• OttoVonNoob
    233·
    9 months ago

    Incase you ever have an event like this. Grain of salt though, I’m a youth worker but dont have a degree in child psychology. You ask the child to imagine how the animal feels. Even if the child does not have empathy, the imagine part forces their brain to try to understand. If it persists also seeking professional help never hurts.

    • bionicjoey
      182·
      9 months ago

      This exact thing happened with my cousin. We were staying at a cottage with his family and he had a day where started really enjoying catching frogs and yeeting them against rocks to kill them for some reason. He must have killed like 30 when his mom found out. Then she explained to him that frogs are living animals with mommys and daddys of their own and my cousin suddenly became so traumatized he cried for hours.

    • thefartographer@lemm.ee
      96·
      9 months ago

      I used to love doing these types of things as a child and I was terrified of dismemberment in movies. One day, my dad told me that what I see in movies is what the frogs, fish, and bugs that I’d torment (essentially anything that didn’t make terrifying noises) would endure. That was a massive turning point in my life.

    • Revonult@lemmy.world
      7·
      9 months ago

      I think having pets really helps establish that empathy link. Growing up with dogs really helped develop an understanding that creatures are complex with individual personalities just like people. Obviously this only goes so far, but I dont think I would have the same level of empathy and respect for animals having grown up without them.

      • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.netEnglish
        3·
        9 months ago

        I think having pets (and being good at it, because not everyone gets this next part) can be really useful for understanding and internalising the fact that animals can have personalities and preferences and all these things we attribute to agency, but also, they’re not humans. They don’t think like we do, and to value them properly, we need to not anthropomorphise them.

        An example of a pet owner who doesn’t do this is someone I knew who was getting frustrated with her pet for peeing in her bed. She talked about it as if her cat was maliciously doing it, in retribution for not being allowed out of the house due to illness related stuff. She was so angry and because she felt frustrated at not being able to communicate this to her cat (fortunately, at least having the decency to not physically abuse her pets), gave her cat “the silent treatment” for a day whenever it happened. I tried to explain that if a pet is sick in your bed, it’s probably because they felt sick and went somewhere they felt safe, and also that her cat wouldn’t understand this “punishment”, but she didn’t get it. She insisted on seeing an intentionality that wasn’t there

  • SigmarStern@discuss.tchncs.de
    1216·
    9 months ago

    I drowned some ants when I was a little kid in our backyard because I was scared of them and also curious. My neighbor told me to think about what I did. I was mortified. I’m a vegan now.

    Kids need to learn that kind of empathy. Although I don’t think I would have ever thought about about ripping limbs from frogs.

    • wizzor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      801·
      9 months ago

      When I was six, I was fishing with my father and uncle in a boat. We got a fish, and my uncle swiftly killed the fish immediately. I asked why he did it, it would’ve died anyway.

      He said something along the lines of “All life should be respected enough not to let it suffer” and nothing else. A useful lesson that changed my view on suffering of animals. The man was later listed as one of the 10 most sought after criminals in my country, but I take the good and leave the bad.

    • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
      273·
      9 months ago

      I was horrible to animals as a kid. I teased the neighbourhood cats so much. I once put salt on a snail just for fun, without knowing it would die a gruesome death with just one grain of coarse salt. I’m vegan today…

    • Droggelbecher@lemmy.world
      122·
      9 months ago

      I once ate 10 live ants as a kid and I’m vegan now too, just thought that was interestingly similarish

    • brb@sh.itjust.works
      51·
      9 months ago

      I used to burn ants with magnifying glass with my friend. We also melted the limbs of those tiny green plastic soldiers and made 10-limbed monstrosities. Good times.

  • GBU_28@lemm.eeEnglish
    1011·
    9 months ago

    I knew someone in elementary school who brought us other kids to his backyard. His older brother was a few years older, and showed us a nest of ducklings. Before any of us knew what was going on he:

    1. Picks up a shovel and swings on the nest several times
    2. Pulls out a small tin of lighter fluid and and a lighter, douses them and lights it.

    I was so fucking stunned. It is still seared in my memory. I don’t even remember being scared, just immediately outside my body.

    Eventually we ran home. I remember feeling nauseous for days. I never told my parents, out of fear, and I regret that.

    I later learned that kid was sent to a disciplinary school after threatening his dad with a knife, and soon after the family and my peer moved away.

    Wanna guess what the evil brother does for work now?

      • The Assman@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        9 months ago

        Alternate universe where Jeffrey Dahmer is instilled with a sense of justice at an early age, and later goes on to hunt down and lobotomize serial killers.

        Wait is that just Dexter? I’ve never seen the show.

  • oillut@lemm.ee
    37·
    9 months ago

    I did this as a young kid. I can confirm it was a complete lack of empathy and likely a power thing. It’s something thats haunted me more the older I get, as it should. Moments like this made me realize empathy is something I wanted, so I actively worked on it, and it grew like a muscle. I’d say I’ve improved quite a lot but others can judge that

    As far as advice goes, yeah teach em about empathy. While this is also psychopathic behavior, I see equally bad feeling based reasons for being that cruel, the same ones that motivate bullying: power and superiority shit

  • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
    414·
    9 months ago

    I’ll add mine to the pile. When I was a lad, probably 10 or so, my family’s back porch would frequently get overrun by slugs. I eventually got sick of accidentally stepping on them, so I got the salt shaker and a bunch of paper towels. To my memory I poured salt on a good 30 of them, though it was probably only 10 or so. Salted them, put the paper over them, then the next day came out to collect the bodies and throw them away.

    28 year old me would beat 10 year old me’s ass for that. Gotta hand it to him, though—those slugs never did come back to the porch.

    • UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works
      58·
      9 months ago

      I get the poor animals part, but this just seems like avarage shit you have to do in the countryside. Any good country folk know that (some) animals are your enemy, if there are wasps near your house? You kill them, their nest, wait for the extended family to search for their homes and kill them too. Now it’s a much safer enviroment. Same with all rodents, same with all insects, same with slugs… I guess, I never heard of a slug problem.

      • Baines@lemmy.world
        181·
        9 months ago

        if there’s kittens in your barn and one gets in front of your tractor that’s just life

        farmer relative

        country folks can be just cold blooded

      • derpgon@programming.dev
        9·
        9 months ago

        I used to have a can full of salty water and a little piece of wood with a big nail extending out one end (looked like a prison shiv). I’d impale the slugs and put them in the can. Leave the can overnight, dump em by the field in the morning, rinse and repeat whenever needed.

  • pensivepangolin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23·
    9 months ago

    Growing up, a neighborhood kid did this. All the other kids were scared of him and we all used to hide when he came outside to play. No one knows what ever happened to him…he dropped off the face of the earth after leaving home during high school, and his family moved out of the country a year later. Sometimes I wonder what he ever wound up doing….

  • ladicius@lemmy.world
    198·
    9 months ago

    Psychopath. Torturing and killing animals as a kid is the most significant identifier for psychopaths.

    • voracitude@lemmy.world
      27·
      9 months ago

      Yes, but they might just not understand. Other comments in this thread show that those children do exist. I think the advice to ask the child how they think their victim feels is best. A sociopath understands, and cares more about their own gratification than the suffering they’re causing.