Incase you ever have an event like this. Grain of salt though, I'm a youth worker but dont have a degree in child psychology. You ask the child to imagine how the animal feels. Even if the child does not have empathy, the imagine part forces their brain to try to understand. If it persists also seeking professional help never hurts.

Go to 4chan for parenting advice

I drowned some ants when I was a little kid in our backyard because I was scared of them and also curious. My neighbor told me to think about what I did. I was mortified. I'm a vegan now.

Kids need to learn that kind of empathy. Although I don't think I would have ever thought about about ripping limbs from frogs.

I knew someone in elementary school who brought us other kids to his backyard. His older brother was a few years older, and showed us a nest of ducklings. Before any of us knew what was going on he:

1. Picks up a shovel and swings on the nest several times
2. Pulls out a small tin of lighter fluid and and a lighter, douses them and lights it.

I was so fucking stunned. It is still seared in my memory. I don't even remember being scared, just immediately outside my body.

Eventually we ran home. I remember feeling nauseous for days. I never told my parents, out of fear, and I regret that.

I later learned that kid was sent to a disciplinary school after threatening his dad with a knife, and soon after the family and my peer moved away.

Wanna guess what the evil brother does for work now?

Teach them to only kill serial killers?

~~Eye for an eye~~ Leg for a leg. You know what you have to do.

I did this as a young kid. I can confirm it was a complete lack of empathy and likely a power thing. It’s something thats haunted me more the older I get, as it should. Moments like this made me realize empathy is something I wanted, so I actively worked on it, and it grew like a muscle. I’d say I’ve improved quite a lot but others can judge that

As far as advice goes, yeah teach em about empathy. While this is also psychopathic behavior, I see equally bad feeling based reasons for being that cruel, the same ones that motivate bullying: power and superiority shit

I'll add mine to the pile. When I was a lad, probably 10 or so, my family's back porch would frequently get overrun by slugs. I eventually got sick of accidentally stepping on them, so I got the salt shaker and a bunch of paper towels. To my memory I poured salt on a good 30 of them, though it was probably only 10 or so. Salted them, put the paper over them, then the next day came out to collect the bodies and throw them away.

28 year old me would beat 10 year old me's ass for that. Gotta hand it to him, though—those slugs never did come back to the porch.

Anon wants parenting advice

...And he looks for it at 4chan.

Growing up, a neighborhood kid did this. All the other kids were scared of him and we all used to hide when he came outside to play. No one knows what ever happened to him…he dropped off the face of the earth after leaving home during high school, and his family moved out of the country a year later. Sometimes I wonder what he ever wound up doing….

I stomped a lizard flat when I was five. My mom had me bury it and say a prayer for it.

Anon fathers Michael Myers

Psychopath. Torturing and killing animals as a kid is the most significant identifier for psychopaths.

At this point? The frog is broken, can't fix that. Maybe get a new one?