A Unique Perspective on a 'Game-Related' Tragedy

Megnatron writes "Penny Arcade has a letter from the stepmother of one of the kids who was recently charged with killing a homeless man. Her article is an extremely sobering tale of the problems dealing with troubled teen. She explains how, in this situation, the parents did everything they possibly could. And, in a refreshing twist, she absolves the games industry of any blame for the tragedy these kids perpetrated. From her missive: 'Video games DID NOT make this kid who he was, and it's unfortunate that the correlation is there. The thing that really gets me with this whole thing is that the kid knows full well that by equating what he's done to a video game, that he will generate controversy and media coverage. It makes me sick that the media is jumping all over this, because that is exactly the result that he wants. The only good thing (if there is such a thing) that has come out of this whole ordeal is that the kid is behind bars. That is exactly where he needs to be.'" Her letter is a passionate, troubling story, but well worth reading.

Comments

Gabe's Original Take, Her Response

[Brigade]

Link to Gabe's original post and her response: (In case Penny-arcade is blocked at work)

Gabe,

Your news post about the kids and the homeless man yesterday made me sick to my stomach, before I even read the CNN article. I knew what it was going to be about before even reading the article. It was not the article itself, or even your post that made me sick, it was the fact that I know this boy. Or, rather that I could be considered one of the "parents" of this boy.

The boy's father and I have been together for almost seven years, and I had what I guess could be called a "stepmother" relationship with the kid. To say that living with this kid was hell would be a complete understatement.

I don't think I have ever actively hated anyone in my entire life, but this kid just makes my blood boil.

As I write this, my teeth are clenched, my hands are shaking, and my whole body is seething with the hatred I feel for this kid and what he has done. Seeing the article brings back all the horrible memories from when he lived with us.

He was constantly in trouble in school, with the cops, with us, with his mother, and with anyone else who was an authority figure. Not a week went by that the school or the cops wouldn't call us for something. His attitude was basically "fuck you, I don't have to listen to you" said with a shrug.

We tried absolutely everything we could think of to get him to behave like a normal human being... we tried groundings, negative reinforcement / punishment, positive reinforcement, counseling, and anything and everything the counselors suggested. We tried to get him interested and involved in extracurricular activities, like hockey, drama, music, art, anything, but he got himself kicked out of every group he was in with his "make me" attitude. When we would ground him, we took away everything. No TV, no computer, no phone, no leaving the house, no snacks or junk food.... Everything. When he was grounded, he was only allowed to sit in his room and read or draw. He was actually a pretty good artist, and we tried to encourage him to spend his time working with his talent. He would just sit there and take it... the groundings had absolutely no affect on him at all. Most of the time, he didn't even remember why he was being grounded. At the end of it, we would ask him if it was worth it to have everything taken away in exchange for what he did... he usually just shrugged. He could be grounded for weeks, or a month at a time, and then the very next day would do something to get back in trouble again. Most kids get grounded or punished a couple of times, and then they want to avoid having to go through it again... not this kid, nothing seemed to phase him.

And we're not talking the usual teenager stuff, like coming home late, or refusing to do the dishes. We're talking stealing cars, setting fires, drinking, getting picked up for drugs, beating up handicapped kids at school (yes, really) stealing things out of our house... all with this "I'll do whatever the fuck I want" attitude.

We had absolutely no idea what else we could do. We already had him in counseling, and we did everything the counselors suggested. We tried rewarding his good behavior (what little there was) to try to get him to see that when he behaves like a normal human being, things are good and people enjoy being around him. Nothing phased him at all.

Then, things took an even worse turn when he decided that whenever he didn't get his way, or we did something he didn't like, he told his counselors and teachers that we were abusing him. (Never happened.) And for some inexplicable reason, everybody believed him. I understand that child abuse is a very serious situation, and that they have to take every possible case seriously, but this was clearly a case of him manipulating people to get what he wanted. We had people from the school, cops, and social services over at our ho

Re:Scarily familiar...

[spun]

I don't think there is any question that people can be born bad. It's called anti-social personality disorder, and in its more extreme forms, sociopathic or psychopathic. There is an acronym for remembering the diagnostic criteria: corrupt.
        * C - cannot follow law
        * O - obligations ignored
        * R - remorselessness
        * R - recklessness
        * U - underhandedness
        * P - planning deficit
        * T - temper

Here's the checklist for a psychopath
      1. Glibness/superficial charm
      2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
      3. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
      4. Pathological lying
      5. Cunning/manipulative
      6. Lack of remorse or guilt
      7. Shallow affect
      8. Callous/lack of empathy
      9. Parasitic lifestyle
    10. Poor behavioral controls
    11. Promiscuous sexual behavior
    12. Early behavioral problems
    13. Lack of realistic, long-term goals
    14. Impulsivity
    15. Irresponsibility
    16. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
    17. Many short-term marital relationships
    18. Juvenile delinquency
    19. Revocation of conditional release
    20. Criminal versatility

That's a pretty clear definition of "bad."

Re:Scarily familiar...

[Cyberax]

There's a classic case of Gage Phineas ( http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=231 ), for example. And a lot of cases in WWI and WWII with personality-changing head injuries.

Re:Call me a cynic

[Moryath]

The kid wasn't the step-parent's problem. The step-parent should have just divorced their mate rather than be around that kid. Was the kid's parent rich or very good in bed that you could just put up with or ignore the kid until this happened? Nah, can't have been a rich parent or the kid would have been in a distant boarding school the first time the kid started getting out of hand.

If you noticed, there's a second kid in the house - a kid who's turning out just fine.

And I've no doubt Gabe doublechecked the story and verified the connection before publishing.

Re:Hmm You're 23 what do you know about the '60s?

[MBCook]

For reference, I only mentioned the 60s because video games didn't exist. It had nothing to do with parenting styles and some such. I simply chose that decade for the lack of video-games, and didn't think about it any further.

Re:Proof Positive, Government (Congressional) Docs

[rhombic]

Jeezus. That is some schweet statistical cherry picking. Not surprising at all that 25% of the FEDERAL prison pop is illegal immigrants, very few crimes that result in incarceration are federal. The vast, vast, vast majority of crimes are violations of state & local laws, and dealt with at the state level. Last week's BOP report says there are 195,248 Federal prisoners. So according to your statistics, that's ~48,000 illegal immigrants in the federal Pen. Now, the last number I can find for both state & federal is for midyear 2005, 1,259,905 people in state prisons and 179,220 in Club Fed. (Reference here). I dunno how many people in state prisons are illegal, probably lots in California and quite a few less in Idaho. But you can't say 25% of the people in prison are illegal based on statistics of the 12% of the prison population that's in the federal system, which is where being here illegally is dealt with, unless you're trying to be intentionally deceitful.

Re:Stepmother

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont give up on her kids. Document what treatment they get. Get aquainted with someone from child service that has faculties to understand the problem - and her history. Dont give her any money, let her figure out what is most important - food or sigarettes. "Helping" people doing their mistakes over and over, is not really helping. Make an agreement with your parents what you do, so that when she turns to either of you - your response is the same. Dont be divided and conquered.

It is only possible to really make a difference when acting out of dispassion and with intelligence.

I cannot understand how any kid can be "illegitimate". They deserve a better start in life.

Re:Scarily familiar...

[xero314]

I don't think there is any question that people can be born bad. It's called anti-social personality disorder, and in its more extreme forms, sociopathic or psychopathic*.

*(note: neither the DSM-IV or the ICD 10 list either sociopath or psychopath as accepted disorders, and are usually accepted to be synonymous with anti-social personality disorder)
Before you can answer the question you have to define "bad." Most psychologist and psychiatrist would not define "bad", but if they had to it would include a need for conscious understanding of consequence. The disorders you mentioned, along with all other personality disorders, cause a block in the psyche that causes the personality disordered to not be able to comprehend the effects of their actions.

Assuming you define "bad" differently and base it solely on action and effect of action regardless of intent, then you still have to accept that this is still a mater of perspective, as can be seen clearly in both the debate over capital punishment as well as Darwin's natural selection. This can be seen clearly in the high number of Sociopathic and Narcissistic CEOs in the world as it shows that sociopathic, narcissistic and to a lesser extent anti-social behavior is favored by natural selection. Even the list you mentioned contained very few things that people generalize perceive as unforgivably "bad".

You also seem to imply that their is scientific consensus that personality disorders are genetically hereditary, though this is neither accepted nor supported by and peer reviewed and accepted studies. THE DSM-IV states "The cause of [anti-social personality disorder] is unknown, but biological or genetic factors may play a role." This is believed because "The incidence of antisocial personality is higher in people who have an antisocial biological parents." The studies so far have had difficulty separating environmental effects of having afflicted parents from the biological ones. Even when the child is separated from the afflicted parent the environmental effect of parental abandonment is still their which is known to be a major factor in the formation of Personality Disorders. So far there has been no prove physical cause for Personality disorders, which is part of what actually qualifies a disorder as being a personality disorder.Treatment of most personality disorders has been shown to allow a person to live a productive and non-distructive life, though admittedly treatment is almost always required for the rest of the afflicted persons life

Beside all of that you do realize that the founding fathers of the United States, and I would assume many other countries, would qualify as anti-social, among other possible disorders, by the law makers and psychoanalyst (if there were any) of the country it had separated from.

From the DSM - IV only three of the following need to be met to qualify as anti-social.

• Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.
• Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure impulsivity or failure to plan ahead.
• Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults reckless disregard for safety of self or others.
• Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations.
• Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

Re:Genetic factor?

[SysKoll]

There might also be another explanation for the "crazy guy" phenomenon. According to many articles, half of mankind is infected by a parasite, Toxoplasma, that is known to radically alter the behavior of rats. It's also suspected of creating schizophrenia-like symptoms in some human subjects who are either more sensitive or highly infected.

So it's entirely possible that some cases of "unruly teen" behavior might be linked to a parasitic infection. A blood test is $30 and the cure is a couple of cheap pills. Next time I have an episode of road rage, I'm getting tested.

Read up about it. It is both fascinating and disturbing. And it could save someone you know.