, they might try doing it to a real animal.

Now, this sign of an injured small animal is one of those signs that we often see when a child comes for counseling because this is an indication that pushes parents over the edge, so if the family cat or dog was hurt by a child at home, that is a time when parents would often seek counseling for a child, so unfortunately this becomes kind. from the point of entry, then the child hurts a small animal and then comes to therapy, so we don't necessarily see the child beforehand. In many cases, this is not something that all children with impassive cow traits will do again. just a sign, it's just an associated characteristic that we see with callous and unemotional traits.

Now the fourth sign or risk factor here is cheating on friends, enemies and individuals who are neutral towards the child. So what do I mean by this now with kids that we don't normally do? We see fraud or manipulation at the level we would see with an adult, but sometimes we see theft of money or toys, so if you think about this, you think about normal child behavior, think about it, maybe some children would steal other children's toys. , This is not like this. It's not particularly shocking or unusual, but what stands out to me with this particular sign is really cheating or stealing from friends, enemies, and people who would be neutral, since that is the distinction.

Usually children at some point steal toys, which is also not very unusual, but not from friends. not from people who already share their toys with them, so that's the line that's crossed here if a child sees another child as an enemy and takes something from them, that's one thing, it's not prosocial, but it's another thing to take away from them. toys or other material goods from a friend that's what really seems unusual to me and that's really what has a stronger connection with psychopathy, not recognizing when someone is an ally, an enemy or a neutral, not recognizing that boundary and then just crossing that boundary, now it's the fifth sign.

It usually applies to slightly younger children, maybe even 3 or 4 years old, but of course it can also apply to slightly older children and this is ignoring another child who is crying. This is a poor prognostic indicator, one of The theory here is that children who have psychopathic tendencies or traits or callous and unemotional traits cannot recognize stress in faces, so if they see another child crying they will not They will react, that is not something they recognize as problematic. And I think the reason this sign tends to matter is because we believe that this inability to recognize distress and faces leads to aggression, so one of the things about someone who has a fearful expression or who is crying In a sense, it can be a sign of submission, it can be a sign that someone is not a threat to you, but if someone can't see that sign, if a child can't recognize that another child is trying to get away from a fight or submit, then the child with cows and emotions It is more likely that his featuresattack, so this really results in a problem where they don't recognize who is trying to dominate them and who is trying to submit to them.

They look at everyone as potentially threatening, so again I'm starting here by ignoring a child who cries and thrashes around for possible attacks, but that's really what we're worried about: what this particular sign has indicated. The sixth sign is dominant with an authority figure, so let me give you some examples of this, one of the most distressing or alarming symptoms or signs related. with this risk factor is attacking a teacher, if we look at the research literature, we see that when a child commits crimes like a teenager commits crimes and they look back at that child's history, most of the time they see some type of incident involving someone. being dominant with an authority figure and many times that comes in the form of attacking a school teacher, so this really breaks the conventional thinking that a child would be afraid to attack a teacher or would submit, instead we see a child trying to dominate.

I've seen this with children too. that they attack the police again that is an indicator of a bad prognosis. I would say that it is a bad sign if a child attacks someone regardless of whether that individual is an authority figure or not, but on top of that what really worries me is when a weapon is used and it is one thing to attack impulsively or try to dominate. to someone who is problematic, but using a weapon shows planning and an intention to actually do a lot of damage and potentially lethal damage, so that's even more concerning when you also add the weapon to the attack.

If the attack is unprovoked, that only adds more alarm to that particular sign, so number seven, the seventh sign that a child could eventually be a psychopath would be committing a crime alone. Many times we see children commit crimes, it is relatively common, but it is Peer pressure is involved, so they get together with other children and the worry about the consequences decreases, they take more risks and then they commit some type of crime or there is There is an element of excitement attached to it, they want to do something together that is exciting, but when we see children committing crimes alone, that is a particularly worrying indicator that is now linked to this crime thing.

I also see that when children get together they sometimes fantasize about crime, like they watch different movies about a jewelry heist, for example, or a bank robbery, and they will start planning the crime, like they could break into the museum. or in the bank at night and steal this high-value item, but if an individual has limited prosocial emotions, they are more likely to introduce the cows into emotional traits. the idea of ​​harming someone in those criminal fantasies, so if children are talking about a bank robbery, hypothetically again they are not seriously planning a bank robbery, but are simply talking about how they would get away with it and a boy introduces the idea of ​​simply hitting the guard. or something like that that really jumps to another level of damage and is an indicator of bad prognosis, so the eighth sign here is the desire to see disturbing images or scenes and this really connects to the lack of empathy, so if there is an article about a car accident like in a newspaper or online and a child agrees that they may be disappointed because they couldn't see the bodies, they couldn't see the bodies in the car accident or the injured bodies, so again most of people can look at the image.

They may want to see how bad Clarkson was, but it's really a desire to see that people got hurt and you can also look at this from another angle. Sometimes children have callous and unemotional traits. They actually brought up this idea that they want to see someone. die, they actually want to see a human being die. This is something I've heard dozens of times and it's no less distressing the twentieth or thirtieth time you hear it as it was the first time and the interesting thing about this is the The child doesn't always want to be the cause of death, but now he just wants to. see death Sometimes he does want to cause death and this only increases the worry even more.

This is probably one of the most disturbing elements we can find. I see the emotional traits of cows when a child tells you as a counselor that he wants to cause someone's death because he wants it to happen, so it's disturbing no matter what the reason is, but for whatever reason to me, anyway, that just hit. I find it particularly disturbing, this one is terrifying and a very poor prognostic indicator, so moving on to number nine, this one is about how sometimes children can be brave in the face of consequences, so one thing we see with callous traits and unemotional is that children are not afraid of waiting times.

They are not afraid of punishment, they are not even afraid of physical pain, so it is related to fearless dominance, which is a characteristic of psychopathy. We also see that after punishment they resume the bad behavior almost immediately, so in reality it is as if the punishment simply had no consequences. Now it doesn't matter at all, the interesting thing about this sign is that many times when it is present, the child will still be motivated by the reward, so he is not afraid of punishment, but he is still motivated by the reward, so it is a kind of Interesting dynamic when it comes to designing behavior plans that will help a child stay away from cows in terms of emotional traits.

The tenth sign is when a child bullies other children and what is particularly notable here with this one is when there is a desire for the child to create fear. in another child, so it's not just about taking something away, but when a child really wants another person to fear them, and what I find interesting here is that again we see a deficit and the ability to recognize fear, but that doesn't mean a child doesn't know fear exists, it's a construct, so the last sign, the eleventh sign that a child could potentially become a psychopath, is bad parenting and we see this over and over again in research literature, cold parenting, having negative reactions to a child when they reveal it. something that doesn't provide a child with positive feedback or is very critical and I think also neglects any kind of neglect and abuse that we know is connected to psychopathy.

The interesting thing here is that if you look at some of the horrible things that parents sometimes do, it becomes understandable like psychopathy, children who become psychopaths eventually become understandable. Now I'm going to go over some of the things I've seen here because it's too much, but some of the traumatic events really just look at the horror. Behind what children have to endure at the hands of some bad parents, criminally bad parents, you wonder how they could become anything other than psychopaths. It makes sense that the child would become cold and distant and try to have the feelings taken away, detach themselves from the feelings and not develop empathy now, another part of this of course, we see in the literature that psychopathic traits in children seem worsen parenting practices, so it's not just a one-way street, sometimes parenting can lead to psychopathy and sometimes psychopathy can lead to bad parenting.

So, as is the case with all of these different signs, the relationship between the sign and psychopathy is complex, so with all this talk about how children can develop psychopathic traits, callous-unemotional traits, and eventually develop psychopathy, does Is there any hope that the treatment will tend to work well? We know that some success has been shown with treatment, so treatment is always a good option and the sooner we know that recovery may be possible, although many doctors believe that the type of recovery is actually just an adjustment so that a child who develops A psychopath may not be an active psychopath in terms of criminality, he may learn to adapt to the norms of society, he may still have many characteristics such as little empathy, but he learns that he can get more of what he wants if follow the law instead of doing it. to break the law, so this is a pretty bleak view of recovery from psychopathy and a boyfriend, some of how a child can become a psychopath, but many doctors believe that psychopathy can't really be eradicated.

Someone may simply adapt to that type of personality, but either way we know that the end result is success in terms of society; We may not always be able to eliminate psychopathy, but we can still help children become productive citizens as they move into adulthood. Again, just acknowledge the concerns and seriousness around psychopathy. It would be dismissive. I think saying that if a child has callous and unemotional traits, there is no risk of him developing into psychopathy and even if she does, we can work it out. with treatment that is simply not the case, there is a risk and the treatment is not always successful and sometimes when it is, it is just functionally successful in society's terms, it doesn't actually change the underlying traits.

Now, on the topic of treatment success, one of the trends that I have seen in recent years and again this is understandable, there are many agencies that struggle to deal with children who have callous and unemotional traits, especially if there is violence. involved, then what happens is that they are expelled from these agencies. agencies that in theory can handle these behaviors, but we see very few agencies that are willing to take children, especially again with the violent aspect included, so really the children who would be most at risk of developing psychopathy. I remember visiting the agency a few years ago when I was walking down the hallway and I went through these interior doors that they had, so we had a hallway.

I was walking through these offices and one of the offices didn't have a door and it seemed unusual because it had a door frame and you could see that at one point there were places where the hinges went but they seemed to be torn off, so I asked one of the counselors what He worked there what had happened and he told me that there was a child they were treating and that one child was around eight years old. He was ten years old and I broke the hinges of the door, so they hit his whole body against the door, including his head, so they just got up.

I got angry and they ran to the door repeatedly so they are inside the office here with the counselor where This happened until the door broke and fell into the hallway and then it just walked away so you saw all the hinges were ripped off the frame of the door and apparently the doorknob had also broken so they never bothered to replace it. they just used the office for something else, I don't know if there is storage or where they used it, but they decided not to replace that door and decided that for similar sessions they were just going to leave the door open and do something else. changes to prevent that from becoming a confidentiality issue and, in addition, they changed their policy so that any violence, any violent act by any child, was like that, they were going to be fired before trying to work with a child, but after of that.

They weren't going to do more and I can appreciate both sides of this entitlement. We need to treat children who have these traits to help prevent them from becoming psychopaths because the damage they can cause as adults, at least in theory, would be great. Worse, we also have to protect counselors and staff and no one wants to work in a work environment where they are threatened and have to fear for their safety, so I can again appreciate both sides of this. I'm not sure there really is any answer except more funding for agencies that are capable of handling children who are at risk of becoming psychopaths but of course it's always a simplistic answer when you say we'll throw more money at the problem but no.

I'm not sure how to approach this problem another way. It won't work with fear, but we have to address the issue of psychopathy because of all the violent crimes that come with it, so it's an interesting problem and I wish I had a better answer in terms of a solution now whenever I talk about issues like psychopathy and antisocial personality, especially one like this, we are talking about the signs that could lead to this and children, I know there will be many strong opinions and several different directions and experiences, so if you have opinions that are the same as mine or different thoughts u others, please put them in the comments as always.

I hope you found my description of the risk factors for psychopathy interesting. Thanks for watching.