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[Ironcinder]

I have a 12 year old that is probably going to go insane because I can't get him to reduce his stress, which has gradually been getting worse.

He hasn't had a negative thought for 18 months now, but he's consistently, repeatedly trying to relieve his stress by yelling at the mayor, but when he does so, he feels nothing.

Any suggestions about what to do with him before I wall him up?

He's standing in the middle of my large tavern, hungry, thirsty and haggard, even though I have several thousand drinks and lavish meals. I'm a little anxious the little scamp will start a tantrum spiral in my pub.

[LegacyCWAL]

I had something similar happen with a child who had been carried into the middle of a goblin siege as a baby. Eventually, I ran out of ideas, and after he punched the teeth out of one of my Axe Lords (as a *three-year-old* ), I wound up locking him in a room until he dehydrated 

[Ironcinder]

Yeah, this little charmer has been miserable for over three years and is now standing in the middle of the dance floor, which is about to get a mysterious 3x3 obstacle. He's also ignoring the burrow over on the other side of the map on the surface, I think he's got too stressed to be able to observe the burrow: I acted too lat to get him killed.

[martinuzz]

Does he not have the 'doesn't care about anything anymore' trait?
If he doesn't, try dumping the remains of something sentient next to him, like the bones of a troglodyte left upper arm

[Ironcinder]

Sadly, I didn't have enough time to wall him up with a dead puppy's mangled corpse, but I did seal him in to his little room in the middle of the dance floor until he died alone. He's now properly buried, and safely unable to start a brawl.

Strangely, the clothes he dropped on death are now owned by another child, and just sitting there cluttering up the place.

[martinuzz]

I think they will keep lying there until the child that owns them has their own room to store them in (and perhaps they need to be adults before storing personal stuff, don't know), or the clothes worn by that child rot away and need replacement.

[Panando]

I've had a couple of these psychotic children (I'd say in my experience maybe 0.5-1% of children go this route). I tried curing them with kindness (happy thoughts bombardment) and it really wasn't effective.

I don't have a psychotic child on hand at the moment, but the next thing I want to try is curing them with trauma: like putting them at the bottom of a pit zone and dropping small animals that die on impact, causing traumatic thoughts. Possibly trying to arrange things so the psychotic child doesn't get hit and killed by the falling animals.

It could also be arranged so that they personally kill small animals during their tantrums, causing traumatic thoughts and inducing them to reflect on their actions.

However it's known that psychotic children can kill many hapless dwarves without being cured of their psychosis so my hopes for the trauma-therapy regime are not high.