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

This video attempts to answer the question: What are the signs that a child could become a psychopath? or What are the signs that a child has already become a psychopath? I've also received this question with the term antisocial personality disorder. In the mental health community, we don't like to label children as psychopathic. I titled this video 11 signs that a child is at risk for psychopathy because that's what I'm really talking about here because we're not going to label children as psychopaths. We are really talking about the risk for future psychopathy.

1. bedwetting
2. arson, fascination with fire, destroying property
3. hurting small animals, practicing on stuffed animals,
4. cheating friends, enemies, and those who are neutral
5. ignoring another child who is crying, failing to recognize distress in faces
6. attacking a teacher, being dominant with authority figure, attacking anyone with a weapon
7. committing a crime alone, fantasizing about a crime
8. desire to see disturbing images or scenes, want to see a person die
9. fearless, not worried about consequences, resuming bad behavior right after punishment
10. bullying, wanting people to fear them
11. cold parenting and negative reactions to disclosure, neglect, highly critical parenting

Waller, R., Dishion, T. J., Shaw, D. S., Gardner, F., Wilson, M. N., & Hyde, L. W. (2016). Does early childhood callous-unemotional behavior uniquely predict behavior problems or callous-unemotional behavior in late childhood?. Developmental Psychology, 52(11), 1805-1819. doi:10.1037/dev0000165

Salekin, R. T. (2017). Research Review: What do we know about psychopathic traits in children? Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 58(11), 1180–1200.

[dizzyfingers]

My youngest brother is a psychopath. He exhibited all 11 traits, including “poor parents” who ignored his problems because they did not want people to “find out.” As my brother got older, his crimes got more heinous, made the nationwide news, and my parents isolated themselves from the world. If you think sweeping your child’s psychological problems under the rug will save your reputation, think again.

[pw]

Yes, my adopted daughter made mincemeat out of all the therapist, so manipulative. She throw out something as a distraction and we'd spend our whole hour talking about nonsense, things that actually didn't happen. Nothing would be accomplished. She would walk out laughing, proud of herself. Everyone always believed her. They never checked the facts, only took her at face value. No consequences mattered to her. She had massive trauma before we adopted her. They never saw her coming. She is an adult now but childhood was hell. There wasn't a home that could handle her. Everybody gave up on her and told me to also. They were trying to convince us to give her to cps but I refused. Too dangerous to stay in my home but I held on to my rights barely by a thread. Now as an adult she is doing good. She spent her childhood trying to get away from me. I spent it trying to hold on. Now she realizes that I was the only one that ever cared and has no idea why she did what she did. All the time I thought she was not learning and taking anything in of my morals in my values. Turns out she was storing it for later use. I made a difference after all. They can change a bit. She's not perfect but she can live in society and follow the rules. That's not something she could do before.

[la]

What the most disturbing thing is how callous ADULTS are to children by neglecting them emotionally.

[leokimvideo]

I clearly remember a child at school in the 80's who was a loner and was always quiet. In later high school he was connected to the slaughter of all the animals in the small farm garden the school had. Chickens, goats, and ducks were killed. On top of that he attempted to set a fire to totally destroy the teaching facility. He was around 16 when this happened and he just vanished. His actions had a huge effect on many other children at the school. No one could understand how a child could be so vicious. Watching this video now lets me understand he was a classic Psychopath.

[gil]

Having a parent who is inconsistent is also very abusive. Never knowing how your parent will be from day to day. My mother was like that. She would be loving one day and the next become a raving lunatic.. She even threatened to kill us. We were often terrified of our mother. She was also a prescription drug addict, which no doubt added to the problem. My father was a cold man who was more interested in advancing his career and his own self image than what was happening to his children. I never felt "safe" anywhere, not even in my own home. I was extremely insecure in school, as well, was fearful of other children and cried a lot. I managed to grow past all this and put my life together. Now I've been married for many years and have children and grandchildren. I see myself as a fortunate survivor. My sister was not. She committed suicide at 43.

[TaylorKilledTheCat]

I never knew the urinating aspect of this. My brother has all of these traits, and I remember he wet the bed until he was 12 years old, and once I was sitting on the stairs and he came behind me and peed on my head. My brother is 3 years younger than me, and terrorized me in child hood. Tried to stab me multiple times. My parents thought this was hilarious. This is extremely validating. Thank you for making these videos.

[amandal]

As an adoptee myself, who simply has only been diagnosed ADD, I’ve noticed that being adopted in itself can cause what appears to be, borderline personality, and that is why it is difficult to pinpoint, bc it depends on the adoption situation. Neglect, abandonment and related traumas are the root issue with these. Being given up before you even have a chance is unbelievably traumatic.

[pinkyi]

1. Urinating on other kids
2. Arsen or interest in flames
3. Hurting small animals (and stuff animals)
4. Cheating friends, enemies or people that are neutral, stealing money/toys
5. Ignoring another child who is crying and moving to potential attacks
6. Attacking a teacher or police officer with a weapon
7. Committing a crime alone
8. A desire to see disturbing images/scenes
9. Fearless with consequences
10. Bullying other children
11. Cold/poor parenting

[laurasweightlossjourney]

When I was a child/early teens, my mom found Conduct Disorder online and “diagnosed” me with it. She’d tell all my teachers I had it, she’d ask people at church to pray for me so that I didn’t turn into a psychopath. Keep in mind, she never took me to a doctor or anything, just decided with her Degree from Google U. It wasn’t until I was in high school and had a teacher who helped me get help when she learned that my mom didn’t get an actual diagnosis and didn’t have me in therapy at all. I was eventually diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and OCD. I spent my whole childhood being told I was going to be this terrible person no one was gonna want to be around because my mom just decided I had CD. I was also diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder later, which runs in my family and I was always told growing up that my family members with it were just terrible people who chose to be “difficult” by my parents.

Needless to say, as an adult in therapy, PTSD from all that childhood trauma got added to the list.
I implore all parents to actually see a professional if you think your child is having problems, don’t google diagnose them.

[andreevaillancourt]

Had a cousin, who when around the age of 5, used to torture small animals slowly to death. His parents didn't get him help because of the social stigma of getting mental health services. They treated him as if his behaviour was normal, and gave him everything he wanted whenever he wanted it. He of course only got worse, and grew up to be an exceedingly violent gang member. He used to put me in the hospital regularly throughout my childhood.(he was three years older than me, and twice, to three times my size) All I ever wanted was for some adult to make him STOP!!! But no one ever did. Thanks for nothing to all those adults who were in the picture at the time and never lifted a finger to help me.

[gabrielleangelica]

As a retired Child Welfare Worker and teacher, society makes excuses for any red flags it sees.

[BucketHeadianHagg]

Doctor! I only just realized today that people are still watching your college courses, and that you have *millions of views on them!* You really are helping people so much. Thank you for making these free to watch.

[vihaze]

"I had to do a lot of research on this and I wanted to talk to a lot of clinicians before I attempted to answer it" And this is why you're one of the very few sources I trust in regard to mental health on YouTube. Thank you for actually caring about credibility and fact and not just pulling a 'Rewired Soul' and talking out of your ass.

[Ezra]

I have a lot of these traits, most of them, and I’ve struggled all my life trying to overcome them. I’ve been working on my mental health pretty seriously for around 7 years now, and I’ve come a very long way. At this point I’ve come to terms with the fact that at the least I have some psychopathic traits. With lots of treatment, therapy, effective meds, dedication, and hard work, I’m now in the range of normalcy for most things, with some areas that I still truffle with, and in some areas I excel. But it’s an active process for me. When I put important aspects of my life on “auto-pilot, ” things can deteriorate pretty quickly. It takes a lot of focus to stay on an upward trajectory. These videos help me understand myself and my past, to piece things together, and help me stay motivated to keep learning and searching within to understand myself and the world I live in. Thank you so much!

[ppandthechipsies]

Hi. I am a 40 year old man from Canada. Thank you for producing this video. With a heavy heartI I say this has explained a few things from my childhood. I don’t remember much before the age of six but at that age my family moved to a small town from a big city. I remember many times hurting our barn cats our dog and enjoying shooting birds with a stolen gun. I also played with fire a lot and burned down our neighbours barn. I would steel my older brothers toys and sell them at school. I would repeatedly get into fights and many times fiight kids much older then me. One time I got angry with my friend and chased him down and stabbed him with a pencil. I tell you this because I have gotten much better and in my adult years even though life has been hard I have been able to keep my loving wife and two children and run a successful business. I am tormented by my past and still struggle with lack of emotion and empathy but I do live a relatively content life. Thank you again.

[SweetUniverse]

I never wanted to have children, so I didn't. I've never had any regrets. I never wanted to be married or have a family of my own. I was afraid I'd be a parent like my own. It's a miracle that I didn't grow up to be a psychopath. When I was in grade school I knew a kid who was like you're describing. We were all afraid of him. One morning our teacher spoke to us before the day started. She said that a-hole kid's father had killed his mother & we were being asked to say NOTHING about it. So that explained that. That was the kind of home he came from.

[heatherhillman]

I would just like to point out that not every psychopath has/had bad parents.

[no_namegkjhfkashfkdshflkjdashf]

I was misdiagnosed when I was 10 or 11 as a child with ASPD. I was in foster care, was very angry, antisocial, and numb. I’m still dealing with the after effects of being labeled with that. I was literally called a monster, constantly. I deeply hated everyone for a very long time for that. In reality I had/have PTSD, ADHD and Autism. Part of me still hates the people that convinced me that I was a horrible person. The other part of me is desperately trying to prove them wrong.

[toocutepuppies]

My adult son hits almost every single point on that scale. When he was 2 he broke a door off it's hinges, at 3 he started peeing in the corner of his closet. At four he drowned a batch of kittens, by 8 he set a local hotel on fire (he graduated from newspapers). He was in therapy from the age of 4. By 8 he was hurting his older sister and couldn't stay with us any longer. He kind of functions now, but only barely. He can't hold a job and has huge anger issues. I'm afraid of him. I had to choose between my healthy child or my sick child, who would probably never get better. I chose my well child and let the State raise the sick one, with doctors and qualified attendants 24 hours a day. My daughter is doing very well today, she has a college degree and she's now the boss at work. I'm so proud of her and giving up my sick child was the best decision I could have made for everybody. (Edit - Thank you every body for your kind and supportive comments. I really appreciate it. 🥰)

[SofiUk]

It must be devastating for good parents to see legitimate concerns in their children, I couldn't imagine having to parent thru that, my heart goes out to you