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.
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.
That was extremely good parenting.
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.
When I was four I stomped on ants for fun. Then one day my big sister rushed over and buried one of them and put a marker on its grave.
I still stomped on them, but kept thinking about what she did and I eventually stopped.
That’s a good sister.
Nah fuck ants. But mostly just the queen. Support ant workers rights
Yup, you don’t need poison. Just sprinkle some miniaturized union pamphlets on the infestation and the colony will collapse in few weeks. Of course you risk a new infestation of ants with free time, safety regulations, and disposable income.
I think you just knocked out 80% of sales people who read ants with disposable income when the blood ran to their junk so fast they blacked out
FREE THE ANTS
DOWN WITH THE MONARCHY
SUPPORT ANT COMMUNISM!
Animals? Sure. But I have no compassion for insects lol (Yes insects are animals as well, but you know what I mean)
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.
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
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.
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.
This has the same energy as the jumper cables guy
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
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.
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…
I wasn’t very nice to plants as a kid. I would often pluck wood sorrel off the ground and eat it right there. I once burned a hole in a leaf using my glasses. I’m a meat eater today.
Dunno why you’re being downvoted, that’s hella funny
tee hee! downvote
I wish I could upvote and downvote you at the same time.
I once ate 10 live ants as a kid and I’m vegan now too, just thought that was interestingly similarish
Eating ants has leads to veganism
Ants are bastards though, frogs don’t hurt you :(
Little bastards gave me warts. And gonorrhea.
Shouldn’t have fucked the frog then.
What is the point of life, then?
You only need to kiss the frog to figure out if it’s a prince though.
I just uhhh wanted to make sure…
Ants are nature’s cleaning robots they’re amazing
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:
- Picks up a shovel and swings on the nest several times
- 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?
Law enforcement?
Yep.
Three people guessed it correctly before you responded, that’s, uh, that sure says something
I shot a bird once, with a pellet gun.
I felt fucking awful. Never will I kill something again with intent like that.
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.
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.
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.
I’d just spray the field with slug poison at this point. But I guess it’s more natural.
Ah yes, slug poison the thing that won’t hurt your crops… Salt.
I haven’t tought that far.
No offense, but you’re definitely the type that would’ve in the middle ages salted his own crops and then cursed the “witch” next door
idk how good or bad salting soil is. Probably bad.
Enroll him at Le Cordon Bleu? Make sure he knows how to properly prepare frog legs and what sauce to pair them with.
Teach them to only kill serial killers?
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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.
Basically yea lul. Quite good for the first couple seasons.
adoped french child
Go to 4chan for parenting advice
Perfect idea honestly. Just take whatever they say and do the opposite
Lol
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
Eye for an eyeLeg for a leg. You know what you have to do.Blame TV duh.
Anon wants parenting advice
…And he looks for it at 4chan.
I stomped a lizard flat when I was five. My mom had me bury it and say a prayer for it.
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