Raising Adam Lanza's.. Raising 9-Year-Old a Psychopaths

[laundry_queen]

38. I believe, like autism

there are physiological differences, but they must be TRIGGERED by something in the environment. There was recently a program on a science channel (can't remember which one) that studied the brain differences between 'normal' people and psychopaths. While they found distinct differences in psychopath's brain physiology, they also noted that a good portion of 'normal' people also had the same physiological differences in their brain (including the person narrating the program, and the doctor conducting the brain scans). So while all psychopaths might have that same brain construct, not all normal people have 'normal' brain construct.

So, in my opinion, children who are taught and shown empathy at a young age that have the 'psychopath' wiring, are more likely to make new neural connections in the brain that will ensure they don't end up as psychopaths. Children who have the 'psychopath' brain who aren't shown empathy, or are raised, for instance, in a strict authoritarian household, may be more prone to becoming psychopaths, having never experienced empathy enough as a child to 'fix' their brain.

This is all just theorizing of course. As someone who has narcissism (NPD) that runs in both sides of my kids' families (my ex may actually BE a psychopath - he checks every single AsPD trait), I did a bit of research on what the chances were that my kids may inherit a faulty gene, since it IS thought to be partially genetic, and I found estimates give it a 50-50 chance. I spend a lot of time with my kids teaching them about empathy because of this. Jury's still out on whether or not it will work, but my kids, so far, are very empathetic people.