The Nature vs Nurture Debate

There is a whole debate throughout the forensic science, psychology and general science world surrounding the origins of psychopathy and whether it is a case of nature or nurture or a combination of the two.

As we sat with a social worker yesterday discussing my sons case I remarked on the research I have done thus far over the years and how it cannot simply be a case of nurture because Loghan has been given so much love and support over the years I just cannot agree with the side of it being a result of only nurture.

I do agree that Loghan is a child of divorce who has faced ALOT of rejection and trauma of the years including sexual trauma by an older child, surgery to correct a missed birth defect that resulted in a severely traumatizing (for our entire family) hospital stay and aftercare, he severed his finger in a door which resulted in another surgery, he has had his head slammed into a wall by another child with behavioral issues, he has been locked in a bathroom in the dark by a teacher when at 3 he attended a very prominent day-care in our area (which is still running) because he was too much for the teacher, that same teacher also hit him and denied it but after we removed him we found out he was not the only child who had been hit, he has been picked up off the ground by a teacher and sworn out, that same teacher also duct taped him to a chair and hit him (and denied it only to admit it later), this teacher had every right to be angry and I will get into that another day but it doesn’t help the psyche of someone who is already suffering with a mental illness or is on the spectrum and it most certainly doesn’t make it right, we as parents have lost our temper on occasion as he has gotten older, my son is taller and stronger than I am, when he was younger I would put him in a hug type hold and sit on the ground with him until he calmed down during a meltdown, now that he is getting older and more prone to frustration and violence it isn’t possible for me to do that anymore so yes honestly he has received a smack or two.

Having said all of the above there is not a single thing that we haven’t done for him, he has accessed the best schools in every avenue of schooling, every step of the way no matter what has happened he has gone to the best doctors and been given access to the best therapies available, he has been given all the love and support he could possibly be given and we have seen in the past how the amount of attention he has been afforded has affected his younger (middle) bother who has also been the easier of the two and who has never had an issue socially so often he has been given less attention, not on purpose but because our oldest has just demanded and needed so much more at any given time of his life which is a whole other bundle of mom guilt that I still grapple with on a daily basis even now.

Every single specialist that we have dealt with has told us that we have done everything we possibly can so I just cannot believe it is only a fact of nurture. From the nature point of view I don’t think it is completely nature either, our son was the most incredibly loving baby and child and there are so many times when he can show the greatest empathy for those who have less in life than he does- he will give out his lunch to feed another and he will hold the hand of a sick stranger and comfort them, he has often shown kindness to those who have only shown him judgement and hate… I believe that many behaviors have become his nature or his response to those around him because of what he has been through but as a young child he did display some of the behaviors that have stuck with him today and have formed a part of the base of his diagnosis as it stands today, I believe that through some sort of twisted fate of the gene pool our son ended up with a melting pot of mental health issues coupled with his high IQ as well as his Aspergers and then the rejection, trauma and alike we now have a child who a literal mess of mental health and emotional issues coupled with behavioural disorders that have developed out of a need to survive and fight back, it’s not pretty, its complicated and I wish with all my heart as a mother that I could turn back the clock and change some of the choices, paths we have taken and decisions we made but I cant.