Three year old investigated by police!

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At three?!? You can't seriously believe that NOG.

 

I've seen lots of parents who are obviously the problem in my career. Situations so utterly pathetic that it makes me truly believe that in an era that has such a population problem, there ought to be licences issued before people can reproduce. I'd even go so far as to say that parents are often the problem.

However, it does not follow that the parents are ALWAYS the problem. Sometimes it's misfiring genes, sometimes it's other factors beyond their control. The few logic and ethics classes I have taken have taught me to beware of absolutes.

 

You're kidding me, right? At three, I was KOing my older brother with a ball peen hammer, and we were raised right. My mother-in-law has some true horror stories of my wife as a child. Some children are truely monsterous. Others are genuinely innocent, but curious enough to cause tons of problems (and damages) anyway.

 

I think T2B's point is that at three, even when a child does something bad, he/she usually does not do so with malevolent intent. I doubt that at three you realized that you could cause brain damage (or possibly death) by knocking out your brother with a ball peen hammer.

I mean, unless you were like the little boy in Pet Cemetery - if that's the case, maybe you did.

To explain by example, I have a two-year old at home. When Jack tries to eat something he doesn't like (but doesn't know he doesn't like it until be bites it), he typically will remove the offending food piece from his mouth and drop it on the floor. His action is not malevolently intended to cause a stain on the carpet - it's simply an action that says, "Dad, this tastes like crap and you're crazy if you think I'm eating this." He didn't do it to be mean.

Likewise, a child using a crayon on a wall isn't considering that he is defacing the wall - he's just drawing.

I'm sure T2 will correct me if I'm mistaken here.

 

It would be a rare case that a 3 yr old is capable of developing that type of mindset. MJust about all of the stuff they do that is "Bad" is for fun and htey don't know any better or out of an anger that they don't know how to control as of yet. Either way, the problem is not the childs, yet. 3 yr olds are not developed. The same case could be made for 7 yr olds, let alone 3 yr olds. It must lead to the parents unattentiveness with their child's doings.

 

I question any parent who would allow a three-year-old access to a ball peen hammer -- that is not being "raised right." Monsterous children are almost universally a product of monsterous parents.

Yeah, Aldeth, you pretty much hit it on the head. No small child intends on causing damage -- but it sometimes happens.

 

my views have been well summed up

 

Even at three children exhibit personality traits. Some are calm and peaceful, others are violent little buggers. It is the parents' responsibility to control, teach, and supervise their kids. Yet despite best efforts, accidents, mistakes, and "holy crap, I NEVER thought he'd do that!" things happen.

I would agree that any damages done by a child of such a young age should be charged to the parents. But I would also argue that some kids display antisocial tendencies early in childhood. This one kid I grew up with was a prime example. He was born 20 days after yours truly. His parents were decent people, same as mine. Not druggies or thugs or anything like that. They did their damndest to raise Buford* properly. However, he was a douchebag from the get go, though, there's no two ways about it.

I ended up a law abiding citizen -- no arrests, no crap like that whatsoever.

Buford has the dubious honor of being busted with more illegal steroids in his possession than anyone else in the fine province of Alberta. He did hard time.

Anyone who just looked at this little bastard even at 3 years of age could have told you that there was something seriously wrong with the little hellspawn. Don't tell me that kids are unable of developing malevolence or a desire to destroy. I've seen different with my own two eyes, and his parents are decent people. Internally, this guy was bad news from day 1 -- to quote my friend George Thorogood, he was "Born to be Bad".

*not his real name. Names have been changed to protect the slimeballs.

 

Kids can start to develop desires at early ages, but they still don't fully comprehend those desires or the consequences of their actions when they act on those desires. That's the difference between adults and children and why the parents should always be held accountable.

 

John Wayne Gacy was a decent person in public. Most abusive parents give an incredibly good impression outside the home. Children learn violence and cruelty -- such things are not hardwired in to their personality.

 

I guess we have to agree to disagree then -- they had several other kids all of whom turned out just fine. There have never been any allegations made, let alone proved, against the parents I'm discussing.

I think that some things are hard wired into some people.

This is not to say that there aren't many cases where the parent's do screw up the kids, as I said before. But some people are hard-wired dirtbags and the only thing that'll fix them is a lobotomy.

 

Some psychological tendencies are hardwired - though it is rare for them to manifest so early in life, it does exist, I'm talking about real psychological problems, not repeated behaviour or learnt behaviours. Parents should still be assisted in raising the child, whether that is the result of police investigation or not.

 

... Actually... Well, I didn't know what damage I could have caused, but I did know I wanted to get back at him for opening the car door on my forehead (I still have a scar from that). He and I were little devils when it came to each other.

On point, though, we know nothing about malevolent intent in this case.

Blades, do you have children? Unless you're willing to watch them, unblinking, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year, they'll likely get into trouble of some kind at some point. How bad and how severe it is depends largely on luck. Whether they break a vase, put their teeth through their lower lips, or burn down a building only depends on what materials are available and what they think to do with them.

I was shooting rifles at age 5. I suppose that was irresponsable, too? Even though I still remember the safety lessons my father taught my brother and I? Even though I've never even come close to hurting anyone with a firearm? At the time, my parents (quite reasonably) reasoned I couldn't even lift it high enough to do any damage with it. What they forgot about was only that I could drag it up the stairs and that my brother was underneath.

Actually, monsterous children more often are the natural state. It's discipline that changes that. The question is whether that monsterous nature exerts itself by drawing on the walls (after being told not to), taking another child's toys, pushing, shoving, namecallling, hitting, or dropping heavy objects off the stairs.

My mother-in-law has a hilarious story about my wife as a child and some black construction paper. The girl never once disobeyed her parents (at that age at least), but she was horribly creative.

To further elaborate on LKD's story, read up on sociopaths/psychopaths/antisocial personality disorder. As the last name suggests, it's a personality disorder, which means it can form very early (some studies suggest weeks old) and is set and fixed between 2 and 4 years old. We don't know details about what causes it, and there are indications linking it to genetics, brain disorders, and various forms of abuse and trauma, but it really does happen and can manifest at extremely early ages.

More than that, though, all children are naturally selfish and self-centered. They naturally don't even consider anything other than their own wants and needs until they're well past this age. Now, whether or not they're 'evil' is another question. As noted, they don't really have any choice, don't understand the consequences of their actions, and honestly can't consider the wants and needs of others. Still, they don't take any proding to do damage and violence.

Again, psychology actually contradicts you. It's restraint that's learned, not violence. How many children do you know that pulled wings off flies, or roasted ants with a magnifying glass? How many that enjoy fires just for the sake of seeing something burn? Destruction and violence (and arguably cruelty) are a natural part of the human psyche. It's the social construct of society that restrains this.

 

I guess I'll just have to bow out of this given the extensive experience NOG and LKD have dealing with small children and their vast understanding of child psychology.

 

Well, it is one of my father's specialties.

 

Yes, and I've known spouses of medical doctors who "knew" all about medicine....

 

I think that unless you have kids of your own then you shouldn't be allowed to work as a child psychologist/health visitor/social worker. All the pieces of paper in the world that say you know what you're doing mean bog all unless you've looked after your own kid 24/7, sat with them when their poorly and watched them develop.

My sister is a nursery nurse and has no kids. However, she thinks she is more than qualified to tell me how to raise my child because working 8 hours a day with kids is (in her mind) the same as being a parent!

 

Ironically school teachers tend to make poor adaptation to being parents, probably because school dominates lives so much once you are in the system.

No that I'm one to judge, I reckon I would be a lousy parent

I'm also not qualified in anything psychological, but growing up I spent a lot of time at the Child Development Centre at hospital for various reasons. It is a shame when it occurs - but there are hard-wired problems that can occur for various reasons in the human brain, these are *usually* present as at least a template from birth, they frequently do manifest as quirks or oddities very early in life though.

In the UK at least the 'reliable age' for assessing autistic spectrum disorders is as low as 2. I have met an eight year old who is unable to feel guilt, he used to get so confused by peoples reactions around him when something happened or he did something wrong he couldn't usually understand what the fuss was about.

There is often a very different behavioural pattern set between 'wiring' difficulties in a child and 'raising' difficulties in a child. Very rarely was someone in that room was malicious went out to vandalise property or assult another person in any manner - I believe that is most likely learned behaviour. Children prone to violent outbursts often reflect that upon themselves rather than others primarily - when those outbursts are then reflected upon others it's usually a sign that more than just physiological problems are present in that childs life and need to be addressed.

Note I am not excusing behaviour whether it is an issue from parenting or neurodiversity, either way parents are responsible for children at that age and letting them run off to get into trouble is not being responsible. A parents priority should be to provide a safe and secure area for a child to play in, whether it's a set of rooms, the garden, or both. Letting a bunch of kids run off together to play in the streets in itself is unwise behaviour - anything could happen.

 

This one pi$$ed me off when I saw it

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090922/tuk-boy-four-dies-in-somerfield-supermar-45dbed5.html

sueing the supermarket... because she wasnt watching her child who was playing around, its a supermarket, not a playground - somerfield would spend money on a steel rail which wasnt needed, its up to her to stop her son from swinging on it.

 

Silvery, I've known many parents who were totally clueless but believed they knew best because "God made them parents"....