Would your kids do something like this?

[onlyzombiecat]

I saw a dead bird on the sidewalk near my parent's house yesterday. Later I glanced out the window and saw 4 kids- maybe 7 years old. One was holding the dead bird in his hand. Suddenly he threw it down on the sidewalk and stomped hard on it a couple of times.

My dd has picked up dead animals before but she has never stomped on them or anything so it surprised and upset me. I never did anything like that either as a kid or witnessed anyone doing it.

Would you be surprised if you saw your child or another child stomping on or throwing a dead animal?

[lookatreestar]

i would be, but i have always been animal obsessed. as kids, my brother and i probably would have buried it and had a little funeral for it  (we would use tiny cardboard detergent boxes, like sample size to make little caskets). animal cruelty no matter how big or small the creature has always always made my stomach turn.

[cappuccinosmom]

Not really surprised.  Definitely grossed out.

My children are all overall very compassionate.  But they are also curious and have a definite tendency to *do* before they *think*.  One son in particular I can imagine throwing/stomping.  Not out of visciousness but just sheer lack of impulse control. 

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by cappuccinosmom 

One son in particular I can imagine throwing/stomping.  Not out of visciousness but just sheer lack of impulse control. 

This. DS2 is a loving little boy, but I can see him doing something like that.

[limabean]

I would feel upset if I saw that, but I wouldn't think it was coming from some future-murderer place or anything. Kids are curious, especially about taboo subjects like death. They're also experimenting with their own power and influence. So something like you describe doesn't seem horribly abnormal to me. But yeah, if I saw my own DS do something like that (which I can't imagine -- he's very into nature and has cried over dead birds before) we'd be having a talk about respecting life and death for sure. 

Edited by limabean - 1/4/11 at 11:15am

[Cascadian]

*

Edited by Cascadian - 6/2/11 at 8:00pm

[TiredX2]

I cannot imagine my kids doing something like that. For one, they know I am super grossed out by birds anyway It has always been important to me, though, that there is no animal/insect abuse from my family. I don't think it would occur to them to want to do something like that.

[Llyra]

The only reaction I've ever seen my kids have to dead creatures is that they cry. DD1 regularly weeps over roadkill. She cries for ants that get stepped on, even if it's totally accidental. I even once totally broke DS's heart, by squashing a nasty silverfish I found in my bathroom. He still drags up the issue of the "nice crawly buggy dat mama mashed" and how much "him mama miss him" every once in a while. So no, I can't imagine them doing that. They've been raised with a very serious and almost exaggerated respect for life and death and I think it's sunk in.

That said-- I think I can imagine myself doing something like that, as a child. Certainly I can imagine some of the friends I had doing that. I don't think it means anything terrible or anything-- kids don't always stop and think, and are extremely curious about things. I would be upset by it, now, if I saw a child doing that, but I wouldn't read into it any terrible predictions about the child's future as a sociopathic mass murderer or anything.... Empathy and compassion are not fully developed in children, and they aren't supposed to be-- it's guidance, and our reaction to incidents like this, that teaches children to respect their fellow living things.

[hildare]

my kid wouldn't because she's 14 mos old ;) but honestly, it's probably a peer pressure situation or trying to look bold in front of friends.  the kids didn't KILL the bird.  perhaps it makes one feel powerful over death in some small way as well. 

do you remember the scene in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where the bullies make the central character do something similar?  Just that small scene might illustrate that a situation like that isn't THAT unusual.