Ever suspected a child to have sociopathic tendensies?

[Callate]

Well, yes... I have a niece whose reaction to discovering she's caused someone physical discomfort is to laugh, and I'd be lying if said it didn't disturb the heck out of me.

But I've seen other children pass through such things, and emotional/social development doesn't tend to be a nice linear curve designed to make everyone comfortable. I'd hesitate to seriously consider even an amateur diagnosis of something like "sociopathy" until someone is into puberty unless such disturbing incidents occur on a daily basis and the child seems to revel in antisocial behavior. And that's actually very rare.

 

[Ambitiousmould]

A kid at my little brother's primary school bit another kid until he drew blood. I think that's more than 'kids are monsters'.

I mean yes, kids are dicks, but they learn not to be. If I met young kid me it'd be all I could do not to slap me. That's how much of a little bastard I was. Now I'm fine. Then again I never really had the confidence to do anything that might attract any sort of attention, whereas my older brother was a little shit at times, but in an irritating little bugger way, not a throw stones at the neighbour's dog way. My younger brother is the same way as him. But then again it may just be me being an introverted, reserved type that finds any disobedience and over-confidence to be annoying as buggery.

Which is why when I look after my little brother, I find myself shouting at him a lot. His usual response is to hide his face so I can't see him laughing. It very much undermines my authority, but at least he knows he is doing wrong, and just sees me more as someone to have fun with rather than someone in authority. In fact he'll only listen to what my mother tells him. A couple of years ago he was one of 'the naughty kids' in his class, which most kids aren't, statistically. But it was never anything evil, just general absent-mindedness, not paying attention and talking a lot. Which my older brother also had.

TL;DR Kids are little buggers, but they are mostly not bad people and they aren't immediately excused from being evil. There is certainly a line. I've experienced the pulling animal tails in very young kids (cousins, family friends etc.) and it seems reasonably normal, and a phase they soon leave behind, usually after a stern explanation about why not to do it.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Most children do exhibit sociopathic behaviour up until late adolescence. Kids are a cruel breed who only get away with the shit things they do because they have the excuse of being too innocent and inexperienced to know any better.

From what I can remember, I don?t think I was so much sociopathic as a child as I was just really bad at controlling my temper. I?d just beat up kids if I ever saw them taking the piss out of my best friend and didn?t care if I got in trouble because I felt I did the right thing regardless, and I once got a three-week detention for throwing a pair of scissors at a boy who was constantly teasing me but I accidentally hit the girls next to her. When I think about it, it could?ve been a lot worse if I didn?t have a mother to rein me in with even harsher punishments than my teachers could ever imagine.

I think I did use to hang around with a kid who near-relentlessly bullied one of my other friends and I vividly remember a conversation with him telling me how great he reckoned anal sex would be?but we must?ve been somewhere between the ages of 7 and 12, he might?ve just found some porn one day like a lot of us, and he seems to have turned out fairly well as a teenager (albeit, I?ve only met him, like, twice as a teen). He was basically Reese from Malcolm in the Middle when he was a kid, but not quite as ?sitcom level? dumb.

 

[Bernzz]

My neighbours have two kids. One is fine, the other...

Well, from what I hear, he threw a chemical of some sort over one of their dogs because it was "in his way".
Saw the dog recently (months after the fact), the poor thing still has a missing patch of fur. Nicest animal, too.

That lack of empathy and sheer violence...
He's somewhere between 10 and 13, I think?
Makes me a bit uneasy about his future.

 

[Solsbury_Grille]

I've taught children for 12 years. They're all a little sociopathic to a certain extent. You don't see a lot of them forming a functional conscience until they're finally in their teens.

They just don't know enough to have one. The sad thing is, there are so few parents doing their jobs, that fully functional conscience isn't forming.