Hard News: Feckless Solutions
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Daniel
I do think money is a huge part of the answer.
Japans education system has the best Teachers placed in the lowest areas (so I'm reliably told) to raise the society as a whole. All schools are state & well paid.
I believe Plunket was mentioned earlier in the piece and whatever agency takes on that task we obviously need more of it & that takes money.
Mums need more cash in hand for fish, meat (not turkey asses) and fruit & vege. And a bit more for the kids. Heck pay for a baby sitter from an agency with qualifications in looking after kiddies.
Improving housing, insultation, Solar Hot water heaters (to reduce power bill) - paid by HNZ or Landlord or Govt grant.
Start kids off on a level playing field of the norms of a middle class life and society will be alot better off. (Not to say violence and dodgy shit only happens in poor homes but this will heal a lot of societies ills.) -
The Army did this years ago in the Barracks to stop binge drinking and fights.
10 Man rooms and the bar were once all there was.
Now rooms are individual carpeted 1/2 way up the wall to reduce noise. The food is bloody brilliant, better than half the cafes in any city (Waiberia not included).
And of course alot of the focus is on building people up not running them down. -
Michael:
>I do think money is a huge part of the answer.OK, well that may be. If that's the case, perhaps we should double the DPB after all.
Another important question might be whether the current NZ policy encourages step-parentdom or not. There is compelling research that a step-parent is 40 to 100 times more likely to kill a young child than a biological parent, even when additional factors such as poverty are taken into account.This is the well-known "Cinderella Effect." In fact step-parenthood is the strongest risk factor for child abuse ever identified (see Daly and Wilson, cited in Pinker, 1997).
While of course the vast majority of step-parents are good people who do not harm their children surely we cannot ignore such a massive risk factor in terms of policy design. How does the current policy address this, if it does at all, I wonder?
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WH,
What I'm noting is the moral posturing around the issue, mainly from the media, rounding up the perennial unfixables to indicate deep seriousness and sincerity, and the absence of much in the way of specific policy discussion.
Yeah. OTOH, I think people are genuinely appalled by this in the same way they are by most serious crime. The reflexive inclination to want to harshly punish the offenders is only tempered by the realisation that the causes are complex and the preventative solutions are not straightforward.
Although I think we would all benefit from learning how to be better parents, I can understand why some people are reluctant to say that "we" have a child abuse problem. Most people do not physically abuse their children, and only in the sense that we care about the welfare of others do we have a collective responsibility for the actions of a few.
While its frustrating that so much of the policy discussion involves vague references to socio-economic conditions and education, things that involve long-term structural adjustment, I don't really see an alternative. If those closest to the problem decline or are unable to intervene, we are left with only second tier options and the intermediation of the state. CYF have a tough job.
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What is "just" or "warranted" is not dependant on the opinion of the crowd
Crap it isn't. If the crowd condone the behaviour, it is hugely more likely to be repeated & emulated. If 10,000 people in the stands are shouting "yeah, goodonya! He was asking for it mate!" then how is a player not going to believe his actions weren't warranted? If there are no repercussions other than a quick penalty kick, where does justice come into it?
On a broader scale, many, many of our laws are defined by what society thinks is reasonable at that point in time - measured by taking 12 average people and asking them what they think.
So therefore the definition of what is just is indeed decided in many cases by the opinion of 'the crowd'.
On the bright side, at this point in time, the crowd is largely saying "don't bash your kids".
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David Hamilton wrote :
The impact of media violence isn't a fruitless discussion, but I feel is a bit of a red herring compared to other factors. US Surgeon General David Satcher in 1999 said "we clearly associate media violence to aggressive behavior. But the impact was very small compared to other things. Some may not be happy with that, but that’s where the science is" (Wikipedia video game controversy article). The article goes on to say "This was also the conclusion of a meta-analysis by psychologist Johnathan Freedman, who reviewed over 200 published studies and found that the majority did not find a causal link."
However, that same Wikipedia article also states :
The American Psychological Association summarizes the issue as "Psychological research confirms that violent video games can increase children's aggression, but that parents moderate the negative effects."[3] Craig A. Anderson has testified before the U.S. Senate on the issue, and his meta-analysis of these studies has shown 5 consistent effects: "increased aggressive behavior, thoughts, and affect; increased physiological arousal; and decreased prosocial (helping) behavior"
But anyway, it is not the violence in games per se, that I am vilifying. The thing that really annoys me is how the entertainment industry (especially TV) constantly portrays violence as a valid (often desirable) means of conflict resolution. Almost always without showing the realistic outcome of such a course of action. (Often with the built-in sub-text that the victim deserved it because they were a "baddie").
It appears that some people have interpreted my comments as a call for censorship. I do not think that censorship is a viable solution.
The only helpful solution I can come up with, is to spend more money on making New Zealand programs that accurately portray violence and its effects, so that children can see the difference between the "real life" of NZ society, and the fake life of American TV which does not apply in our society.
As everyone keeps saying, there are no easy solutions, but something has to be done.
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ron,
It seems we're not the only ones having this debate. They're also debating child abuse in Sweden, where up to 12 kids die each year at the hands of their parents and care givers.
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ron,
And it seems that killing a child in Sweden won't nececssarily mean you'll be convicted of murder.
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Brent:
>But anyway, it is not the violence in games per se, that I am vilifying.As I say, I am sympathetic to this idea as it has some scientific basis. It's probably in there somewhere. Problem is no-one's sure quite where exactly, or how powerful the effect is.
Why don't we start with a few things we <i>do</i> have clear steers on? For example we do have evidence that step-parenthood is the highest risk factor for child abuse ever identified, by a factor of 40-100 times the biological norm even once corrected for co-factors such as poverty. We also have a pretty good idea of how incentives operate in a typical economy. What I don't personally know, but would be keen to see more widely discussed, is how well existing New Zealand welfare policy design stacks up against these strong arguments, both of which have good empirical and deductive support. It seems to me by combining these two facts, if you wanted to have a high rate of child homicide, you'd incentivise step-parenthood, and vice versa to lower it. Is it possible the current policy design contains some perverse incentives? If so, then these may be less complex to fix and give quicker results than, say, trying to regulate increasingly diverse, inexpensive and fragmented media outlets or undoing a "culture of violence."
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I would also note that my suggestions above contain little or no racial or cultural distractions, and in principle would have explanatory power in Sweden as much as in New Zealand.
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Disincentivise step-parenthood??????
Good luck with that, I really doubt that would be less complex and give quicker results than trying to undo a "culture of violence".
I take it that the DPB is your particular hobby horse but you are still not stating what you think should be done.
Most of the practical suggestions on this thread seem to point to more Plunket nurses and the such like, not simply increasing benifit, let alone doubling it. It seems that your unstated arguement is that women are having children to get money from the state. If that is your arguement please state it directly. -
It seems to me by combining these two facts, if you wanted to have a high rate of child homicide, you'd incentivise step-parenthood, and vice versa to lower it.
Well, let's say that for some bizarre reason you'd decided step-parenthood causes abuse in and of itself. What you'd want to do is make sure solo mothers didn't feel financially pressured to enter new relationships. You'd want to provide them with some sort of Benefit. For Domestic Purposes, perhaps.
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Getting around step-parent hood is oh-so-easy.
Lets just devise humans that dont fall out of love from previously perfectly good relationships... And also devise ones that dont get horny and go having rampant sex with people they have no intention of forming a long term relationship with in the first place.
Good luck with that.
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Emma:
>Well, let's say that for some bizarre reason you'd decided step-parenthood causes abuse in and of itself.Hi Emma
The argument that step parenthood causes abuse in and of itself is not just any "bizarre reason." It's a powerful argument that comes out of evolutionary psychology; it's deductive conclusions turn out to be very well supported empirically across diverse cultures, which is the hallmark of a good scientific theory. Thus it is the exact opposite of the kind of "feckless" ideas Russell's article criticises. It is a very serious idea. You can read a bit more about it here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella_Effect
Kowhai:
>I take it that the DPB is your particular hobby horse but you are still not stating what you think should be done.No, it is far from my "hobby horse"! I know very little about the DPB and how it operates, and this is precisely my point: that the basic policy mechanism is one thing that gets almost zero airing in the media for public critique. Look, imagine you had cars that kept crashing and killing children, and the media spent all its time saying that to stop this happening, we need to redesign all the roads, or try and change our "culture of cars". Whereas a simpler technical policy change - like making wearing seatbelts compulsory - may make just as much difference or more much more quickly. Unfortunately this is not really the way the debate seems to be being conducted.
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Instead of a complicated wordy advert on TV, imagine a slogan stated by respected sportsmen/women: "We don't hurt people!"
I have made this point elsewhere but I think it's worth repeating: we will know that this nation is ready to do something about the appalling violence wreaked on children when an All Black donates his player of the match award to a campaign to stop child abuse.
Rodney So’oialo and his wife are fronting a campaign by Jigsaw, supported by the Body Shop. It's called 'kids are unbeatable' and they sell nice t-shirts. The So'oialo family designed the products that they sell. So it's not player of the match award, but it's out there.
Campaign is here: http://www.jigsaw.org.nz/news.html
Crap it isn't. If the crowd condone the behaviour, it is hugely more likely to be repeated & emulated. If 10,000 people in the stands are shouting "yeah, goodonya! He was asking for it mate!" then how is a player not going to believe his actions weren't warranted?
I presumed justified and warranted was referring to the legal process, such as the referee and disciplinary panels. Check how Mr Newland of the Hawkes Bay rugby team spends the next few weeks, assuming he gets banned tomorrow for punching Mr Tialata. The crowd won't have any say in that.
I referee ice hockey, which can be an aggressive, and sometimes violent sport. It also has a strong culture, unlike most sports these days, of having players who are specifically on teams for fighting and bashing around the other team. It's truly sickening as an activity, but the reaction of some crowds is the worst thing - to have two players going at it is bad enough, but to give them positive reinforcement from the stands for their actions...
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Lets just devise humans that dont fall out of love from previously perfectly good relationships... And also devise ones that dont get horny and go having rampant sex with people they have no intention of forming a long term relationship with in the first place.
Where were you ten years and two kids ago? You suggest this now?
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But Daniel, what exactly is the connection you see between step-parenthood and the DPB? Your reluctance to spell out these incentives you keep talking about is what makes me (and perhaps kowhai and Emma as well) suspect your motives.
By definition the DBP is only available where there is no step parent. So we don't have a problem while a parent is on the DPB.
If you are thinking about what happens after, then clearly increasing the DPB reduces the incentive to enter a relationship with a step parent.
What I am afraid of is that you are thinking about what happens before, ie the impact of the DPB on relationship breakups. And if you're going to investigate that, then we really need to abandon this "thought experiment" as it is, because we need to start thinking about what happens when women are forced to stay in abusive relationships through economic necessity. Preventing the abuse of children by step parents is one policy consideration, and we need to balance it with the other ones that led to the introduction of the DPB in the first place.
I know very little about the DPB and how it operates
the basic policy mechanism is one thing that gets almost zero airing in the media for public critique.
Have you been living under a rock for the last 30 years? This issue comes up at least once per election cycle - it was a Listener cover story a year or two back. And the same arguments come up and get thrashed over again and again.
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Hi Daniel, have you met my point? I think not. If abuse was caused by step-parenting, then every step-parent would be abusive, and no natural parent would. Something makes SOME step-parents abusive, but that natural genetic brake that makes people protect their own genes is still absent in the vast majority of step-parents who aren't abusive.
You may be trying to look at policy mechanisms, but I find it really interesting that you picked on the DPB and not WFF, which offers a much higher financial incentive for having extra children.
As for the effect of sporting or gaming violence, I suspect it's much weaker than the observed effect of real-life violence. Which, when I was going up, was that it offered bugger-all negative consequences and considerable positive consequences. When your dad smacked your mum, she shut up and did what she was told. When you got big enough to smack your dad, he stopped bashing you. If people were scared of you, you didn't get picked on. Nobody called the cops because they were The Enemy. Ditto anyone else who came in from the outside and tried to interfere. My dad was hitting my mum and my brothers (his step-children - what was needed there was some way of stopping people dying), the guy downstairs was bashing his partner and their kids, we all knew about it, but it was just the way things were. The thing about 'community' is that sometimes it reinforces some pretty appalling behaviours.
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Stephen:
>Your reluctance to spell out these incentives you keep talking about is what makes me (and perhaps kowhai and Emma as well) suspect your motives.(sigh) Look, I may be guessing entirely wrong. Maybe everything is just AOK policywise, and couldn't be better. It's just that very often this isn't the case, so it's a good place to start poking around.
>Preventing the abuse of children by step parents is one policy consideration, and we need to balance it with the other ones that led to the introduction of the DPB in the first place.
Well, that's fine. Do you consider that this balance is being currently well achieved? If not, why not?
>Have you been living under a rock for the last 30 years?
Look, if you'd like to give a quick run-through of current policy and explain why it does not in fact have any of the problems I'm guessing at, then I'll be very interested in listening. This is the kind of discussion I'm talking about.
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Emma:
>Hi Daniel, have you met my point? I think not. If abuse was caused by step-parenting, then every step-parent would be abusive, and no natural parent would.Hi Emma
The theory only argues that it becomes far more probable, not certain. The basic causal deductive argument is one about the parental investment necessary to raise children. For example, biological parents kill their children too in certain circumstances. However, as their genetic investment in the child is greater, this makes them less likely to do this. In contrast, the step parent has a low investment, thus is more likely all things being equal. Hence one might predict high levels of child homocide where high levels of step parenting are present. The empirical evidence thus far seems to bear this out strongly, so it seems to quite a sound theory, if rather morally disappointing.
>You may be trying to look at policy mechanisms, but I find it really interesting that you picked on the DPB and not WFF, which offers a much higher financial incentive for having extra children.
Well maybe that's the issue then. I have no specific beef with the DPB - it just seems to be the policy the op-eds generally pick up on. Would you care to elaborate? A comparison of the incentives of the two policies actually would be really helpful.
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the problems I'm guessing at
Can you please plainly spell out what you think they are? I still do not understand exactly what you think the perverse incentives are. I really should be using my day more productively and I'm simply not up for Socratic inquiry.
if you'd like to give a quick run-through of current policy and explain why it does not in fact have any of the problems I'm guessing at
No, you go first. You're the one who brought this up as a potential cause of child abuse, I think the onus is on you to demonstrate that.
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3410,
When your dad smacked your mum, she shut up and did what she was told. When you got big enough to smack your dad, he stopped bashing you. If people were scared of you, you didn't get picked on.
I can totally see that. If you live in a (sub)culture of violence, being violent is actually the appropriate response, in terms of self-preservation. This is the dilemma of "breaking the cycle"; finding some way to help those who have learned that violence is the appropriate personal response, to reject it for the greater good.
As for the effect of sporting or gaming violence, I suspect it's much weaker than the observed effect of real-life violence.
I totally agree, but at least doing something about the former is not a catch 22. If internal family factors perpetuate violence, external factors need not add fuel to the fire.
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One question that hasn't been directly asked, and that I think is worth pursuing, is whether it might be sensible to disincentivise current step parent families? After all, even if we did stop new ones forming by an unspecified simple technical policy change like mandatory seatbelts we're still looking at over a decade of preventable child abuse.
I guess the question is, do we care enough about the kids to 'incentivise' the breaking up of all non-biological families?
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Mr Stephen Judd,
abso-bloody-lutely!
I am also not up for Socratic enquiry, even being that I am well aquaintanted with the thought experiement ; )Daniel if you have something more specific to add I would actually like to hear it. Maybe it is the nature of commenting online, sometimes it can be a bit nerve wracking to put your ideas out there....
I say yes to babysitting for stressed parents, yes to keeping an eye on children in your community, yes to more Plunket nurses, yes to thinking about what kind of society we want to live in and yes to serious policy discussions. None of these things are mutually exclusive.
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There seems to be some advocacy for odd moral high ground.
Relllies of mine got married in the 50s/60s & the Priest (bless'm) required that the barstard child be removed from the family and stay with her Grandmother never to live with her Mum again.
This was done and the burden of shame and guilt hung around their necks for the rest of their lives.
It all could have been so much better so very easily had they just started anew.
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