Interesting topic- even though most seem to acknowledge that animal cruelty, especially in a young child- is a sign of major disturbacne and a big red flag for future violence. I tend to think it should be researched and anddressed more adequately while the child is very young- as soon as it becomes apparent. Mainly because I had a second cousin who hugged his cat to death. In his case, his parents had just gotten a divorce (I think he was 3 or 4 yo) because his mom divorced his dad when he got put into prison- but I'm not sure why his father was put into prison. I want to say maybe B&E. Anyway, since my cousin had a somewhat typical, 2-parent household before then, he was having a difficult time adjusting so his mom bought him a kitten. He literally hugged the kitten to death which sent everyone who knoew into a major tizzy. As it turns out, and this is after numerous trips to several tdocs and the benefit of many years passing to verify how things would turn out- he really did not intentionally hurt the kitten. He was not violent or cruel to people or animals as he grew up or as an adult. I do agree that it was called for and appropriate for his mother to take him to those tdocs- obviously she wanted to be sure there wasn't an issue of developing violence, but even so- he did have issues over self-identity and security, etc, or he wouldn't have kept hugging the kitten to that point. But I can only imagine what would have happened to him if he;'d lived in today's society and this had come out in a pre-school or kindergarten class where people tend to panic more now than they did that many years ago. My cousin did have issues that needed to be addressed- but he wasn't a budding psychopath. If this has happened these days, he would have been treated and forced into the path of a sociopath.
I'm glad to see that some are at least looking at these signs in young children as maybe meaning a problem, but that it isn't so cut and dry or black and white as some might think. Hopefully this will lead to some coming to realize that if you treat a kid for the wrong, and more serious issues, than what they really have, it can be counter-productive. I thank God that difficult child only had the typical learning needs when it came to animals- you know- don't pick a dog up by the legs (he was 5yo), don't get near the food when the dog is eating, etc.