To the casual observer, Donald Trump's behavior could easily be interpreted as irascibly childish—with all due respect to irascible children. His speeches and tweets are dominated by the kind of constant name-calling, defensive outbursts, mendacious gossip and repugnant innuendos usually overheard during schoolyard recess. To find out if his behavior can be fixed, we consulted an expert in this kind of behavior: Dr. Megan Seltz, a clinical psychologist specializing in children with learning disabilities and cognitive disorders. However, to get an unvarnished opinion, we never told her we were discussing the 69-year-old Republican presidential nominee; instead she spent the entire interview under the impression that we were asking about the behavior of a random eight-year-old boy.
SPY: The boy in question has a problem with the truth. He lies a lot, and when he's confronted about those lies, he reverses and says he never said it.
Dr. Seltz: Some of that is age-appropriate.
For an eight-year-old.
Right. He might also be getting in trouble a lot, so he's just trying to save face. What kind of stories is he making up?
He'll make fantastical claims, blame other people for things that he did, stuff like that.
It's likely that he himself feels out of control with his own behavior. On an unconscious level it's like he's looking to be reined in.
He also brags about himself a lot, saying how great he is, how smart he is.
[Laughs] Is he?
I don't think so, no.
I think that it's good if he recognizes his positive qualities, but the more you describe it, it sounds like he's struggling with issues of self-esteem and what he's good at. So he might be pulling on some negative attention. Without knowing the child, what I'm describing is that there may be a related link between putting other people down and having to pull yourself up. It's a very confusing age.
He also pouts incessantly and expresses frequent delusions of persecution. Should I be worried?
It would depend on if the behavior was accompanied by other symptoms like moodiness [or] sadness. Excessive poutiness is not necessarily something that warrants clinical attention unless it's extremely disruptive.
Oh, it definitely is.
One strategy [to correct this behavior] is positive reinforcement. When your child is not being pouty, then you want to bring it to his attention and say, "Hey, great job!"
What if the child is already getting an astonishing level of positive reinforcement? Could it be that the pouting is entirely a conscious effort to get attention?
Yeah, if poutiness works, it works. I mean, people can do outrageous things because it works as a behavioral strategy. If this is giving them mojo. Is that what you're finding—that this child is getting rewarded or reinforced or getting what they want for bad behavior?
Yes, definitely.
Yeah. Then, unfortunately, you have to create consequences. He's not three, he has words, so he should use them.
This child is also very mean to other children, especially those he thinks aren't as good as he is. And he'll even bully his own friends.
It sounds like this child isn't really used to dealing with consequences. Bullying is also a very large topic. I don't know if he's name-calling, I don't know if he's throwing things at these kids. I don't know the full extent of the behavior.
He's definitely name-calling. He's not throwing things himself… but he does encourage others to strike out.
He needs to be shown correct behavior. I'm also a big fan of apologizing.
He's not.
He's at the age where there's superego development. In other words, he should start to feel bad and guilty about these things. At this age, developmentally, kids become very focused on their differences, but it's not an appropriate outlet for anger.
He also picks on girls, and he does it in front of everybody.
He's probably struggling with respect and self-esteem. He sounds like a child who needs to know what the rules are, period. But kids have a lot of uncomfortable feelings within themselves that they're dealing with at this age. That's actually classic Freudian theory.
So it's the public aspect of it that makes it problematic?
Well, it's not good for him either. He obviously has some skills where he's able to influence people. If it were my child or my patient, I would say, "You need to use those skills for good and not for bad."
Is there an age or a point in this kid's life where, if he keeps acting this way, he won't be able to change?
What you're asking me is, "Is he sociopathic? Is he conduct-disordered?" And the answer to your question is you're describing the symptoms of conduct disorder, but to really diagnose somebody with a lack of empathy or real sociopathic qualities, that would really be a whole evaluation. The sooner the better.