I think it’s safe to say that most parents want their kids to grow up to be decent human beings, and many try their best to ensure that happens. But some things are beyond control because, as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Likewise, you can lead a kid to knowledge but you can’t make them think.
Someone once asked, “Parents of terrible people… What was the a moment that you realized your child wasn’t going to be a good person?” and surprisingly, many didn’t hold back. They reflected on the times they just wanted to hang their heads in shame at the mess they’d created. We aren’t talking about kids who lack basic manners. These tales are so much worse… One person even called their offspring “the great tragedy of my existence.” And all we can say is “Ouch!”
Bored Panda has put together a list of the wildest stories about children failing at life in the worst possible way. They’re uncomfortable accounts from parents, relatives and others, who watched helplessly as kids grew into horrible people they really weren’t proud of. We also explore the red flags that scream “delinquent in the making!” You’ll find that info between the images.
#1
She started acting out when she was about 12 and got worse and worse. We did all kinds of therapy, private schools, rehabs. We tried everything. Her dad, her stepdad, and all of her grandparents were on board with me trying to help her. But we couldn’t keep her from sneaking out and getting in trouble unless we were willing to have someone up and watching her 24/7. It was exhausting. She’s now just turned 28. I haven’t spoken to her in about 6 months. She never changed. You can’t trust her to have a visit because she will steal from you.
I think when I realized that she was never going to change was when I bought her a plane ticket to help me move into my new place and she couldn’t be bothered to stop partying long enough to get on a plane. This was the last time I tried hard to be close with her. She was about 22 when this happened.
It’s the great tragedy of my existence. She’s my only biological child and when people ask me if I have kids I lie and say no because thinking of her makes me want to disappear out of shame.
Image source: BelindaTheGreat, Samuel Regan-Asante / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
It’s hard to find someone who’d proudly say they want their kids to grow up to be a menace to society. Most parents work pretty hard to ensure the opposite is true. But sometimes, despite their best intentions, their offspring turn out to be something they’re less than proud of.
Juvenile delinquency is a term that refers to the involvement of minors in illegal or antisocial activities. It’s not something you want to be dealing with as a parent. But experts say there are early signs – and if you spot them, you could save yourself, your kid and those around them, a whole lot of trouble.
According to the Paul Anderson Youth Home site, some very early predictors of juvenile delinquencies can start emerging in preschool already. They often include things like abnormal or slow development of basic skills, such as speech and language, chronic rule violations and aggressive behavior toward other students or teachers.
#2
I can kind of speak on this as my mom had me at a young age and waited until I was older to have more children. My brother was always troubled as a kid, he would beat up my other siblings, he would lie to therapists and manipulate my mother. He is now 17 serving a 3 year sentence. I’ve always expected this is how it would go down. We always tried to help him and he would always be resistant. He was in a fantastic camp for troubled teens where he was put in charge of the kitchen and got good grades in his classes and over a period of two months ran away. I think everyone’s different, but it was obvious from the start with my little brother.
Image source: HiImJavi, Pedram Normohamadian / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
As the child grows up, you might start to see serious red flags. Perhaps they bunk or drop out of school, they start to hang out with bad apples, and they experiment with substances, engage in vandalism, theft, or violence. They could likely also show disrespect or defiance toward authority figures.
Lying, cheating or stealing are also common behaviors of problem kids. And while family drama and arguments are part and parcel of growing up, kids with serious issues often have frequent conflicts or fights with family members. When it comes to their mental health, it’s not uncommon to see signs of depression, anxiety, or low self-esteem.
#3
My parents probably thought I was going to be a terrible person. I bit myself, blamed my brother. I was manipulative, lied constantly, and by kindergarten, my only ambition was to marry rich. I screamed so loudly whenever I didn’t get my way. The one time my mom spanked me (and rightfully so) I threatened to call the police. I made her cry. More than once. My brother was afraid of me. My parents didn’t know what to do with me. They likely thought I was going to grow up and be a criminal.
But then I hit an all time low. Childhood onset major depressive episode coupled with crippling anxiety. A rescue dog who helped me out of it, along with an amazing therapist. And I turned a corner. By late middle school I was just a weird, awkward young teenager. I liked anime, hot topic, and being “random”. By high school I was ambitious, had amazing grades, and a solid group of friends. Still a little weird, but I grew out of it by the time I went to college.
In college I laid low. Dated, had friends, tried to get through it. Now I’m a successful young adult. I’m happy. I volunteer. I work hard and get along well with my parents.
My parents through they were raising a terrible person, I’m sure of it. But as an adult, I have to say, they did a good job.
I imagine that actual terrible people come about one of two ways: the first is the opposite of myself- they are perfectly fine children, who somehow just turn out bad. No reason for it, they just do. The second is they start out bad, like I did, but their parents, teachers, etc give up on them. They don’t get the help they need. They don’t get the support.
Just my 2 cents as a former terrible person.
Image source: anon, Kateryna Hliznitsova / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Experts say juvenile delinquency can stem from a range of complex biological, psychological, social and environmental interactions. It could be because of genetic or neurological factors, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder or learning disabilities. Or perhaps family factors, like parental neglect, childhood trauma, divorce, conflict, or criminality played a part.
Your child could be troubled because of peer pressure, rejection or bad influence. Then of course, social issues in their community, such as poverty, crime or a lack of resources can also play a role. Nowadays, negative media consumption can also influence whether or not a child grows into a decent human being.
#4
I think this is really hard for people to answer.
I have relatives that are desperately trying to help their kid not be that terrible person. This kid cannot go to public school. His behavior is truly terrifying and relatives will not allow their kids to be alone with this kid. They have tried counseling, medication, cognitive behavior therapy, and are desperately trying a new program because the last straw will be to seek an external placement. This kid is loved. His parents are doing everything they can to make him and help him be good. They are devoted to supporting his interests and skills. I absolutely could criticize how they parent but in reality I don’t know how they stay sane. They are angels. We just all pray that this kid who is ridiculously smart and talented somehow “gets it” and realizes that being good even though it is not what you want to do will help you the most in the long term because this kid lacks empathy and remorse and if he doesn’t come to that realization people/animals will get hurt and he will be incarcerated.
I don’t think he is a lost cause but you cannot imagine the stress and heartache this causes his parents. You can’t easily explain away the behaviors of a kid that threatens to harm their teacher and people lack empathy when you explain that the specialists cannot give you a clear answer as to what is wrong with him. Without a proper diagnosis it just looks like your kid is a devil and you suck at life as a parent. The unsolicited advice they always get is to “beat him” which is the opposite of what they should do.
I wish I could give them a magic pill. No one should live in fear of their small child. No one should worry about how their child will hurt others in the future. I know my relatives did not deserve this and this little boy never asked to have his brain wired like this. Currently he is too young to say it’s all him but one day his behavior will be a choice.
Image source: sinisterplatypus, The Yuri Arcurs Collection / freepik (not the actual photo)
#5
I can’t speak for my parents, but I can speak for myself when talking about my brother.
My brother is five years older than me and my parents have been bad parents my entire life. I was diagnosed with autism when I was six and my parents immediately pulled me from public school and ‘homeschooled’ me. My only interaction with another kid was with my brother. While I shied away and withdrew, my brother acted out, and horribly so.
I think I realized it about a year after I was pulled out of school. My brother had taken me out of the house. I was excited, but we soon met up with what I could only describe as criminals. Now, I know they had gotten my brother at an early age (12). The conversation immediately changed from my brother talking to me about lighthearted topics to a laughing, mocking conversation about blood and gore with the older members he’d met up with. All I could do was watch. I remember thinking that my brother was not a good person, and that I couldn’t ever see him becoming a good person. And I was right.
Half a year later, he was arrested and thrown in juvenile detention. He got out after a few months, as my father is a lawyer, and was back in six months later because police had caught him harming people’s pets. The pattern continued and continued and when he was 15, he got out and didn’t go back. That was because when he turned 17, his long-term boyfriend had him arrested. He was tried as an adult and is now in prison.
I think it’s probably the fault of our parents. This was about a year and a half ago. I didn’t turn out like he did, but I’m under the impression that bad parenting affects people in different ways. I’m not sure why I turned out differently, but his behavior and our parents’ behavior affected me a lot. I still wonder what my brother would’ve been like had he not developed the way he had.
Image source: ritsan, tehcheesiong / freepik (not the actual photo)
As this list proves, parents often know when something serious is up with their children.
“Sometimes it’s at the point of adolescence, when factors like peers, hormones, mood changes and extreme rebellion come into play. Or perhaps a child has experienced a severe loss or trauma and her behavior starts to change,” explains the Empowering Parents site.
But other times, the issue might have been there since birth and has escalated over the years. “Medical concerns, stress and anxiety can all contribute to behavioral concerns,” adds the site.
#6
Not me, but when my grandparents had my mother my grandmother said she knew instantly that there was something wrong with her child.
When she got older my mom would steal her parents checks and forge her mothers name , once she stole a 100$ bill from one of her cousins. Sh ran away multiple times, at 42 is just now getting her life together. My grandmother insists that her daughter was “born broken”.
Image source: PuzzledPieces, Kateryna Hliznitsova / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Fortunately, juvenile delinquency is not irreversible but early intervention is key. One of the effective options available is counseling.
“Counseling will help troubled youth understand why they act the way they do and how they can change their negative patterns. It will also help troubled youth deal with their problems, such as family issues, peer pressure, school difficulties, or trauma,” explain the experts at the Paul Anderson Youth Home.
They add that the counseling can be done individually, with other troubled youth or with family, depending on the child and their unique situation. Attending counseling sessions with a qualified professional should help troubled kids develop the life skills they need to get themselves back on the right path.
But sometimes, counseling alone is not enough. If there’s a mental health issue at play, medication may be needed. This would have to prescribed by a doctor after a thorough diagnosis.
#7
My Aunts kid is a complete psychopath, hes 12 now and can barely have a single conversation with anyone, he has huge issues being around people and will randomly just go up and push direct strangers over or into trees/objects. He barely speaks a word and spends all of his time on minecraft, his whole life is that game and trying to do anything with him that doesn’t involve this is horrible, my entire family refuse to go out in public with him and he is not invited over for Christmas.
The last time he stayed with us, feeling sorry for him Heeding my familys warnings, I took him to the movies, he refused to change and wore his pyjamas, the theater I took him to has 2 big flights of stairs (Gold railings, red carpet, ultra nice) whilst buying tickets i turn around to see him Sparta kick a 6 year old down the flight of stairs and then scream and spit at the mother… I was in horror and both the mother and me froze, and he just sat there laughing.. I then took him home and uninstalled mine-craft and changed the WiFi password (Day 1 of 7)
The next 6 days my entire family was begging for me to give him the WiFi password, in which I refused, to which during Christmas eve he proceeded to try light our Christmas tree on fire and break every present, luckily my Dad caught him and booted them both out of our house.
Looking at my Aunt, the kid never had a chance, a product of divorced parents, with them pushing him to learn the flute and refused to take him to any outside activities, his father is constantly working, so just left him alone to play Minecraft….
EDIT: Apologies guys my reasoning of Divorced parents didn’t mean that’s the root cause or any issue, rather he is always back and fourth every week (they split weeks) and they are constantly fighting in public and during drop off (they have mediated drop offs) so he really doesn’t have a stable place. Couple the above with his father never being around on the week hes there its just a really bad situation, compounded by his surroundings.
Image source: Jsplit, EyeEm / freepik (not the actual photo)
#8
Not me, but my Mum, regarding my sister.
I think, despite the fact my sister is a contentious little madam at the best of times, capable of being nice only when she wants something & becoming vicious & vindictive when she doesn’t get her own way, the defining moment came when my sister had her kid.
She had him young, and essentially used him as an accessory to her life. “Look at me, I’m amazing, I have a child who is my world!” type thing. In reality, she couldn’t be bothered with him. She left him with my Mum 90% of the time, and whenever she spent time with him, she was more concerned with playing on her phone or talking to her friends than looking after her child, preferring to let my mum do it.
My mum was disabled, by the way. Very poorly, and in lots of pain.
My Mum took to looking after my nephew like her own son, and did a good job of helping him in every way possible; teaching him to talk, walk, good manners, and singing him lullabies and reading with him. All the things my sister should have done, but she preferred to be off snorting coke with whichever man she was sleeping with at the time.
Mum would say regularly how sad she was about the whole thing, how disappointed, how worn out and brow-beaten and isolated she felt because of my sister. It didn’t help she was in cahoots with my Mum’s husband, talking about her behind her back and making her feel unwelcome in her own home.
Of course, she criticised everything my mother did, quite nastily, and would regularly drop my nephew on my Mum whenever Mum had plans, just to ruin them, because she knew Mum would always care for an innocent child while she was off stealing money from her and drunk driving.
There’s a lot more to this. I can’t articulate very well just how poorly behaved my sister is, and I can’t very well ask my Mum now, as she’s no longer with us.
Image source: AdmiralRiffRaff, prostooleh / freepik (not the actual photo)
#9
As a terrible person I’ll speak on behalf of my parents. I was a major bully in elementary school and would torment everybody that I did not like. I was already telling people to off themselves at the age of 8. My mom probably suspected that I was awful at that time.
Later on I stopped hurting other kids, probably stopped around freshman year of high school when I got my first real girlfriend. I think I treated her well for a year or so and then I began being emotionally toxic. My mom definitely noticed that, my girlfriend always looked miserable while I berated her. My mom never did anything or said anything about it though.
After another year or so my girlfriend broke up with me. She told me I was a sociopath and to be honest she was right. She was the only person I ever truly cared for so I vowed to change my ways for her.
I told my parents that I lack the ability to empathize with other people and they said they’ve always known. They told me I was always a violent child and not quite sane. Hell to this day I still have no regrets for anything I’ve done to any person except for my ex and my parents know it. I think they’ve just accepted it as me since they don’t seem too concerned about it.
Image source: metalmilitia587, Hunter Johnson / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#10
Not a parent, but sister to a terrible older
brother (no mental disorders to speak of). He was definitely not on the level of harming animals and threatening people, but he would often to get into fights with other students, incredibly manipulative towards people, very emotionally toxic to my sister and I, and stealing all sorts of things (money usually). I believe he assaulted someone when I was in middle school but fortunately for him they didn’t press charges. Not really sure what he is up to now a days, last time I heard from him he was homeless.
It makes my mother incredibly sad because she did all she could for him. She was a fantastic mother to my siblings and I, would go above and beyond for our needs and problems. Her children always came first compared to anything else. She tried multiple time to get him into therapy and help for his issues but he was too stubborn and nothing ever stuck. Last time they had an in person interaction, my parents had picked him up from being homeless and brought him to our house. My parents offered to let him stay with us so he could get the necessary help, but he told my mom that he just wanted money from them and would rather be homeless and hated them and hated being here. They ended up giving him a couple grand and shipped him back on a grey hound. I believe this is when my mother finally gave up on him and realized she couldn’t help him and he was just going to be a manipulative jerk.
It is still a sore subject and I can always tell she becomes upset when he is mentioned. But she is happy because she raised 3 good children out of 4.
Image source: djviscaria, BLAGOV / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#11
My aunt has a terrible child. We all knew from the start that he was a bad seed, except for her. That was her “baby and he didn’t need to see a therapist or get on medication”.
Starting around 4/5, he would hurt animals. His favorite was kittens. My Aunt would not get her cat fixed so the cat kept having kittens. My cousin would hurt all of them. The things he did to them is horrifying. I won’t post details because it will make you sick.
When he was around 11 he would chase me around with a butcher knife and talk about how he wanted to slice open my stomach.
My Aunt never sought help for him. My Aunt bought some chickens one day to raise and get their eggs. He eventually laid their heads on his Sister’s pillow that spelled out the first initial of her name. All because she wouldn’t buy a him, a minor, cigarettes.
He is in his mid 20s now and is constantly in and out of jail. My Aunt doesn’t believe in medication for mental health nor does she believe in Psychiatrists. She thinks that because she is his mother, she can solve his issues. My mom and I are afraid he is going to attack her one day.
Edit: I’m not sure if he suffered from any sort of trauma as a baby or toddler.
Image source: StarfishGoo, freepik (not the actual photo)
#12
My parents think I’m a good person, and so do I, but definitely my dad took me aside before 8th grade and handed me a pamphlet that said “How to Stop Being a Bully”.
Image source: ucbiker, The Yuri Arcurs Collection / freepik (not the actual photo)
#13
When I was a kid, I was often made to play with the daughter of my parents’ friends who was an incurable jerk. Her goal in every interaction with anyone would be to make the other person feel embarrassed, or arrange for a situation where they would come out looking stupid or end up being wrong about something. I swear that was foremost in her mind *all the time*, she played the long game too. I suspect some kind of personality disorder. I spent a lot of time with her growing up, and to be honest I think it did affect my self esteem in social interactions.
Her parents were really nice and sweet people, through and through. I don’t know when they realised, but I know her mother once asked my mother “What do you do when your child is an jerk?”
Met her again for the first time in like 15 years after we happened to live in the same city. First thing she did was insult me. Like ten times, then berate me for not wanting her friendship.
Image source: anon, Jelleke Vanooteghem / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#14
This is probably going to get buried but my aunt has a son who has always been “different” so to speak.
He has always been very violent, liked bloody movies especially of women being harmed.
He has been known to try and spy on women changing/showering, he was actually caught hiding in a closet when our other cousin was living with them, he also tried to make a hole in the wall to spy on her. Whenever I would stay over I would lock the door while I showered and every single time he “had” to go to the bathroom but would not get out until I called his mom to get him out.
He told my cousins (his sisters) how he would hurt them and their mom and who he go for first. He does/says really violent things and doesn’t show any remorse. He also would watch me sleep when I had to babysit one summer.. after that first morning I was legit terrified of going back to sleep when my aunt left for work.
He would always touch their dogs’ private regions and would always take him into the bathroom and locked the door (no one knew what he would do but you can only guess), whenever I was around I would immediately call him out on it and told him it was never okay to touch an animal like that, his mom never said anything but as soon as someone would say something about him she would hit him but it was because she was actually angry at the person for saying anything and took it out on him, she refuses to get him help but has no issue calling my siblings names considering we’re actually in lot better situations than her and her children.
I cut off contact years ago, my dad has some really messed up family and I don’t like to associate myself with them.
Image source: Ab0094, EyeEm / freepik (not the actual photo)
#15
I’m a terrible person and my parents probably realized it when I was suspended for stabbing a kid in the shin with a pencil for flicking my ears in 5th grade.
Image source: typicalredditor8, Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#16
I know I’m late and I’m not a parent I’m his older sister. Although my brother isn’t on the hurt animals, attack people level just yet he is unfortunately heading that way. Since 12 he has been shop lifting and stealing from his family and friends, he currently is owing people who are several years older than him quite a lot of money to the point where they are banging on our door demanding to see him. He is skipping school and his grades are awful and despite my efforts to encourage him to do well and to push him towards something he might be able to do. Our mother is a narcissist who leads a bad example and my father hasn’t been in my life for a majority of it. He is following in the steps of my good for nothing father and all I can do is watch while everybody refuses to acknowledge the downwards spiral my family is going. It’s frustrating that a teenager has a better idea of where my family is going than the adults who choose to close their eyes and decide to reinforce bad habits. It’s caused my mental health to suffer because of the lack of emotional and mental support from selfish people and now all I want to do is to get into university and get as far away from these people as possible.
Image source: Wentzical
#17
I havent really talked about this with anyone before. this may be bit of a rambling mess, and I’m on mobile, but bear with me.
I worry about my step son.
He has had a rough life. He lived with his toxic mother for 8 years before the courts finally placed him with his father and me.
He doesn’t do anything crazy, it’s just that he lies about every little thing. He lies when there is no reason to lie. It’s almost as if he gets a thrill out of it, or he can’t help it.
I get that lying is somewhat normal, but he’s next-level.
I never know if I should believe him, because I have been fooled by his lies so many times.
He is lacking on empathy, and extremely impulsive, which is a bad combo.
He is not a good student, and his reading and writing skills are that of a third grader, and he is in the 6th grade. We have had him tested for learning disabilities, and the conclusion is always that he is just lazy (which, he is, so…they’re not wrong. Still, there has to be something else, but I’m not an expert).
Another thing that really worries me is that he is extremely unstable emotionally. Really minor things will set him off onto fits of rage or into over the top sobbing. It’s very strange and kind of scary.
Finally, If he is caught in a lie, or doing something he is not supposed to be doing, he will never admit to it. Everything is always someone else’s fault and never his. He will go to extreme lengths to avoid taking responsibility. You could have him on video doing something and he would still refuse to own up to it…it’s insanely frustrating and worrisome to me.
So, I worry that he will drop out of school, and turn to crime because it’s the easy way out.
I don’t *think* he will be violent, but I don’t know…he is still young…
I lose a lot of sleep at night worrying about his future, though.
I know we have to play our cards right as parents right now or he will end up getting into a lot of trouble someday. I hope all of my worry is for nothing.
Image source: CheyAutumn
#18
Both of my kids are pretty ok.
But my brothers youngest child is a sociopath. I won’t even visit anymore because I’m scared he will hurt my kids. My brother doesn’t see it, at all. Says “boys will be boys”. Most boys don’t hurt the neighbors pets.
Anyways in this case it is at least in part due to permissive parenting. This kid never gets punished or corrected for anything ever and he always gets what he wants. Nothing is ever his fault. Ever. One time he beat up the autistic kid across the street because the kid asked to play with him. My brother said it was the other parents fault for letting the kid go outside in the first place and that they should just “keep him inside”. Lol. This was in a nice subdivision full of 300k+ homes. Not the first or last kid he’s messed up either.
Mark my words, this kid is gonna hurt someone really bad some day, I have no doubt. I’m just staying as far out of the picture as possible so that its not me or one of my kids.
Image source: littleln
#19
This is all according to my mom and it’s not even about me, but I think it should be here anyway.
My mother had a friend who was raising a daughter that was infamous for not really…Being a nice person. We were like 5 and 6 respectively and honestly I was a far better behaved child then she was (Thanks mom!)
The main point I have for this (Again, this is according to my mom) is that whenever she would hit me, I wouldn’t hit her back. Not only did the parents not do anything about it, but they also asked “Why does he not fight back?”…What? Did you want to make a betting game on who would win in a fist fight between the two of us!? Also, if I did hit her *once* you would *lay me out* for hitting your *precious daughter*
My mom and her aren’t friends anymore.
Image source: VVheatley
#20
Not my kid, but my mom’s friend’s. They knew from that a young age, he wasn’t going to be good. The mother insisted that he just needed medications and he’d be fine. He would sneak out, start fires, those kinds of things.
He’s in juvenile right now, and he recently peed on the floor because he didn’t like them. This is after he stopped taking his medicine, and dislocated my elbow because he didn’t like me, he just twisted it around until It popped out.
Image source: skelekey
#21
Not a parent, but I have a cousin who a good chunk of my family have completely agreed with me that he is not going to be a good person. Ever. What’s difficult is his parents and some of the older generation still have hope in him (he’s in his 40s). We knew he was going to be a bad person when during his time in the states, he refused to take no for an answer for anything. He wanted the newest cars, wanted to go to certain schools (his grades weren’t exceptional so of course he never got in). He believed that just because his parents had money, he could do whatever he wanted and that he was a special snowflake.
His parents were partly to blame as they facilitated and enabled a lot of his behavior. He would often steal money from family members, and purposely rack up insane bills on credit cards (not just his card either, he’d steal others’ cards and start racking up bills on theirs), phones (this was during the time of those brick cell phones so prices were exorbitant), crash/total his car and request another, and just treat others like they were trash.
Eventually he dropped out of college and returned back to his home country with his parents. During this time, things got a lot worse. His father tried to get him to run his family business along with his siblings, but he was the problem one. He would often harass employees and make them uncomfortable as well as threaten them when he didn’t get what he wanted. He never even did much work, he just sat at his desk watching movies and shows, browsing the web, and never took on any responsibility. His siblings eventually cut him out of essential business functions as he was doing more harm than good for the company. His father kept him onboard believing that his son will change.
His behavior at home also got worse as he would often fight with his parents and attempt to hit them as well as his siblings. It got to a point where the siblings would never leave their kids with him and would rather hire a nanny at all times when they were gone than have him there. His spending habits also got worse as he racked up thousands. It got to the point where he began stealing more money, borrowing, and taking out loans to feed his habits. It got really bad when one of the loans he took ended up being from a loan shark and they were harassing him nearly at all times asking for their money and sending people to beat him. Again, his father had to step in and thankfully the father is a well respected man and they resolved the issue. He went through rehab eventually for it, but no one trusts him still. We all know he’s a bad individual and there is a list of other things both big and small he has done that’s just way too long to list. It’s just sad and embarrassing to see that his father still thinks highly of him when a lot of us know that he’s just a bad person in general and will never change.
Image source: rx-pulse
#22
My son isn’t a terrible person. He’s an awesome person. But it could have gone the other way.
He has, or had, something more or less in the vein of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. In real terms, the guts of it was that he could not accept that he was limited in any way. I mean, I’m talking even natural-order-of-things limitations. Not jump-off-the-roof-thinking-he-could-fly, but not too far off. He was seemingly trans for a year or so, not because he actually had a female gender identity, but because he would not accept that he had to be limited to being a boy. (This is reconstruction-in-retrospect – at the time I believed he was trans and got trans specialists on board and treated him as such. And the way it resolved is not at all the normal presentation of childhood trans. His wanting-to-be-a-girl (or not-wanting-to-be-a-boy?) had been acutely distressing and traumatic for him, but the whole thing pretty much resolved as soon as we accepted it as the new normal and accommodated it. Because it wasn’t about being a girl, it was about being limited).
He didn’t trust our guidance – everything we said was just to hold him down and hold him back. So he learned everything the hard way. He was charming enough to be liked by his teachers and others, but always in all sorts of new and exotic types of trouble they’d never seen before. He could be loving and funny with me but he could also turn deeply hostile, with incidents that were basically attempts at crimes, and deliberate, malicious attacks on my property. His emotional intelligence was very low – empathy wasn’t completely absent, but he was chronically oblivious to the reactions of others and any connection that might exist between how he acted and how others felt. He had a cold sort of logic that could be quite chilling at times – real sociopath-in-the-making stuff.
One after another, psychologists/psychiatrists/others went through assuming he was just this way because I was young and poor and didn’t know how to handle him, then watched him and us and agreed there actually was a problem, then pronounced themselves mystified about what “it” was and what to do about it. His school paid for him to go to a psychologist of their choosing, too – same result. He was assessed at a specialist child psychiatric unit, who came up with a list of things it could have been but wasn’t, but nothing that it was.
It became clear there was not going to be the kind of help that told us what the problem was and had a plan to fix it. All I could do was keep working with what was in front of me on any given day. He went to counselling after school at the local hospital several times a week to deconstruct and reconstruct his interpretation of his daily life (basically, informal cognitive behavioural therapy). I would talk him through social situations, over and over again, with the help of patient young friends. (What does her face look like? What do you think that means about how she feels about what you’re saying? Why do you think she felt that way?) I talked to him about mindfulness, about questioning the judgments his mind was leading him to and questioning them again. We did natural consequences for the anger outbursts and destroyed property and all that. I occasionally did pretty bad things because I was getting desperate and didn’t know what else to do for him. At the height of the destruction-and-zero-empathy stage, I cut up a loved toy in front of him and told him that what he was feeling, was what he was making me feel when he deliberately destroyed things of mine. (That did put an end to destroying my things, and was the start of him grasping empathy as a concept, when nothing else did). No one really knew what they were doing, me or the professionals either. We just kept slogging through it. We did this for years.
And somewhere along the line, somehow, it got better. He switched to destroying his own property when he was angry, and then stopped destroying it all together. He learned to manage his anger, more or less (at least to within normal kid limits). He learned to filter his reactions through rationality. He learned to interpret and analyse. He became more aware of himself and others, and developed empathy.
He’s still a bit of an odd duck. He’s still insanely stubborn. He still needs to school his anger. But he’s learned to self-regulate enough that he can be a decent person and have genuinely good relationships, and for a long time I wasn’t sure either of those things would be possible for him. He’s also very smart and self-aware and thoughtful. He reflects a lot on his life and what happens in it, in his own mind and to me. He’s very charming and charismatic and very well-loved by the people around him, most of whom have no clue what he was like in that period of say 5-13 years. (We moved cities just as he was coming good, so he got a fresh start). He grapples with ethical questions, loyalty questions, value questions – decent-person questions I had believed might always elude him.
He’s in his 20s now, and he’s the love of my life. He’s a genuinely awesome person. But he very nearly wasn’t.
**Edit:** Thank you all for the kind words. I am his mother, not his father, but no harm taken either way – after all, I didn’t specify. I won’t be replying directly to everyone, although I might answer a couple of questions raised. And it was really interesting to hear from a couple of people who had experiences similar to my son’s. It’s comforting, in a way, to know someone somewhere has been there too.
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#23
As a terrible person I will describe my parents. my parents are overly religious. mother was a children’s minister and father is a Sunday school teacher. my parents were overly protective and overly strict. I wasn’t allowed to do anything and was breathalyzed everyday of highschool so I wouldn’t drink. this created a forbidden fruit that was women and alcohol… and I love all of those things.
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#24
I have kind of the opposite story: my cousin is the son of an absolute monster.
I’d ask grandma when she realized her son was a piece of garbage, but she has alzheimers and can barely remember his name most days.
So, my cousin. Apparently he realized that his dad was a bad person when his dad put forward no assistance when his mom died. He got passed around the family for several years and then joined the military. Lives in Texas trying to instill in his sons the importance and value of a good dad.
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#25
Not a parent, a sibling. Throwaway for obvious reasons.
My older brother very well falls into the “terrible person” category. We had a pretty big age gap, and I missed a lot of what transpired between my parents and my brother, but as I’m aging, I’m starting to understand a lot more. I’m getting pieces of the story from him and our mother, as our father passed away years ago now.
I heard horror stories growing up about my brother, how he hit the cat, or lit the rug on fire, or wet the bed for years and they were always sorta used as a measure for me, as the younger sibling, to do better. I didn’t really register that they were really awful things as a kid, other than “things I shouldn’t do”.
He had trouble in high school, and ended up only getting a GED. He spent years jumping from job to job as he most often would end up fired from one place or another for various reasons. When I went to community college, I tried to get him to go with me. He’s plenty smart enough to go to school, just terrible at attending, he dropped out shortly after.
I found out later, my father had botched paying the high school where my brother was attending. He had to scrounge and work after school to stay in school and graduate. This was right around the time of Columbine and my parents were paranoid something would happen to him at a public school.
My parents had been very hard on him as a kid, every time he had screwed up. Once I showed up (younger sibling) they essentially wanted him to start being independent and they hadn’t set him up for it I don’t think. My entire family, parents included, would clam up if you talked about emotions other than happiness. No one ever seemed able to talk about it, or it was “impolite” or it wasn’t to be discussed with anyone else. We were expected to process emotions by ourselves behind closed doors. Unsurprisingly, this resulting in huge arguments between my parents and eventually divorce, but that’s another story.
I’m not saying my parents were terrible, I don’t think they were. I turned out ok, I think. I just don’t think they knew how to deal with my older brother and it ruined him in a way. I try and do what I can for him and make an effort to be there for him.
I don’t want to go into too much detail, even with a throwaway. He’s a loose cannon, he definitely has emotional issues and he won’t seek help for them. He’s a pathological liar and slick enough to talk his way out of most things, especially with a therapist/psychologist. He isn’t self sufficient and relies on everyone else for everything. Believe me, once I’m all he has left, he’s going to get self sufficient real quick.
The thing that really messes me up at the end of the day, in this long debate about nature v. nurture or eco-evo-devo, whichever.
How big a part does genetics really play in this? If I have children at some point, will I end up with someone like my brother? What are the chances of that?
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#26
My parents would probably call me terrible. I think I would be described better as a jerk. I’m not emotionally invested with most of my family besides 1 sibling. It’s due to many factors growing up. I not some psychopath I just could careless about ever seeing most of them again.
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#27
My parents didn’t really “get” video games.
they were deeply concerned that i would spend three hours a night, *playing video games the whole time*.
not to mention the fact that i *planned a spesific time every week to play, and would get really angry when inturupted*.
they took me to a pycologyst, who understood what i was doing, and simply asked my parents “is it strange or unusual to schedule a football game with friends? because this is essentially what he is doing”
my parents realized i wasn’t a crazed delinquant for scheduling raid nights for WoW durring high school. so yay?
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#28
I’m scared for my little brother. He’s now 15 and I don’t even fear prison for him anymore, I fear much worse. The first red flag was that he didnt seem to understand the concept of property. If he saw something he wanted, he would just take it. This has ranged from everyday objects, to electronics, to cash.
Looking back the first sign, which seemed innocent at the time, was that anything he didn’t agree with or didnt fully understand was ‘stupid’. And a lot of kids say that but it plays into the same hand here. He appears to have no concept of the feelings or emotions of others. He is not just selfish, because that would imply not caring about others, he seems to genuinely not understand that other people are real and have feelings. He never grew out of temper tantrums. Full on screaming, crying, stomping, throwing things, trying to hurt people.
He is even worse with animals. He got a pet fish as a kid and decided to throw it as hard as he could against the wall just to see what would happen. He doesn’t understand you have to be careful picking an animal up and you can’t just grab their tail or whatever part of them ans yank. Animals are terrified of him. A few years ago he got caught shooting a stray cat with an airsoft gun. He showed remorse only in that he got caught.
It escalated when he got into a rougher group of friends. More recently we found he had some videos of our sister in the shower. My dad hasn’t done enough to curb the behavior, since he’s the golden child, but I can’t blame it entirely on that. It’s just that my dad just grounding him for everything, then caving in and letting him out of his room because my dad wants him to be a hockey star doesn’t help.
I stopped worrying so much about prison now, and ever since the incident with my sister, who won’t even be in the same room as him, I worry that he is going to get even hornier as he ages. And I worry one day a woman will fight him and he will lose his temper on her.
I’m terrified of ending up talking to a reporter about how I never thought my brother would end up a criminal who kidnapped and kept young blonde women in his basement. I’m terrified of having the suffering of others on my conscience because even though he’s not my son or my responsibility, that I should have done SOMETHING.
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#29
My uncle is basically raising a “‘criminal”(hopefully not) without realizing it.
both my uncles and aunts are very successful doctors in our country and are often busy so my cousin was raised by maids in a spoiled and neglected environment that constantly feeds his ego. growing up i remember he would get everything he wants, and if anyone does not “pleases” him (such as giving him a particular toy he wants, or making jokes at him), he would throw the biggest fit. it doesnt help that whenever he throws a fit his dad would yell at the person doing it, including my aunts, uncles, and even grandma (seniority is pretty serious in my family and he’s always been my grandma’s favorite).
fast forward to a couple of years ago when his family visited the us (where my family lives). they were staying at my house and he started to yell at his little sister for some stupid reason. i politely told him that it wasnt nice to yell at his little sister when it was uncalled for. he replied “do you really think you can argue with me?”. i calmly told him that im not arguing with him, i simply am telling him that he shouldnt yell at his sister when she didnt do anything wrong. he repeats the same sentence above, forgetting the fact that i’m older than him and actually have more seniority than him in the family (my dad is the oldest, his dad is the 2nd oldest in a family of 8 siblings so his dad has a lot of seniority power back in our country). at this point i just had it with him and told him that i’m not arguing with him, and since i’m older than him and he’s living in my family’s house he better behaves and respects everyone in my family, at which point he starts throw a fit (he’s 15 at the time), in which his dad, fortunately, told him to apologize to me (probably because of the whole seniority thing)
fast forward to a few months ago after my brother visited the homeland and got the family updates. since he grew up with a big ego (rich family with my uncle constantly reminds him of his status) and doesnt know how to interact with people peacefully, he never had friends growing up. not only that, he’s starting to develop an interest in chemistry and explosives. last i’ve heard my uncle had to get rid of a bunch of tools he bought to explore more into the explosives. as my brother dug deeper into the situation, he found a bunch of internet searches and histories that this kid has been making that would definitely prompted quite a few FBI visits if he was living in the united states.
i honestly dont know what came out of that and how he is now. it is quite scary to loosely observe someone growing up to potentially become a “sociopath” like this. hope its just a phase.
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#30
When my aunt’s daughter (my cousin) went from lying to help herself to lying to hurt others, we had to finally put our foot down. Monstrous brat of a kid, her mom was the enabler. Boy that did not go over well.
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#31
I was the bad kid. But as I got older I think it clicked that the way I was raised was just not normal.
the fact is, both of my parents had various issues. My dad had a very bad temper. My mom was suffering from mental illness. They were disorganized, they didn’t handle conflict well, there was a lot of fighting and screaming before and after they divorced. They had custody battles, which they put me in the middle of all the time. My mom would get into various conflicts with people – neighbors, bosses and whatnot. She would lose her temper at me and my sister, usually over something outrageously trivial (“I can’t find my new hairbrush! The two of you are staying home from school and you’re helping me find it!”). They took each other to court all the time, because they couldn’t handle things amicably like adults. They would twist my words about the other parent and then put ideas into my head, which would lead to a call to CPS on each other, and then I’d show up to school and a social worker would be waiting there for me to talk about things at home. They just acted to horrendous.
So as a result, as a kid, I was “bad.” But I wasn’t “bad” in the sense that I was malicious, or that I was mean to other kids or gave my teachers a hard time, but I was “bad” in that I would scream, I would get violent with my relatives, I treated them horribly.
As I got older, I started to realize more and more that people talk things out, they don’t come home to stress, they don’t stay up all night fighting with their relatives, and people can actually be civil to each other.
Sometimes to this day they like to bring up all of the awful things I did when I was young. Or, if they disagree with something I do or say, they’ll say “I did not raise you this way.” You’re absolutely right, you didn’t raise me that way, because you raised me to be a jerk, and I didn’t become one.
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#32
My aunt’s child is horrible, we are the same age but he has done some very questionable things. Most of these include being violent to younger children, he expressed how he wanted to hurt my niece. He has always been kind of weird around younger kids. He was raised pretty badly, a careless mother who thinks he is always innocent and a toxic father. He also suffers from ADHD and has turrets syndrome.
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#33
My mom’s friend had two sons. One was completely “normal” for a young kid but his younger brother, from 5 years old to around 14, was an absolute monster. This kid would scream bloody mary anytime he didn’t get his way and yell at his parents and his brother all day long. He found pleasure in hurting his brother in front of me and my brother and sometimes would hurt his dog as well. He would throw things at his brother, bite him, and hit him and seemed to get so much joy out of it. I was always worried as a young kid being around him. Luckily, I didn’t live close so I didn’t see him often but the kid absolutely scared me.
It’s funny though because I mentioned this to my mother recently and she reacted like she’s never heard of this before. His mother didn’t realize it either. It seems it was so easy to compartmentalize and forget it ever happened when you’re so close to the problem. Thankfully, he grew out of it. I chalk it up to being a spoiled kid (family has lots of money so he got whatever he wanted material-wise, also second child favoritism) but at the time I really thought he was going to be in jail before he was 20. He’s now an extremely talented musician and recently married. I’m happy for him but I also think he got lucky because, to me, it seemed more about “growing out of it” then actual help from his parents.
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#34
My niece is an awful person but because she is incredibly unattractive, everyone gives her a pass for everything. She is rude, she steals, she mismanages money and only comes around when she needs something, she can’t keep a job or a home for longer than 6 months and has been expelled from multiple schools. But, they keep giving her money and trying to preserve her self-esteem. She’s 25.
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#35
My whole family knew my cousin would be terrible almost from birth. She was not a happy baby/child. When she was baptized I joked to my siblings and mom that the holy water was scalding her and that’s why she was crying through the whole thing, and we all tried the hardest we could to not burst out laughing in the middle of the church.
Turns out, we were right – not about the burning holy water, but that she was not going to be a nice person. She isn’t. Shrieked every moment of the day as a baby, bossy and mean as a toddler and kid, sullen and angry as a teen, and now as an adult still lives at home with her parents because her anger issues and laziness keep her from being steadily employed.
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