personality development in childhood

The goodness or badness of a person is not determined by their wealth, social status, or education. We encounter good and bad people at every level of society. Why is it that while we have good people on one hand, on the other, we come across individuals with extremely corrupt personalities? We often hear about such distorted individuals in newspapers and news channels, which makes it hard to believe that humans can behave in such a way. What happens that leads to such a distorted form of human behavior?
Research has proven that a person’s lifestyle, perspective, mentality, and social behavior—their overall personality—are shaped by their childhood and upbringing. Let’s look at some examples:

Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany: During his delicate childhood years, Hitler had to adhere to strict discipline. His love for art led to many conflicts with his father, and he had to endure his father’s disdain. His mother also faced his father’s wrath. Frustrated by the daily beatings from his father, Hitler once ran away from home. The death of his brother from chicken pox deeply shook him. Hitler was very attached to his mother, a hardworking and compassionate woman, but he couldn’t bear the trauma of her painful death from cancer. The horrors of war, political turmoil, and Germany’s defeat in World War first led Hitler to blame the Jews. As a result, after becoming Chancellor of Germany, he started executing Jews. Over 6 million Jews were killed because of Hitler. He initiated World War II by invading Poland, resulting in millions of deaths.

Saddam Hussein: Born in 1937 in Tikrit, Baghdad, Saddam’s father passed away before his birth. His mother married her brother-in-law and later had to marry a third time to support the children given Tikrit's harsh conditions. Tikrit was notorious for its brutality at the time, with rampant bloodshed and merciless killings. The absence of a father and witnessing his mother’s humiliation made Saddam suspicious and ruthless from a young age. Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Party used violence, murder, torture, executions, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions, forced disappearances, and various forms of repression to control the population. His actions led to a prolonged war between Iran and Iraq, resulting in the loss of millions of lives.
Idi Amin, General of Uganda: Amin’s childhood was filled with adversities. Emotionally weakened by his father’s abandonment at a young age, Amin turned into a cruel and terrorizing figure. The name Idi Amin evokes images of a cannibal, an enemy of humanity, a monster, and a tyrant. During his eight years in power, he had millions of people killed. It is said that Idi Amin was a cannibal who drank human blood and ate human flesh.
History is replete with such examples. Not every child who lacks love, care, and a good upbringing turns into a cruel, terrorist, tyrant, or killer. However, every cruel, terrorist, eccentric, and murderous individual is likely to have had a childhood filled with deprivation, abuse, emotional trauma, and adversities.

In 1995, a book based on true crime events was published by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, titled "Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit." The book describes how criminals were deeply scarred by parents or close individuals, which led them to become criminals

No human is born a criminal. The environment around them, upbringing, and circumstances continuously impact their mentality, distorting it until they become criminals. If we want to secure the future of our society, our nation, the world, and the Earth, we must nurture the childhood of our children.
By investing in the nurturing and positive development of children, we can build a more compassionate and safer world for future generations.