You're in denial. He didn't just have the personality of an "arsehole." He *IS* an asshole!

This might be a self fulfilling prophecy. He could be sick of his parents trying to find out what's wrong with him that he's turned bitter towards you for it and might be lashing out because of it. If you're put through weird invasive behavioral tests and scans and constantly being told there must be something off and wrong about you, you could easily become an angry kid.

kids tend to pick up personality traits from kids at school, teachers, tv, and their parents... so if your child is a PoS, chances are you are at least partly to blame. look at yourselves, figure out what you are teaching them. then looks at other sources, and sometimes it is small things you might do that kids run with and make worse... but you should for sure look at your own actions on a day to day and see what you are teaching them.

Maybe he needs better parenting??

I used to think that “bad kids” was usually the result of bad parenting or bad environment. And then my second child was adopted. While I didn’t recognize it from the start, there was always something “off” about his behaviors. He was a very difficult child to raise. He was diagnosed as having ADHD and a learning disability in certain subjects. On the other hand he was very verbal and by the time he was a teen he was a talented liar and knew how to manipulate his mom. It wasn’t until he was an adult when I slowly realized he had sociopathic tendencies from the start (I think it may now be more commonly referred to as a narcissistic personality disorder). He is nothing at all like my daughter in personality even taking into account their other differences. By the way, before adopting our son (as an infant) we were approved as foster parents and took care of a few foster children - And all of that required us as parents being evaluated. My Mom says that each of her children seemed to have been born with their own unique personality. I have come to recognize that there are two factors in how children turn out: (1) Heredity - Some facets of personality are in-born to us. (2) Environmental - What happens with our hereditary characteristics is shaped by our upbringing and our environment. I have come to believe that in many cases, the most you can do is to make the best of the hand you were dealt when it comes to your children. You can do the best you can to equip them to deal with their unique personality and talents and their environment. But that is all you can do. The short version is do your best but recognize there are limits to what you can do. Try to work within those limits. Who knows, maybe you have the next “Wolf of Walk Street” in your family.