""Sounds like that child has emotional disability. I was a teacher's aid and had just such a boy (10 year old) in my care for the last 2 months of his primary school education. He actually was lovely, capable, clever and funny and compliant in a one to one setting.""


I don't doubt that for one minute Tam, and I DO recognise that the majority of naughty kids are either just mischievous, or emotionally or psychologically troubled.

"Reggie" was neither.

He was devious, manipulative, dishonest, arrogant, and violent.

He beat up other kids to make THEM confess to his misdemeanours.
He not only refused to learn. He refused to let others learn.
He disrupted all the classes he attended, and, when spoken to about his behaviour, picked up the nearest solid object and threw it.
He had to be placed under constant watch to prevent him leaving school and disappearing.
He was barred from all local shops, after a series of incidents in which he climbed out of his bedroom window and went on a shoplifting spree.
He WAS eventually excluded, and went on to be excluded from several secondary schools, in quick succession.

He was, during his primary school years, subjected to every form of assessment available. Behavioural and clinical psychologists, and psychiatrists, agreed that he had NO discernable mental, emotional or psychological problem.

He just enjoyed being bad. As for "seeing the child's pain", I'm afraid it was the adults trying to deal with him who were feeling pain.

I never said that type was common, but they DO exist, and HE certainly was one.
Don T.