For real, depends on how old the kid was but young kids can be fucking psychos and still grow up to be normal, empathetic people. Especially with something like a sparrow, an 8- or 10-year-old kid who doesn’t have a pet itself might simply not understand just how awful of an action that is and just do it because it was told not to.

Seriously, I know this is really bad but kids are really dumb and generally have no idea what they’re doing. Can’t even blame the parent.

The small amount of text does make it sound intentional, but to be clear I’m not saying the kid deserved it either way