The Huddle Wisdom Blog: For Parents of Anxious & Sensitive Kids
Expert guidance and real-world reflections from a child psychiatrist who’s also a parent.
How to Inoculate Kids Against Sociopathy — With Empathy
Let me start with an uncomfortable truth. Children don’t become adults with sociopathy overnight. It is not something that simply “happens.” It is shaped gradually—often quietly—through repeated emotional disconnection, unmet relational needs, and a lack of consistent adult guidance.
To be clear:
We do not diagnose sociopathy in children.
The clinical term, Antisocial Personality Disorder, is reserved for adults. However, in my work as a youth forensic psychiatrist, I do encounter early behavioural patterns that raise concern—such as cruelty to others, chronic lying, or apparent indifference to consequence. But these signs don’t automatically mean a child is on the path to becoming sociopathic.
And this is an important distinction.
â–ŤEvery Child Experiments with Self-Centredness
We all carry some degree of self-interest and emotional short-sightedness. In childhood, that’s not sociopathy—it’s developmentally normal.
Children are still learning what empathy feels like, what it req...
