Poll: 10 year old murders baby brother

[Acting like a FOOL]

I don't understand what it is about people that they have to make every instance of tragedy or suffering devolve into a chain of suffering.there's crimes then there's accidents.

 

[artanis_neravar]

Does the 10 year:
Wet the bed?
Start fires?
kill animals?
feel sorry?

 

[InfiniteSingularity]

Who the fuck shakes a baby? Even if you're 9 that's pretty fucking stupid, I'd say it's the girls fault. On the other hand, what about the parents? Didn't they tell the girl to "be careful with babies" because they break easily? Especially given it's their baby son, you'd think they'd sort of teach the girl how to take care of a baby.

 

[Katana314]

I don't hold either side accountable. I think they both made some bad mistakes, and deserve some reprimand, but I could never call either the 10-year-old or the babysitter a "murderer".

We do all we can to prevent things like this from happening. But sometimes things happen you just don't expect. It's possible that in that child's 10 years, nobody specifically said to her...
"Did you know that if you shake a baby too much, it dies or gets serious trauma?"
And I'm sure anyone who has babysitted a kid hasn't just glued eyes on them every single second of every minute. Sure, stepping away for a few minutes is bad, but would you charge that babysitter with murder SOLELY for stepping away for 10 minutes, even if a death hadn't taken place? You wouldn't come screaming at her, saying "THAT BABY COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED WHILE YOU WERE AWAY!!"

I also think a lot of people are sorely mistaking how mature someone is at 10 years old. I have watched my younger cousins grow up; 10 is not the "goo goo ga ga...DA!" stage.

Stop thinking about "blame", or "revenge". This is just a tragedy. We learn lessons as a result, but it seems like people aren't thinking about what to do to prevent this; just who should pay for it.

 

[BanthaFodder]

sad sad story...

but yeah, the babysitter shares some of the blame.
but the part about the 9 year old not knowing that it would hurt the baby is BS. I was 8 when my brother was born and I was taught all about how fragile a baby is, how you can't shake them, you have to support their neck, you can't mess with their soft spot, etc.
the babysitter wasn't watching the kids, so that's her fault and the 9 year old definatley should have known better.

thefault lies with both of them, but for different reasons. this "oh, children are perfect little angels, nothing should be done to these precious snowflakes if they do something wrong, they don't know any better". sure, I doubt the little girl was TRYING to kill her baby brother, but she definatly should have known that shaking the baby would hurt him.

 

[Bek359]

The babysitter should be charged for not taking care of the children. It was her job to take care of both children. She left an unsupervised baby with a 10 year old, an age at which legally you are not responsible for your actions. She's not a teenager, she's a child that pretty much does not discern from good, bad and everything in between unless told. She should not be charged with murder at an age where your mind is still growing.

Let me put it in another way. How many times as a teenager have you reflected back on your childhood and thought "man, I was stupid!". The same way this girl will look at her past self, except she won't think "man, I was stupid!", she'll probably consider suicide for taking another humans life unless she has some sort of mental illness. You're pretty much a different person every year until you become a teenager, an age where these "changes" tend to occur less frequently.

I feel sorry for the child. This stain will remain on her record for life, make it impossible to get a job or hell, live her life because of something she did at a point where the concept of counciousness was not present. She should be consulted by a psychiatrist and a physician to rule out any serious mental or physical illnesses that could have lead to this. A criminal record will do nothing to "rehabilitate" her. In fact, it WILL lead to suicide.

She needs counseling, not third degree murder charges. This was an accident.







EDIT:

In fact, I believe anything a person does well up until his 20's is accidental. A child's mind is to feeble to discern when it has done something wrong. Their sense of morality comes from someone else, usually the parents but they are easily influenced. By the time a person reaches teenagehood and they can actually discern from what is acceptable and what is not and at the same time use logic when making decisions their mind is extremely subsceptible to social influences. A teen who has done something that is considered "wrong" should be helped, not punished. In fact, this goes for every person who does not posses a mental illness. You can claim that once you legally become an adult you should discern from right and wrong but that's not true. Punishing a child for doing something they don't understand is wrong.

In fact, every single violent human behavior is due to negative influences during their early years.

Eh, you'd be surprised how absolutely inhumanly evil children can be. See: the murder of James Bulger. Two ten-year old kids kidnap, torture, and murder a two-year old child. It was determined during their trial that they ABSOLUTELY knew what they were doing was wrong. The case pathologist determined that the child had been bludgeoned so thoroughly that they couldn't even TELL which was the killing blow.

Your thesis is shockingly naive, and was in fact considered and unequivocally rejected by the court in this case.

 

[Vrud]

Are you kidding me? I remember being ten. I knew better at ten. Hell, I knew better at EIGHT. You should better than that by age six, if I may be honest here.

 

[jackpipsam]

at 10 your mind knows what it can do

 

[Vrud]

In fact, every single violent human behavior is due to negative influences during their early years.

Because congenital mental defects don't exist, right?

 

[Doctor Glocktor]

Yes it does. She left both kids unattended when her job was clearly to "attend" them. She should have never left them unsupervised, AT ALL. It's her job to keep both kids safe and it's fairly obvious you do not leave a 10 year old unsupervised with a baby. You don't know WHAT they might do. Kids are unpredictable. They act by instinct, not by logical thought.

I too am glad that humanity has evolved past the need to use the washroom, and to go and use it as such.

Or are you suggesting that you should take a 10 year old and a baby in with you?

 

[KafkaOffTheBeach]

No, because whenever I'd deviate from the accepted norm someone was always there to tell me what I was doing was wrong.

Look, I'm tired. I'll just ask you a question and be on my way. If a child is capable of logical thought, why is it that they do not discuss subjects more complicated than things associated with childhood, say toys/tv show's? Children obviously hear about tragedies happening all the time on the news and yet they don't seem to understand WHY what happened in that part of the world is tragic. If they did, they'd discuss it. They are incapable of understanding the world around them. They need someone to guide them until they are able to do so. So, if children are capable of undersanting and by extension thinking logically why would they give more importance to say toys rather than say the fukushima disaster?

I.....I'm not sure what it is you don't understand...
There is something, but I can't quite place my finger on it....it might be the idea of emotional intelligence....or something, but in every post you consistently miss something which everyone else tries to point out to you...and then you miss it again in your reply...its like you are only dealing with theoretical 10 year olds and theoretical criminals...

You do realise that the very existence of the post negates your question, right?
I assume you are over 10, and, therefore, according to you and only you, now capable of logical thought, so why are you posting in this particular topic? This is not a big issue, this is nowhere near a big issue, yet there are things that are happening in the world now that actually have a very large impact on a very large number of people, perhaps you included, so why aren't you talking about, say, Gadhafi's son's death and what that means for world affairs? Or on Pope John Paul II's rushed, controversial road to sainthood? And if you post in here believing it to be the only logical place for your thoughts, then aren't you displaying a massive incapability to understand what is going on in the world by talking about something that is, essentially, in light of all the shit that happens around the world on a daily basis, trivial, on a site that holds said 'toys' in higher regard than the majority of current events?

 

[badgersprite]

Precisely. Does no one remember being a kid themselves? Everyone always acts like children are born mentally retarded and are completely incapable of any kind of thought and reasoning. The answer to that is no. Children aren't like that. For fuck's sake, she's ten, not two.

So what? 10 is not the new 20 for fucks sake. You do not discern right from wrong at that age, you simply follow what you're told. You cannot reason, you cannot use logical thought. In fact, you're pretty much a blank page on which very little has been written. Only by the time you actually understand why A is wrong and B is right can you really be held accountable. The girl is 10 years old. She has an entire life ahead of her and you people want her punished for this? I mean for fucks sake, she didn't exactly take a knife and stabbed the baby. You people disgust me.

Maybe you were so incompetent in not being able to follow logic and reason at age 10, but I for one remember that age and that I wasn't a complete idiot, as do many other people here I'm sure.

I know, right?

According to this guy I never decided at age 8, against what I was being taught in my religious primary school and by my religious grandparents, that I didn't believe that the stories I was being told in the Bible were true, having thought for myself that they didn't make any more sense to me or seem any more realistic than the fictional stories I read in books, or saw on TV or in movies. Apparently it's impossible that without anyone ever telling me anything about atheism, I decided for myself that I didn't believe in God any more than I believed in the Tooth Fairy. And apparently my classmates were too stupid to debate with me about this and come up with reasons for why they believed in God without any coaching from anyone else in what they should say to me to counter my arguments.

Either I and everyone in my class was a super genius or MY WHOLE LIFE IS A LIE! D:

If we're to believe him, then every child in the world is the exact same as the one's that are exclusive to his life. Truly a genius.

He also believes children can't have personality or psychological problems because apparently abuse doesn't affect children until they're teenagers because children have no personality that can be affected by any kind of problems.

My best friend in preschool had been adopted out of an abusive household when she was three and she was already thoroughly traumatised by the experiences with her mother, to the point where she would wet herself from anxiety and cry anytime her adoptive parents drove off because she was scared of being abandoned again like she had been by her mother. Saying that a ten year old can't have emotional or psychological problems is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard anywhere. That's like saying molesting little children doesn't affect them because they don't understand what's happening. I don't know whether to laugh at that guy or be sickened by him, to be honest.

 

[Kurai Angelo]

EDIT:

In fact, I believe anything a person does well up until his 20's is accidental. A child's mind is to feeble to discern when it has done something wrong. Their sense of morality comes from someone else, usually the parents but they are easily influenced. By the time a person reaches teenagehood and they can actually discern from what is acceptable and what is not and at the same time use logic when making decisions their mind is extremely subsceptible to social influences. A teen who has done something that is considered "wrong" should be helped, not punished. In fact, this goes for every person who does not posses a mental illness. You can claim that once you legally become an adult you should discern from right and wrong but that's not true. Punishing a child for doing something they don't understand is wrong.

In fact, every single violent human behavior is due to negative influences during their early years.

Imma call you out on the 'up untill the 20's' bit. Sorry if some one else has already talked about this but SERIOUSLY? you don't think people should be held fully accountable for things they've done untill they're in their 20's?? Thats fucking stupid. And insulting. You're basically saying no one up to that age is capable of rational thought. Also, the bit about ALL violent behaviour being caused by negative inlfuences while young... bull fucking shit. Adults are not immune from negative influences. You seem to be under the impression people reach a certain age barrier where by one side they are retarded and the other they are immune from outside influences.

 

[artanis_neravar]

In fact, every single violent human behavior is due to negative influences during their early years.

Because congenital mental defects don't exist, right?

Yeah I'm gonna go with the majority of violent human behavior is related to sociopathic conditions

 

[artanis_neravar]

EDIT:

In fact, I believe anything a person does well up until his 20's is accidental.

The Columbine shooting was accidental? Brenda Ann Spencer's spree was accidental?

 

[ryo02]

Are you kidding me? I remember being ten. I knew better at ten. Hell, I knew better at EIGHT. You should better than that by age six, if I may be honest here.

pretty much what I was going to say

 

[Ninjat_126]

Yes they do. Every single "criminal" who has either stolen or murdered has done so because they were either coerced, abused as a child or mentally ill. Oh, and ignoring your child is still considered abuse.

I'm a perfectly normal guy, from a stable family, with a good group of friends, above average school grades and intelligence (IQ wise) and no history of abuse or association with criminals. If I was confronted with someone like Osama bin Laden, or Adolf Hitler, or a child rapist, I would kill them. That would probably count as murder. If I drag it out long enough, it could be much worse than that.

OT, the first thing my parents told me when my sister was born (I was 4) was that babies break easily. So I learnt not to use her as half a pair of maracas.

When I was 10, not only did I know life and death, I'd also had pets die and grandparents die. I knew what dying was, and I knew a number of ways that people could be killed, like breaking their necks, or shooting them, or strangling them.

I believe that the child should have counselling for what will be a serious issue later in life, and her parents should be investigated and possibly charged with negligence. Because who doesn't tell their child about death before they're 10?

 

[Littlee300]

How the... I couldn't imagine doing that when I was ten.
Edit: When I was 10 I still hated my brother like he was the bane of my existence.