Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe psychopathological condition whose antecedents occur in childhood. Based on this premise, the article aims to examine the debate surrounding the identification of childhood pathological personality traits associated with BPD. Notably, the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2003) advises against childhood diagnosis of BPD. However, other diagnostic manuals allow for the identification of maladjusted personality traits in children and several researchers support the hypothesis that childhood development is compromised by the presence of BPD features, implying that a child exhibiting such traits could be considered a borderline-child-to-be. Given that maladjusted personality traits identified in childhood intensify throughout adolescence and into adulthood, this article emphasizes the imperative need to develop dimensional measures that allow for the identification of high-risk children in order to facilitate early interventions with the aim of counteracting pathological developmental processes.