Animal Abuse

Children’s innate curiosity motivates them to explore the world around them.  Babies crawl around their home and place nearly anything in their mouths.  Kids of all ages enjoy playing outdoors and visiting local stores.  However, not all curiosity leads to appropriate behavior.  Sometimes children may abuse or torture family pets or other animals for various reasons.

 

A young preschooler or developmentally delayed child does not understand that animals have feelings and shouldn’t be treated as toys.  They may grab their cat by the tail or hit their dog, not realizing that they are inflicting pain on their pet.  The child is not performing these actions on purpose; he or she just doesn’t have much experience or training on how to properly care for different types of animals. 

 

A discussion with the child explaining that it’s not okay to hit or mistreat animals may help eliminate this behavior.  Comparing animal abuse to hitting or mistreating other kids will allow the child to further understand why torturing animals in any way is wrong.

 

A form of animal abuse

Other times, a young child under the age of 12 intellectually comprehends that it isn’t okay to harm animals.  This type of animal abuse stems from a deeper psychological problem.  A physically abused child may want to regain a sense of power by abusing an animal because he or she can’t physically over power his or her abuser.  Another motivation in this type of animal abuse comes from imitation.  These children want to imitate their parent’s abusive “discipline” on animals.

 

Overcoming this unwelcome behavior requires seeking professional assistance.  A professional can uncover the hidden reasons as to why the child is intentionally mistreating an animal.  Parents can decide what they can do to discourage this behavior based off of a professional’s helpful suggestions.

 

A third type of animal abuser is the conduct-disordered teen abuser.  Teenagers who abuse animals often do so as a result of peer pressure, to relieve boredom, or to gain control.  These abusers most likely participate in other antisocial behaviors such as substance abuse or gang activities.  They understand that hurting an animal is wrong but continue to do so anyway.

 

Parents of a teen animal abuser have to enlist in professional help right away.  Success rates of completely eliminating an animal abuser’s actions are higher when the teen is surrounded by supporting friends, family members, and teachers.

 

Although research in the 1970’s consistently reported childhood animal abuse as the first warning sign of later violence and criminal behavior, the type of childhood animal abuser must be considered before making such an assumption.  A preschooler and developmentally delayed child accidentally abuse animals merely out of curiosity and shouldn’t ring any serious alarms.  Older children and teens who fully comprehend that harming animals causes them to feel pain requires professional intervention.  Even though the child realizes his actions are unjust, he or she may be unable to stop doing so without professional help and treatment.

 

Albert deSalvo

Not all serial killers torture animals as children.  However, a few famous mass murderers have done so.  For example, Albert deSalvo, shot arrows through cats and dogs as a child before he murdered 13 women in Boston as an adult.  Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold bragged to friends about mutilating animals for enjoyment before they killed many students in the famous Columbine shooting.  Torturing animals alone can’t serve as a direct indicator that a child will develop into an adult serial killer.

Be on the lookout for my next post about how to prevent children who have some characteristics of the adult serial killer from becoming one themselves.