This is a selection from the book "Raising Children Who Think For Themselves" by Dr. Eisa Medhus. From the chapter titled "Specific Child Rearing Challenges - How to Handle Them to Encourage Self-Direction", the following introduction is offered.

"The best way to make children good is to make them happy." - Oscar Wilde

Here are some inner-directed suggestions that will help with some of the most trying child-rearing difficulties we may stumble upon. All of these approaches are designed to preserve your children's ability to rely on internal dialogue instead of external influences to assess and correct their behavior. Using this section as a ready reference will help you raise a self-directed child, even if it means carrying the book, tattered and tear-stained, to the market, in the car, or at home. There are some challenges that, I hope you will never have to face, but others will be as inevitable as a pimple on prom night.

To get to self-direction, there are a few universal caveats that apply to the described behavior. First, our children need to understand and agree with both the need for the rule and the consequence for breaking it. Only when they come to agree with our rules, through their own internal dialogue, will they become self-directed. Second, look to your own parenting strategy as the possible source of some of the problem. Are you over-controlling or over-protective? Either trait can elicit an externally directed response, as your children react to an unhealthy situation. Third, remember for all these parenting challenges how important it is for you as parents, to model the right behavior. If you're expecting your children to act one way and you act another, the double standard will throw a monkey wrench into their whole internal dialogue machinery.

And lastly, don't forget to laugh.

Animal Cruelty

Why they do it
Sometimes children are so overwhelmed with affection for their pets that they inadvertently squeeze the stuffing out of them, so to speak. Some are just curious to see what happens when they kick, prod, or hurl Kitty across the room. On rare occasion, children have a psychiatric illness that causes them to have sadistic urges.

Logical consequences
Take the animal away from your child. If they can't play with their pets gently, they shouldn't be allowed to enjoy the benefits of playing with them at all.
If the behavior persists, give the animal to someone who'll take better care of it.
Ask your local SPCA if your child can volunteer for a weekend or two.

Solutions toward self-direction
Ask them how they think they'd feel if someone treated them the same way. Let them know what could happen to the animal, if they kept subjecting it to cruel treatment.
Use impartial descriptions and information: "Brownie looks scared and sad after being treated that way." "Being rough with animals is cruel and is not allowed in our family."
Use the when/then approach: "When you can treat your hamster more gently, then you can have her back."
Give your child a choice: "Jane, you can either treat the dog more gently or we'll have to give her to Aunt Sally, who I know will treat her with more respect."
Ask your children what they were feeling at the time and help them find alternative ways of expressing that feeling.