Parenting Styles Matter

Especially with psychopathy...

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It’s that time again, another article review.

New study untangles the links between parenting practices and psychopathic traits in children

Man, this one looked promising. I have often said that there is a great number of problems with how parents have checked out of their kids' lives. A lot of kids spend their formative lives staring at screens and not developing longer attention spans, instead having their brains fixated on algorithmic feeds that foster impulsivity. This isn’t good for anyone, but it is especially not good for children that will end up being psychopathic.

This article starts off well:

New research published in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology investigates the relationship between psychopathic traits and parental practices and how they are affected by conduct problems. Three types of psychopathic traits were found to have unique relationships with parental practices, even after considering conduct problems. The study can help families and clinicians understand how parenting and child and adolescent psychopathology intersect.

Nothing there that I have too much an issue with. However,

Conduct problems refer to a range of behavioral issues or difficulties that children and adolescents may display. These problems typically involve acting out, aggressive behavior, rule-breaking, and difficulties in following social norms and rules.

Some kids are aggressive and that should be addressed for sure, but the other issues listed are pretty normal for most kids. Kids push boundaries and are not remotely socialized with the norms of expectation yet. This sort of reminds me of the thinking that rowdy boys need to be medicated instead of run around until they can’t stand up any longer.

We shouldn’t pathologize normal behavior, regardless of the source. In fairness to the article, these are good examples of why parents need to be actively involved with behavioral teaching and correction. I don’t think that these things are necessarily conduct issues though. That insinuates that kids should just be born good. That’s never going to happen. Children are little demons that need church. I mean that hyperbolically, of course.

Psychopathic traits, on the other hand, refer to a set of negative personality characteristics that include a lack of empathy, callousness, manipulative behavior, and impulsiveness. While psychopathy is often associated with adults, studies have shown that it can also be present in children and adolescents. Psychopathic traits in childhood and adolescence are typically divided into three dimensions: callous-unemotional, grandiose-deceitful, and impulsivity-need for stimulation.

All true to some degree, though all of this is seen in totally neurotypical kids as well, so, these are terrible measurements for psychopathy in children. Again, I will restate, you can NEVER spot psychopathy in children. There is no magic set of behaviors that you can point to and say AH-HA!!! FOUND IT!!!

Nope, the things that make a psychopathic child stand out are found regularly in many kids, so trying to say that “callous-unemotional, grandiose-deceitful, and impulsivity-need for stimulation” are great indicators, is incorrect. Kids need to learn that there are other things in the world that are more important or as important as they are. The first years of their lives, provided that they have a relatively normal upbringing, are solely focused on them as far as they can tell. Even teenagers can’t grasp the notion that their parents are dealing with things way bigger than their petty-ass drama in their social circles. All kids lie, all kids lack empathy, and all kids have literally no impulse control. Again, let’s not pathologize these things.

Now, do I think that these traits should be encouraged? No, of course not. They shouldn’t be encouraged, and they shouldn’t be tolerated. Your job as a parent is to communicate to your child, in language that they can understand, how these negatively impact their lives. If you are able to get them to care about how they may impact other people’s lives, you are either an exceptional teacher of cognitive empathy, or your child is not a psychopath.

Research suggests that negative parental practices can contribute to the development of psychopathic traits in children. But previous research has also shown that some parental practices may be a response to children’s behavioral problems. For example, children’s oppositional and aggressive behaviors may result in increased parental control and harsh discipline. This bidirectional relationship between parenting practices and child behavior highlights the importance of considering both factors when studying child and adolescent psychopathology.

Nope. These aspects are inherently there in children. Children are born selfish and self-focused. How else does a baby expect to be cared for? A baby doesn’t come out of the womb thinking, “Yeah, I know I’m hungry, but I have an excellent comprehension of the passage of time and know that Mom and Dad are totally going to get to me at the next commercial break.” When a baby is hungry they are hungry NOW. Not in five minutes, NOW. As they grow, this doesn’t change unless you as a parent broaden their worldview.

This is also the argument behind sociopathy developing. In a house where that child’s needs are ignored and the child is either severely neglected, and or abused, you have those traits being the entire reason for that child’s survival. I’m not arguing that all children have the ability to become sociopaths, but those that do aren’t going to be one unless the circumstances are right, and it is no wonder that what is left over in the sociopath’s priority list. Them, and only them, is what they are going to care about.

Despite the importance of parenting practices and psychopathic traits in child and adolescent psychopathology, research has only recently begun exploring the relationship between these two factors. Understanding the complex interplay between parenting practices and psychopathic traits is crucial for developing effective interventions to help children with psychopathology lead healthy and fulfilling lives.

Psychopathology has nothing to do with psychopathy. They sound similar, I get that, but they are not the same thing. Granted, the use of the word “psychopathology” can be considered correct for this article, its use is rather underhanded in my estimation. It is either forgetting that the general audience of the world is not familiar with the term, thus leading to confusion, or they are conflating this word and psychopathy in order to justify the next part of the article, which of course, is where is flies off the rails.

The study recruited participants from two different settings: a community sample in Greece-Cyprus consisting of 768 parents and a clinical sample in the Netherlands with 217 parents. The clinical sample came from a school for children with severe psychiatric illnesses. Participants completed self-report measures of psychopathic traits (using the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory), parental practices (using the Parental Bonding Instrument), and conduct problems (using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire).

Well, now it doesn’t matter what your study found. You didn’t study psychopathy, you studied behavior. You conflated psychopathy with normal childhood behaviors and applied the term “psychopathic traits” to them without a reason. You are now applying said “psychopathic traits” to kids with, as they put it, “severe psychiatric illnesses”.

I recently discovered something. All humans drink water. Amazing, right? It’s like, this thing… that we all do. However, I also found out that serial killers… drink water. I mean, can you believe it? They do! They even will give serial killers water in those interviews that they do with FBI agents in prison. Do you know what that means?!! It means… water drinking and serial killing are related, and since it is, that makes it a serial killer trait. Now we have to suspect everyone of serial killing. We all have serial killing traits.

That’s ridiculous, right? Yes, yes it is. Callous-unemotional, grandiose-deceitful, and impulsivity-need for stimulation are things that you see in psychopaths, but they are also seen in most others. A child with a severe mental illness may very well show all of these traits, but that in no way makes those traits psychopathic. It comes back to the idea that what someone does should be traced back to why they are doing it. The root cause is what should be focused on, not the outward symptom of the problem.

A kid with reactive attachment disorder may be very callous-unemotional, grandiose-deceitful, and have high impulsivity-need and a need for stimulation. However, the cause of those behaviors in that child is not psychopathy, it is something else entirely. Saying the word “psychopathic” when you aren’t speaking about psychopathy at all is conflation and misinformation. It places unnecessary stigma on a kid that has already gone through horrific things, it makes them sound untreatable, and it misleads people about psychopathy and what psychopathy actually is.

If you have children that have been through terrible things, those terrible things are going to manifest in their behaviors. Those children can often receive care that greatly improves their ability to function and relate to the world. This is not just because they learn to act better, but it is because they experience an actual healing from the trauma that they are dealing with. Because they treated their behaviors improve. Those behaviors were innate, amplified, and reinforced through their abuse, and now fall by the wayside as they learn how to do better and feel better.

That’s not how it works for psychopaths. A psychopathic child needs to be made aware how positive behavior nets them positive rewards. Negative behavior removes access to rewards. Adjusting behavior to match the desired outcome is necessary to employ for a life that has the rewards that a psychopath is interested in. The callous-unemotional, grandiose-deceitful, and impulsivity-need for stimulation doesn’t go away, it is managed.

There is a significant difference in both understanding of how the psychopathic mind is working, and how to address these behaviors. If something is called “psychopathic traits”, they should be something that applies to psychopaths exclusively. The fact that these traits can be applied to every single human alive at some point or another, but particularly when humans are children, means that calling them “psychopathic” is not doing anyone any favors.

I think that this might be an example of research getting in their own way. I will speak more about that in a moment.

The results of the study showed that there was a significant relationship between psychopathic traits and parental practices. Specifically, higher levels of psychopathic traits were associated with lower levels of care from parents. Additionally, there was a significant interaction between psychopathic traits and conduct problems on parental control. In other words, children with high levels of both psychopathic traits and conduct problems were likelier to experience high levels of parental control.

Up above I spoke about babies and young children having these aspects inherently. It’s absolutely true, they all do. If you don’t condition a child to see beyond the tip of their own nose, you are going to reinforce these traits. There is no doubt about that. However, psychopaths make up a tiny percentage of the world’s population, and these traits are literally everywhere and getting worse by the day with the cycle of narcissism that society has entered into. Calling them “psychopathic traits” is really a matter of projection at this point. They’re human traits, and if you have crappy parents, yes, these traits get reinforced and you end up with a self-centered brat. They aren’t a psychopath though.

In the community sample, parents of children with high callous-unemotional traits were more likely to engage in inconsistent discipline. Interestingly, this was not the case in the clinical sample, possibly because parents were already aware of their child’s difficulties and sought help, resulting in different parental practices.

Wait, let me get this straight. When you don’t have solid boundaries that a kid can rely on to know what they have f*cked up and what will happen to them when they do, they continue f*ck up? You don’t say. How on earth could we have predicted this? Hmm, if only this could have been taught much earlier.

“Spare the rod and spoil the child.”

Oh. You mean they told us that in the bible, so this is not new information? Seriously, if you don’t show consistent and predictable rules to any kid they are going to be problematic. Again, this does not make them a psychopath. It makes you a bad parent, but it makes the outcome predictable.

The study also found that impulsivity-need for stimulation dimension was related to inconsistent discipline in the community sample. In the clinically-referred sample, the grandiose-deceitful dimension was associated with inconsistent discipline.

Again, go freaking figure. This is not something that needs to be studied. Literally any parenting book will tell you this information. None of it is new, and the fact that they wasted money to research this tells me that they have either lost the ability to read, or just wanted to guarantee their funding money gets used up.

The authors acknowledge several limitations of their study. First, the study used self-report measures, which may be subject to bias. Second, the study was cross-sectional, so it is impossible to determine causality. Finally, the study only included two settings (community and clinical), so it is unclear whether these findings would generalize to other settings.

Normal article paragraph there. Nothing all that interesting other than the self-report thing. The parents probably all rated themselves higher than they should have. Most people seem to take issue with personal responsibility. This next paragraph, however:

The research team identified several implications of their findings. First, they suggest that their results support the idea that parenting is not solely responsible for children’s behavior; children’s behavior can also impact parenting practices. Children with high callous-unemotional traits may be perceived as challenging by parents, leading to parental exhaustion and less positive parenting practices.

You know what’s funny about a psychopath reviewing this? That lack of empathy that is so notorious. Boo freaking hoo. Suck it up buttercup. Yes, there are a lot of challenging children in the world, and psychopathic children are going to be the highest on that list. Not because we are unreachable, but because you as neurotypicals have no cognitive empathy. Relying on what “should” work on a normal kid, when it comes to a psychopath, doesn’t. Instead of whining about how tired you are dealing with a child that “just doesn’t listen” (you have no idea how often I heard that as a kid), find a new way. That’s your whole job. It’s not the kid’s fault. You brought them here, now figure it out. “I’m tired” doesn’t cut it.

Second, they suggest that their findings highlight the importance of taking into account both psychopathic traits and conduct problems when assessing parental practices. Finally, they suggest that their findings have implications for intervention programs, as understanding the relationship between psychopathic traits and parental practices can help in developing more effective interventions.

Again, not psychopathic traits. Normal human traits that only change when you teach that child the ways of the world.

The study provides valuable insights into the relationship between psychopathic traits and parental practices. By understanding the complex interplay between parenting practices and child behavior, we can develop more effective interventions to help children with psychopathology lead healthy and fulfilling lives.

There’s that word again, “psychopathology”. It seriously seems like the conflation is intentional.

If you don’t teach a child in terms that they will understand and be consistent, you have failed them as a parent, and they will fail in life. I am not saying that there aren’t children in the world that have issues that are not addressable in their homes. They may require placement, and professional intervention. There are severely mentally ill children in the world. However, that is not the same thing as having a psychopathic child, and certainly not the same as having a neurotypical child either. Parenting style plays a big role in how a kid turns out, but a lot of other things do as well. This post isn’t meant to place parents that have extraordinary situations into the bad parenting boat.

I have seen some of these kids that have severe problems with loving families that are just trying to get them help. I have also seen plenty of children that have been severely abused, and what the aftermath of that looks like. We are not discussing either of those in this post. We are speaking about kids whose parents are not doing their jobs and then are surprised when very normal human traits of selfishness dominate that kid’s existence. We should be very focused on these traits being normal and only changeable through teaching and guidance. The moment we pathologize them it gives parents that aren’t interested in doing their job properly an excuse to say, “Well, it’s not my fault. See, this article says that my kid is a psychopath.”

Let’s stop excusing irresponsibility and lack of personal accountability. It hasn’t made anything better. If your kid is a bad kid, the chances that they are a psychopath are less than one percent, the chances that you need to do a better job meeting them where they are is much much higher.