Psychopathy is a neuropsychiatric disorder marked where a person has a deficit of emotional responses, lack of empathy, and poor behavioral controls—such psychiatric disorder results in persistent antisocial deviance and criminal behavior. Whether a child will be psychopathic or not, you can identify as early as 3 years of age. Some symptoms dictate psychopathic children, but the problem is often the parents don’t take those symptoms seriously, which results in adverse consequences.
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Symptoms of Psychopathic Children
Lack of empathy
Children with psychopathy do not feel any empathy for other living beings. They have often shown cruelty towards animals and people. Specifically, animal cruelty is an obvious sign of a psychopathic disorder. It is often observed that they kill the people in the same way they kill the animals in the future. The connection between animal abuse and psychopathy is so evident that the F.B.I. in the U.S. even started recording animal abuse cases in their annual criminal reports.
Enuresis
This is a problem when a child often pees at bed during their sleep. No, I am not talking about toddlers or infants. This is applicable for children above 6 years or older However, and it does not always guarantee that he will be a psychopath in the future. But often, we find a relation between the two.
Violating rules
It is not unnatural that children can break glass materials accidentally and feel guilty for the same. Also, they often lie to get rid of scolding from elders. But for psychopaths, this is not the case. They often make mistakes intentionally to experience the adrenaline. They enjoy stealing something or telling lies. Kids with psychopathic traits understand the violation of rules very differently: they get joy and adrenaline. They often lie without remorse and any facial expression. Moreover, they get caught they get angry and often behave hysterically.
Bullying
People often humiliate others for many reasons in normal cases. Some bullies other for getting attention; some just follow as a trait their parents do. But for a psychopath, it is for nothing and to enjoy.
Insensitivity
Children with psychopathic problems don’t demonstrate fear as easily as their peers. At the same time, they don’t sense stress at the same level. Besides, they have no idea what compassion is. According to Heather Irvin, a senior psychologist at the R.E.A.D. Clinic this highly depends on the first year of a child’s age.
“Psychopaths don’t appear out of thin air. You just need to take a look at their early years, at what was happening to these children when they were just born. For example, if they cried for the first six months, and nobody cared for them, nobody fed them when they were hungry, nobody helped them, their brain memorized that and realized that feelings don’t matter. Other brain structures start forming based on this concept.”
On top of that, there is a curious fact: if a child grew up in the right environment, but after the age of 5, there was some violence in their lives, the chances that they will become psychopaths are much lower since their consciousness had enough time to form.
Final verdict
To conclude, we can say parents have an immense responsibility for the mental growth of a child. They are the people who help to see the children in their world. But psychopathy is a medical problem. If the child shows the traits of the psychopath, parents must consult doctors without any deviation to assure a blessed life to the child.