My heart goes out to these parents - I can't even imagine how rough that must be.

Yes. It was heart wrenching, and I really hope that boy follows in his father's footsteps.

The NYT also had an interesting follow up interview with the writer who developed the article.

I hadn't seen the followup interview - that is interesting. Posting a link in case anyone else wants to read that, too.

A relative who works with the criminally insane has told me that most of his case histories can trace this back to early childhood. He thinks that most of these kids are MADE into the bad adults by the type of feedback mechanism between adults and their kids described in the article.

One thing the article does not bring up is how dangerous it is for psychologists to work with them.

It's also dangerous to the foster families who take them in who have no clue about what they are getting.

There are some absolutely disgusting stories I could tell.

Hi new here...but enthralled with the article. I am a clinical counselor specializing with kids and teens. I thought the article was neglectful in not addressing the role of trauma and serious attachment breaks in tbe early lives of adults with antisocial personality disorder, especially violent and calculated serial killers. I would be interested to learn how the clinical 'camps ' adjusted for this factor.

This topic just came up on the homeschooling board last week.  One regular poster regular sounding mom admitted her son was actually a  psychopath but that doesn't really mean that he has to grow up to be a violent criminal.  Apparently not all psychopaths are violent (google non-violent psychopaths). My google fu has told me just this week the kid in the article could have been diagnosed the more prevalent ADHD from the slamming things and being out of control, but  what makes the thing that made the difference was that he was both "out of control" and able to control and delay it.  The person a true psycho-path is being "cold blooded" rather than "hot headed" not necessarily good or bad behavior or even good or bad intentions.  Just last week I assumed some vague knowledge of what a psychopath was and now that stereotype bubble has burst.  I do feel sorry for the family that nothing they're doing is working and that the label won't get them any help or even much compassion.

La T exican...I can't believe that mother was accurate in saying her son was diagnosed psychopathic. That is not even the term used in the DSM. As the article points out, it is clinically inappropriate to diagnose children with set personality disorders as their personality patterns are not fully matured. Often kids with these severely damaged abilities to connect might be recognized as having an attachment disorder.

Wow, this was sobering.

I still want to believe that this is something that is brought out by early experience. I would have liked to hear more about the researcher's claim that it's not. Just saying "some of them had wonderful families" isn't very convincing.

But it's creepy to consider the possibility that it's not. What if this is like autism? We used to believe that autism was caused by bad parenting, and it's not. Some people are really just born wired differently. What if psychopathy is like that?