A small alteration of that headline would make my day: “Boy fed to crocodile”.
You are completely missing the point. What matters here is how many Australians would an Australian australianize if Australians could australianize Australians?
Maybe they should try neutering him—that usually does pretty well with puppies.
I blame Johnny Hart.
Trebuchet.
I’m going to chime in with the other posters who are bothered by this kind of statement.
This kid is (most likely) mentally very ill. It’s a horrible thing that he did, and I feel bad for the animals, but I feel far, far worse for a child who’s life is likely forever hindered, probably severely. For the rest of his life, there will be doctors, there will be medicine, there will be odd, altered, unsociable behavior. There will be emptiness. The death of a few animals is sad. The loss (in whatever form) of a human life is worse.
I’ve spent a little time with mentally ill children on a psych rotation (nursing school). This is not normal behavior, no matter how much some posters would like to equate it with hunting or with a kid who crushes a gecko with his sneaker. This is behavior that shows no fear, that shows no supervision, that shows chaos within this child’s life, and shows him embracing that chaos.
Also, another misconception I read that I would like to clear up. Someone (I forget who) said that it was ridiculous that children could be charged with sexual harassment. Children can, and will, molest other children. I’m not talking about a game of “playing doctor,” but full blown, hold the younger kid down, take off their clothes molestation. Don’t tell me it doesn’t exist, I’ve read their charts. Often they’ve experienced it themselves, and it’s sad, but they’re in a mental hospital in order to protect others. And this boy should be too.
Ooh, relativism. I don’t think we’ve played this game for a while.
Eh, when I’m watching a kid goof off in the supermarket and scream bloody murder and generally be an obnoxious little shit, I don’t fantasize about positive reinforcement. I wanna slap the shit out of it.
Not that I’ll do it, but this is the internet. It’s that little voice in your head given a big voice, not a big deal.
Do we have any references that say that this activity is NOT ONLY a rite of passage but NOT a precursor to being a REALLY DISTURBED AND CREEPY KID? Because I, a kid who grew up in the country, find his behavior FAR from what I would call “normal.” Dudes, the kid is a budding psychopath. Deal with it or explain, cogently, why your arguments are NOT MERELY to support your belief that Guns Are The Answer to All Life’s Problems. ANYTHING in between is bullshit. :mad:
From a children’s mental health perspective, killing and torturing animals at the age of seven is not particularly diagnostic of anything. It is, however, the equivalent of a flashing yellow light: WARNING, DANGER AHEAD – other flashing yellow lights in the field include multiple family members diagnosed with mental illness, persistent enuresis/encopresis, habitual stealing and lying, explosive outbursts, and parents who are literally or figuratively absent – though this is by no means an exhaustive list.
The evident enjoyment this boy derived from his actions would almost certainly be interpreted as strongly indicative of a lack of empathy. By age seven a child has heard from an adult somewhere that the animals they encounter experience pain and distress in much the same way that children do. I can’t speculate as to why this information did not process in the typical fashion i.e. through acting compassionately with the smaller and weaker – the usual finding is some combination of bad brain and bad experience requiring a lot of time and effort to offset in order to give the child a chance at the glorious unfolding we refer to as normal life.
If this kid were younger, I would be much less bothered by the incident – even at five years old, I could possibly accept that the kid hasn’t grasped the idea that other living things die and feel pain. At seven, I can’t give that pass. It’s just sad and disgusting all around.
That’s kind of what I figured; Australian society with regards to how animals are treated is not like China.
Somebody said something upthread about how seven year olds aren’t responsible for their actions; that’s part of the reason they need parental supervision - to protect the rest of us from THEM.
Just because it is annoying me. Feeding protected lizards to a croc IS *illegal here in Australia. They are PROTECTED for a reason
Oh and while I’m thinking of it, the RSPCA here are quite happy to prosecute folks who want to mistreat animals of all kinds.
*be buggered if I can find a link that doesn’t involve 43 pages of other crap.
I checked the pics and it looks as if the kid’s an Aborigine. Aboriginal kids in remote communities are often given the offspring of animals killed for food. They “play” with them until they die and by this I mean, they will play footy with them, pull them apart etc. It was explained to me that this is the way they learn how animals work and part of how they learn to hunt.
And I can tell you now, that won’t be “Australian society”'s view. The only thing we’ll agree on is it’s no surprise.
I’m more surprised by the sheer number of “kid needs help” responses and the assumption that he’ll now be on the receiving end of any sort of useful intervention. He’s an aboriginal kid in a remote community and that will happen when hell freezes over.
Link to bigger fail that Top Gear Australia because I assume it won’t have made international news.
Exactly. Here’s what the head of the zoo actually said to the press.
Personally, I’d be more inclined to dangle him over the croc pit until a foot had gone, fulfilling a double role of teaching him about the meaning of pain and also making it a little more difficult to climb over fences in future. Come on, admit it. Who wouldn’t have felt a slight sense of justice being carried out, had this video clip ended up with the croc getting the kid?
Hideously enough I agree with Bathsheba that if he is Aboriginal, he won’t get the help in Alice Springs. Not so much with the idea that Aboriginal culture teaches kids how to hunt by using animals as footballs.
Irishgirl, I knew kids in highschool who did hideous things to canetoads. And only canetoads. Canetoads are an introduced species in Q and they are a complete ecological nightmare. Somehow that has led to it being OK to do whatever the fuck you want to them. But only them.
I’m still all sorts of unforgiving about the time my DH caught one and froze it (as recommended) and didn’t tell me and I took the fucker out the freezer unawares. He can freeze them any time but just tell me in advance!
This seems to validate my point that the kid was not taught not to do that but, no matter, people here will continue to demonstarte how civilized we all are by proposing the kid be fed to crocs, or severily punished in various other unpleasant ways.
It is always entertaining in recreational outrage threads to see how people will point out the barbarity of X group who did something outrageous which should not be allowed and then go on to suggest they should all be exterminated, their land nuked back to the stone age, etc. That is how we want to show our superiority over the barbarians. By nuking their countries or by feeding their kids to the crocodiles. And it would all be ok if it ere just idiots shooting off their mouths but the problem is that every once in a while America feels the need to act on such urges to go civilise some people and then we get things like Iraq. It seems it is OK to kill men, women and children if they are the sort of barbarians who might harm a lizzard. :rolleyes:
You’ll be saying cops should refrain from being amused by gallows humour next. Get off your high horse, you’re likely to injure yourself.
I doubt that any children have seen more animals being fed to animals than Steve Irwin’s, yet I don’t see them doing something like this.
The child is 7 and apparently has no conscience. He doesn’t understand that causing pain is wrong. Age 7 is too late to grow a conscience. The future does not look good for the child.
If the parents dismiss it with “Boys will be boys,” the future is really bad.
“You will believe a boy can fly…” 
Where did you get such a nonsensical idea? “Cruelty to animals” is most certainly one symptom of Conduct Disorder. Were he to show two other symptoms within the past year, he would meet criteria for CD with childhood onset, a very bad sign.
Interestingly enough, during assessments of children, when I ask parents about the presence or absence of CD symptoms, they pretty much respond to most items (truancy, physical fighting, use of a weapon like a bat, brick, bottle or knife, physical cruelty to people) without a great deal of affect, but when I ask about cruelty to animals, they tend to show a lot more affect (“Oh no! He’s never done anything like that!”).