Tantrumming Kid Has Trauma-Induced Personality Traits

[BunnyMazonas]

There is this one child in my fortress that's been an absolute nightmare, lately. Every few minutes I get another notification about them throwing a tantrum, with incidents extending as far as destroying workshops and getting physically violent with adults - sending one to hospital. This dwarf kid is all of 3 years old and A Problem. It's the year 104 and my young fortress has had to deal with the undead, troglodytes, a giant cyclops, multiple thefts and this absolute horror of a toddler.

Personality traits indicate the kid values decorum & self-sacrifice, disdains self-control and lists them as hateful, cruel and having poor empathy.

Aaaand then I look deeper.

She is often inflamed by hatred and easily develops hatred for things, after being forced to endure the decay of her mother in 102. She is deliberately cruel to those unfortunate enough to be subject to her sadism, after seeing a troglodyte die in 101. She personally views decorum as a high ideal and is deeply offended by those who fail to maintain it after being uncovered in 102. She believes that those who sacrifice to others should be deeply respected after seeing a troglodyte die in 101. She sees the denial of impulses as a vain and foolish pursuit after being forced to endure the decay of her mother in 102. She does not care about friendship.

Yeah... I can see why she might not be a happy camper. Her mother beat a troglodyte to death while she was still a babe-n-arms, and then both parents died the following year in the same undead incursion, and are buried next to each other (coincidentally, I had like 30 dwarves all dead and mostly only children remaining so was rushing burials to avoid ghosts rising).

I love that the game makes trauma have an actual long-term impact on dwarves, but I wonder if there is any way to reverse, overcome or manage negative traits gained through trauma. Or is this kid already a lost cause at age 3 and I should just wall them off in a room and drop toys and food and booze down through a roof hatch until they die? They enjoy watching performances and want to master a skill, Maybe I lock them away in a space with a workshop they can use and a view - over a channel they can't cross - of a tavern?

[Fel]

It is very hard to bring back babies and children that are already highly stressed.
MIst generators can do quite a bit, of course, but beyond that all you have to work with is playing around with their personal preferences.
Displaying items (and/or items made from materials) that they like in places where they spend a lot of time, making toys of a material they like if applicable, give them food/drinks with stuff they like in them (harder to do than it seems) all work to some extent.
Also make extra sure they don't get even more negative thoughts from things you could prevent, like seeing corpses and the likes but also smaller ones like not being able to get new clothes (which is apparently part of the problem as well in that child's case).
A mayor/noble that can console properly (or get yelled at "properly") can help a bit as well.
If you didn't do so yet, try giving them a good bedroom (with floor and walls from stone blocks for a higher value, preferably engraved as well) and to take them off from chores (something you kind of want to do for all children anyway).

Once they grow up, putting them to work on something that gives positive thoughts would go a long way but that's for after they reach the age of 18, so there

In the future, make sure to remove baby-wielding mothers from your squads, dfhack has a filter for it specifically.
In fact, it is better to prevent them from approaching battle sites even for the cleanup (same for children).
Adult can cope with a variety of things, children have a limited access to things that give positive thoughts.


On the other hand, as you noted it is kind of nice that the game recognizes traumas and their lasting effects.
It also makes those situations a pretty decent basis for telling the past and future stories of that dwarf.

[Quack]

it could be worse I have a depressed kid that punches so hard he just killed a grown dwarf

[Grease Monkey]

If the kid doesn't have any relations to other people that would matter, you can honestly 'kick them out' if they keep nearly killing people. Or throw them into a jail area with good food/alcohol, all sorts of options for a 'bad' dwarf... but the easy way is to just kick them out or find some thing to ah... remove them. They're gonna cause far more damage & issues to other people with their outlook & the net loss likely is not worth it to keep them, as immigrants who are already grown up are more "useful". Again, very hard to boost an already stressed out dwarf that is like this when they're so young & still have a long time to grow, especially since they already have trauma which I do not think will ever go away since it was their mother.

Big thing for her is to do not give her any chores or tasks that can expose her to anything else right now. Dead vermin, rain, etc. Burrow her far away from those things, but give her access to good food, good alcohol, perhaps limited social visits & toys+clothing.

Or you can see if they have a favorite thing (animals, etc) you can repeatedly expose them to for a happy thought. Large bonus if it can be taken as a pet (or if a cat would adopt them).

If you don't have one, set up a mist generator if possible, as that helps to give EVERYONE a boost every time they walk by it for tasks.

All else fails, kick em out, unfortunately.

Though perhaps morbidly, if she does make it to 18, she may greatly enjoy enacting punishment on other dwarves as a career as a jailer, given her sadistic personality, which may give her happy thoughts later...

[I.T Drift]

Yeah I had one child like that, to avoid this, make sure your children never play outside, ever, so put them into a burrow, unpause the burrow and confine them to the main areas of your fort, pretty much all of the interior section for myself. Underground sections off limit.

Also do not let them do any labor that involves the hospital, trash or hauling refuse etc. Better to just take them off any labor, let them play.
If you are going to get them to do labor, just do the basic hauling ones, like food, water, furniture. You want them to avoid death encounters as much as possible. Since doing that my child survival rate has increased twice over.

[vortex_13]

That sounds like a future Militia Commander to me.

[APTEMOH4UK]

Yep. Had a kiddo like this.

He was traumatized when he - and his friends - beat a minotaur to death. Year after year he was going more and more crazy. First he was just vandalizing my property. And then he started beating other dwarves. With every fight he was stronger and stronger, until he was able killing fully armored dorfs with bare hands.

[Omegon]

I had a kid go feral and live outside my fortress while attacking any adults working and killing the kids playing outside via strangulations
Ended up having an axedwarf split his skull