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
Hyde, L. W., Waller, R., Trentacosta, C. J., Shaw, D. S., Neiderhiser, J. M., Ganiban, J. M., & ... Leve, L. D. (2016). Heritable and nonheritable pathways to early callous-unemotional behaviors. The American Journal Of Psychiatry, 173(9), 903-910. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2016.15111381
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.
