Dealing with a kid who is willfully destructive

In My Humble Opinion
1

There was/is a kid at our church fellowship who, for lack of a better way to put it, is willfully and obstinately destructive. Maybe around 6 or 7 years of age.

I don’t know what the clinical term is for his behavior, but he seemingly cannot see something without destroying it. If he sees someone playing piano while holding sheet music in place with a book, he’ll forcibly swipe the book to the ground. If another kid is having a birthday, then it’s HE who needs to blow their candles, not them. If something is intact, such as a folded standing chair or table, then he may kick or push it over. If you’re constructing a tall stack of toy blocks or something, then you need to beware because he may smash it over and grin at having destroyed someone else’s construction. It got to the point where I became very nervous anytime he was near a baby stroller because he seemed like someone who might kick it over, baby and all, just for the lolz of it.

Telling him “no” is no solution at all - he’s been told that who-knows-how-many times and he will look at you and smile a knowing and acknowledging grin and deliberately wreck the thing anyway despite your having clearly said no. The kid’s parents don’t see his behavior as much of an issue - in fact, they even requested the other kid - the one having the birthday - “sorry, my son wants to blow out your candles, can you let him?”

What would be your approach if this were your kid, and what, if anything, can you do when it’s someone else’s kid?

2

Someone else’s kid, I’d eliminate all contact. Who wants to be around a kid like that who has enabling parents?

My kid, I’d seek professional help.

3

This is the whole story right here. Clearly they’re incompetent, in over their heads, and/or just don’t care. Probably all three.

What can you do? Beat up his parents. Unfortunately, not much. Don’t invite them to events. Don’t let your relatives play with him.

4

“No, those are so-and-so’s candles because it’s his birthday. You get to blow out the candles on your birthday.”

“Badly parented”.

5

Chloroform. Use it liberally.

6
7

This child is a cat.

8

Wait, I read that as the parent’s of the birthday kid had to tell the other parent’s not to let their kid blow out the candles.
If the troublemaker’s parents requested that the troublemaker get to blow out the candles, then this is probably all on them. It might just be as simple as him being a spoiled brat. I’d suggest that a few years into elementary school and he may find himself running low on friends or have a teacher that can get him under control, but it seems just as likely that he’ll turn into a bully. Wait until he accidentally hurts someone and doesn’t get in trouble for it with his parents.

Having said that, up until the birthday party part, my thoughts were a really severe case of ADD or possibly even something along the lines of Autism. Someone I know has a kid like that. If he saw something, he was going to break it. A few years ago I asked his sister how he was doing and she said he still breaks things, but it’s not as bad as it used to be. Now, if you hand him a pen and talk to him for a few minutes, he’ll have the pen broken into a bunch of pieces, but he wont’ take the pen and write all over your walls. IIRC, he was diagnosed with ADD and likely medicated. Last I heard he was holding down a full time job with no major issues.

I’m guessing a combination of much better parenting with boundaries and consequences and some time to grow up a bit and he’ll get much better. If everything is status quo, he’ll probably get worse, at least for a while.

9

Kid’s an asshole…

…and this is where he gets it.

10

Yes, Troublemaker’s parents requested that Troublemaker be allowed to blow out other kid’s candles.

11

We all have to deal with assholes, at least on occasion. You have the gift of seeing how one is made :wink:

12

Then, and I’m not saying there aren’t underlying issues like ADD or Autism, he’s a spoiled brat. Not only does he feel entitled to do whatever he wants, his parents feel the same way. I can’t imagine, no matter how shitty my kid is, asking if he can blow out the candles at another kids birthday party. That’s just all kinds of wrong.
The worst part is, I’m willing to bet he or his parents will play the victim card as he gets older. When he finally runs out of friends to push around (or show up at his birthday), it’s because they’re the assholes. When he gets arrested one day, it’ll be someone else’s fault. When he gets expelled it’ll be because the teachers have it out for him. When someone finally snaps and retaliates (hits him back, pushes his toys over, breaks his stuff) he’ll have no idea why they did it.
And the worst part is, bullies are really, really, really good at playing the victim.

13

Kayaker had it right. The kid needs a professional evaluation, but that’s up to the parents and potentially his school. Otherwise, avoid the family.

14

As the parent of a (adopted) child diagnosed with moderate Oppositional Defiance Disorder, this sounds familiar. It’s easy to conclude that the behavior of such children is some sort of moral failing on the part of the child, or incompetent parents (if only the parents would say NO to the little brat, then he’d learn some manners!) but suspect what you’re seeing is not that straightforward.

15

The clinical term is Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

I am not passing any judgment on whether it’s a valid diagnosis or not in pure psychiatric terms. Educationally it can be useful for teachers to know which kids are likely to kick off a lot. It might be useful to read a bit about it if you have time, just for some tips - might, not saying it will.

It doesn’t always seem to be just about the kid badly parented, which is why the term has come into use. There can be parents who genuinely, honestly, work really hard, with lots of interventions (which is one of the reasons you know they are still working hard; it would be picked up on if they weren’t doing everything they could) and their kids are still a fucking nightmare. They often have one or two other kids who are well-behaved or just a bit cheeky, nothing unusual or problematic.

With this kid it looks more like really terrible parenting (he either never has any consequences for his behaviour, or they’re inconsistent) plus a wilful kid. Most places like church groups have rules for allowing kids to continue to go there; they’re best for everyone. If you have any, follow them, and if you don’t, make some. Stricter than before, perhaps.

Also talk to the parents. The worst that can happen is that they’re so pissed off with you for bringing it up that they don’t bring him any more.

16

I have a second cousin who, as a kid, was exactly the kid described in the OP. When visiting our house, he deliberately knocked over a bookcase in our living room. Another time, he threw a brick at my head. And he smashed a birthday cake with his fist. His mother thought it was “wonderful that he’s so expressive.”

He grew up to be an Orthodox rabbi. I don’t know what happened in-between.

17

The boy’s parents are massively enabling his behavior because either they’re too timid to confront their son, or they’re unwilling to accept the fact that they’ve raised a little monster.

Not much I can do about other peoples’ kids; I know it’s not good form to tell others how to raise their own kids, but even if I did, they’d get all defensive about it and raise a wall between us. Like kayaker and DCnDC said, the most you can do is to take the necessary steps to protect your own family.

Now if he was my kid … I don’t have any of my own, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I recall reading that Steve McQueen’s early childhood was not dissimilar to this boy’s, and him being sent to a boarding school for troubled adolescents, as well as his experience in the Marines, was what broke his fighting spirit, so to speak. So I’d try that first.

18

How long has it been since you’ve seen that kid at church? If it’s been more than a few weeks, and you and they are/were regular attendees, I’ll just bet that the parents were told that their child couldn’t attend services or be in Sunday School, and why.

When I lived in my old town, there was a family who had an “autistic” child who thought it was very funny to constantly pinch other children, and no amount of redirection could get him to stop. The other parents in the 5-year-old class said he couldn’t be in class with them, and the family didn’t come back. (The mom chose the music for the contemporary service, and I honestly wasn’t sorry to see she wasn’t doing that any more, because she had TERRIBLE taste in music.) I put “autistic” in quotes because they eventually found out that he had a rare metabolic disorder that caused autism-like symptoms, and the right combination of meds and supplements caused a dramatic improvement.

19

I know a kid who has some of the attributes of the kid you describe here - not so much destructive, but has zero impulse control, talks loudly over the top of other kids, will often just do things straight after being told not to (“don’t climb that wall Kid, it’s dangerous” … two seconds later Kid is on top of wall).

But in Kid’s case, his parents (sweet, calm, introverted intellectuals) have already raised one sweet, calm introverted intellectual kid. It’s very very clearly not something they’re doing … in fact, they and I have had a number of talks about what you do when you’ve got a non-neurotypical kid, since they know I also have a non-neurotypical kid, and Kid is the subject of multiple school interventions etc etc. I have faith that Kid will eventually find his way through his issues since he’s actually smart as a button and quite good hearted when he can, through teeth-clenching force of will, make himself stop for two seconds at a time and think about whatever disruptive thing he’s about to do.

Clearly this kid’s parents are not behaving at all like my friends and are not helping him to grow up right. But I wonder if it’s a case of being stopped by a kind of shame - that is, kid starts off out of control and everyone assumes it’s something they did (which it quite possibly is not - it really sounds like there’s a developmental problem there), therefore instead of confronting the problem they stick their heads in the sand and pretend the behavior is normal.

All this is a roundabout way of saying they may well need someone to simply sit them down and say - your child’s behavior is not at all normal. It’s probably not your fault. But it’s your responsibility. I really doubt whether this level of behavioral problems can be completely caused by enabling … if nothing else, kids at school won’t put up with this kind of shit, they’ll push back. Kids without an underlying issue, when they’re in other-kid society, will quickly figure out that if you go too far nobody will be your friend. I bet nobody IS his friend at school, and it’s a problem, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. Because he’s a kid. And probably in some way developmentally not right.

So, yeah, it’s on the parents. Not because I think they caused the problem, but because they need to be the leaders of the effort to do something about it, and if they’re not willing to take on that responsibility it’s nearly impossible for someone else to do it without them.

20

@Aspidistra I don’t know how this kid (at my church) is perceived by his school peers; chances are they don’t like him. But he’s an only child. His parents, not having had the benefit of birthing a sibling to serve as a compare-and-contrast kid to benchmark him against, may not truly realize how off his behavior is.

The mother, I think, somewhat recognizes that there’s an issue. I get the impression she is too fatigued by this point to do anything other than issue the mildest of verbal reprimands. But the father genuinely doesn’t seem to think his son’s behavior is a real problem. He seems to think it’s cute or endearing, or, at least, not unacceptable. And he was the one who asked for his son to be allowed to blow another kid’s birthday candles.