In my rather controversial yet experienced opinion (I work with many kids), these kids develop the way they do as a result of bad parenting and improper/inadequate attention from adults. The majority of kids who display anti-social behaviors also tend to be the most intelligent students. This is even more true of the kids who exhibit highly manipulative behaviors.

I've worked with hundreds of students, and I've never come across a student who I would pin as incapable of empathy. They might be able to turn that empathy switch off, but with appropriate attention from an adult, they can turn it on just as easily. And keep it on if they want.

I think a lot of the behaviors exhibited by the kid in this article are rooted in basic human emotion and tendency. First of all, manipulation is something that is enjoyable. You might claim me to be a psychopath for that statement, but who doesn't enjoy a good troll every now and then? Especially when the manipulations are harmless, it can be fun to toy with somebody else for a bit. Second, these kids 'are good at getting what they want.' That's another obvious benefit to manipulation: you can get most situations to work out in your favor. Furthermore, the behaviors of anger and revenge are typical human behaviors.

These kids stand out in the way that their emotions are much more extreme, and they rarely exhibit empathy (at least, in front of the researchers. In my experiences with hundreds of kids, I've found that everybody has the capacity for empathy). But I see this mostly as a result of their intelligence. Initially, they get bored with the standard activities. So they find other ways to entertain themselves, for example, they take apart the gate that keeps them from leaving their room.

The problems start happening when the adults respond in frustration and anger. Yes, this kid broke the rules, and yes, this kid is doing something that you don't want him or her to be doing, but that's because you aren't stimulating this kid properly. S/he got bored.

These kids start to lose their empathy when they are repeatedly told to 'sit down and behave.' or 'do this for this long and you'll get a reward.' Ultimately, they stop caring about the reward, because they are human and they eventually conclude that freedom is more enjoyable than a piece of candy (or a gameboy, or anything you want to offer them in return for docile behavior. A gameboy might do the trick if the kid isn't used to big rewards, but in all liklihod, if you're offering the kid a gameboy for 1 weekend of good behavior, you've struggle through this route before and the kid already has something that's comparable to a gameboy). And so the kid remorselessly misbehaves. The kid knows what they are losing out on, but they don't care because they ALSO realize what they are gaining by doing their own thing.

The real problem, in my (once again, experienced but controversial and incomplete) opinion, occurs when you take a highly intelligent child and try to mold them into a specific shape, and tell them to do specific things. These kids have creative energy that they want to spend, and if you don't give them an outlet, they will find their own outlet. And then the REAL problems start to occur when their 'creative output' is met with anger and frustration. These kids start to become hateful and antisocial (we're talking over the course of years, not months or weeks) because that's all they are ever treated with. Showing them compassion for behaving doesn't do anything for them, because they don't want to behave, they want to get creative and do their own thing.

And I've found that taking these kids and giving them a creative way to spend their energy, and then rewarding them for doing what they want to do goes miles and miles with these kids. (I'm not talking about physical rewards here, I'm talking about approval.)

The other thing I've found that really helps is being sympathetic towards a kid after he's done something wrong. For example, when a kid deliberately lets all of the family pets run away or does something else destructive, you can win tons of respect from the kid simply by not blowing up at him, and not punishing him. When you take the side of the kid, and start working to help him, he starts to reciprocate your empathy.

I'd be happy to argue this point with anybody who has doubts or counter points. I have some formal education in psychology (3 college level courses), but most of my comfort comes from being around kids all of the time, and having common situations where a kid tells me I'm the only adult that understands them.