Hard News: The cane and the strap
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So, you have no evidence to support this? Given the relatively few kids that are seriously hurt or killed at home, I suspect your theory will never fly.
eh? I was just suggesting a re-wording of your post so it wasn't completely bananas, son. I don't think it really qualifies as a fully-fledged theory I am advancing. Perhaps we should go back to my original post and argue from that:
"... I'll bet the people who beat them started with smacking and escalated from there when they didn't get the result they thought they should get."
Do you expect us to believe that they didn't start with smacking? That they didn't believe that violence was the appropriate and most effective way to make children behave the way they want them to? Or do you just believe that people who beat and/or kill their children are psychopaths and sadists, whose behaviour is inexplicable?
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Is anyone else a little uneasy that only women are victims of domestic violence under the hospital questions?
What rankled with me was the timing. This initiative only becomes public when the nation is incensed about another case of child abuse. So the implication is that this initiative is part of the 'toolbox' (oh, how I hate that word) to stem child abuse? So the implication is that child abuse is a male problem, and we must ask women who turn up to Hospital if they have been abused or intimidated because that might indicate their children have been abused too? So the implication is that women only abuse their children because they themselves have been abused by their male partner?
Some will argue that I'm implying too much, but I don't think so. On a lighter note, I pity the poor nurses who will have to hear for the hundreth time:__ "Did I ever have to do something sexual I didn't want to? Only every bloody birthday he's had since we got married! __
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Beckett makes it clear that a ban on smacking or corporal punishment might may us all feel better, but it won't have the desired effect.
If you're going to wave around Beckett like it's gospel, then you should look at the rebuttals - there's a few out there.
Here's one which was published:
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Oh, the money quote (referring to Sweden):
What worries me most in Beckett’s paper is that, on the one hand, he tells us that he is not in favour of corporal punishment but, on the other hand, he puts much effort into arguing against a ban. His main objections against a ban seem to be that a law could be looked upon as an unrealistic ‘quick fix’ and, second, could tie down already overstretched child protection professionals in enforcing the ban. Both these assumptions rely on misunderstandings. First, the Swedish corporal punishment ban was one in a series of protective laws that started in 1928 when teachers were prohibited from physically punishing boys in secondary schools. It was followed by the prohibition of all corporal punishment in Swedish schools in 1958 and successive changes in parents’ rights to punish their children, ending with the final ban in 1979. Second, this law is a firm recommendation by the state not to punish children while the punishment itself is regulated by the maltreatment paragraphs in the criminal code. The main idea behind the law is not to find criminals but to protect children against maltreatment. When professionals in health care and social work understood this basic idea, they felt that the law provided a good platform when discussing with parents different ways of bringing up children. In later years, this has been particularly important in encounters with immigrant families from cultures where corporal punishment of children is looked upon as more normal behaviour. I have more than thirty years’ experience as a paediatrician and I have never met one single professional, whether in health care, social services, the police forces or at school, who has felt overstretched because of enforcing the ban. My experience is rather the opposite, that most professionals feel it as a strength to have the law to lean on.
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Excuse me? I did no such thing; try keeping to the topic. Beckett makes it clear that a ban on smacking or corporal punishment might may us all feel better, but it won't have the desired effect.
Bollocks he does. He addresses a specific claim regarding a fall to near-zero abuse fatalities. He actually says :
There are good arguments for banning corporal punishment. Protecting children, after all, is not just about preventing fatalities.
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There is no evidence to suggest that banning corporal punishment/smacking will have any positive effect on reducing maltreament/deaths.
<Rant on>
By that logic I'm surprised you support any criminal laws, Ron, seeing as even though we're been prosecuting people for murder for centuries and yet people stubbornly keep killing each other! Every day large numbers of people flagrantly exceed the speed limit, cheat on their taxes, and covert their neighbour's wives; heck, there's an average of a murder every three days in this country. Given all this we might as well have no laws, because people will just go around breaking them, making a solemn mockery of the justice system!No, better to have complete anarchy, because then at least we aren't fooling ourselves.
</Rant off>Personally, I hope making violence against children unacceptable in law will slowly filter it's way by osmosis such that people stop think it is a valid way of solving their parenting problems. Eventually it will be like drunk driving - socially unacceptable. And like drunk driving there will be a hard core of people who just don't get the message that it's wrong - and that's what jail is for.
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ron,
'Relatively few kids' fits well with 'may' and 'possibly'.
Kyle, I don't think so. May and possibly are hypotheticals. Relatively few is a fact. That is, compared with the number of parents who smack their kids, relatively few parents abuse or kill them. Unless, of course, you have evidence to the contrary.
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ron,
Kyle,
The link you supplied does not enable me to find the article you refer to.
However, apparently the article says "The main idea behind the law is not to find criminals but to protect children against maltreatment".
First, if it's against the law to smack or to use corporal punishment, then by definition those who use such conduct are criminals, whether that writer likes it or not. That means that police will have to devote resources to such cases. It's great to know that that writer has "never met one single professional, whether in health care, social services, the police forces or at school, who has felt overstretched because of enforcing the ban". Whether that can be said in this country of the smacking ban, time will tell.
Second, I don't believe Beckett "puts much effort" into arguing against a ban at all. To suggest otherwise is gratuitous. He's merely saying that we shouldn't be intellectually dishonest to think, as some here appear to, that a ban on smacking or corporal punishment will have the intended effect.
Third, Beckett makes the point, apparently not refuted, that other European countries have better records on child maltreatment than does Sweden. So why we would use Sweden as some kind of model is difficult to understand.
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ron,
Bollocks he does. He addresses a specific claim regarding a fall to near-zero abuse fatalities
He finds that claim to be false. Despite that, the myth endures.
He also finds that several countries that do not have a ban on smacking/corporal punishment have the lowest recorded rates of child maltreatment, even lower than Sweden. Maybe we could learn something from them.
"Real progress will not be achieved by making simplistic and wildly inaccurate claims about the likely benefits of a ban on corporal punishment, or by airbrushing out of existence the Swedish children who still die at their carers' hands."
That's a message that some NZ politicians don't seem to want to hear. They prefer a quick fix.
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Ron
I'm not sure what country you're talking about but here's a link to UNESCOhttp://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/worldmortality/WMR2005.pdf
Iceland had 3 under 5yr deaths per 1000
Finland, Norway, Sweden had 4 & Denmark 5.All pretty close and the best in the world.
Laws generally reflect the society so even if they allow smaking in a few of these countries social pressures will be present to reduce it's impact (so to speak).
NZ had 6 u/5yr deaths per 1000. -
Iceland had 3 under 5yr deaths per 1000
Finland, Norway, Sweden had 4 & Denmark 5.All pretty close and the best in the world.
All of which have banned smacking. You still there ron?
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Kyle, I don't think so. May and possibly are hypotheticals. Relatively few is a fact. That is, compared with the number of parents who smack their kids, relatively few parents abuse or kill them. Unless, of course, you have evidence to the contrary.
'Relatively few' is also a hypothetical, relatively few isn't actually a number. "There may possibly be relatively few people killing their kids". If you went out on the street and asked everyone how many "relatively few" is, you'd get a bunch of different answers, even if you gave them the context of "children killed by their own family under five years old/thousand". In this context a fact is a number, or a percentage, not a relative term related to a term which has no fixed number.
Anyway, when the person said that they may possibly lead onto manslaughter/murder, then the fact that some people have actually killed their kids, is evidence that yes, some parents 'may', 'possibly' murder their kids. The 'relatively few' that have resulted proves the statement 'parents may possibly kill their children'.
But gotta love that term 'relatively few', it's not loaded at all. Go to five funerals and stand up and say that the 2 year old child in the small casket is 'relatively few' and see how quickly a bunch of people smack your head in. Three, five, six, eight etc, are all only relatively few, compared to... craploads. Let's not diminish the problem by labelling it as OK. Six deaths/year/1000 really is six too many.
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Disempowerment, disconnection - that's why children die at the hands of their extended families. You can change the laws, make new ones, and garner all the research you want, but it doesn't change the simple fact that people who feel useless, powerless and hopeless generally tend to do some really crap things to their kids. Make early childhood education free and compulsory and then you may get some way to keeping babies alive.
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This was the "Thought for the day" on the Lincoln University website today.
"It is better to sit down than to stand, it is better to lie down than to sit, but death is the best of all"
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ron,
All of which have banned smacking. You still there ron?
Thanks for confirming what I suspected. You haven't actually read Chirs Beckett's paper, have you?
See his Table 1. The top four countries in terms of lowest rates of child maltreament deaths are Spain, Greece, Italy and Ireland. None have bans on smacking. In fact, 7 of the 9 countries with the lowest rates of child maltreament deaths do not have smacking bans. And after deaths from undetermined causes are excluded, Sweden ranks 12th, Denmark 18th and Finland 19th.
And NZ ranks only marginally inferior to Switzerland and Austria, equal with Hungary and almost twice as good as the USA.
Are you still there, Russell?
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ron,
Six deaths/year/1000 really is six too many.
Yes, it is, if it were true. But the rate is actually 1.2 per 100,000, once undetermined causes are excluded (although this condition changes the figure very little). As stated above, our rate of child deaths is marginally inferior to Switzerland and Austria, equal with Hungary and almost half as low as the USA. Not very sexy when put in that context, is it?
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See his Table 1. The top four countries in terms of lowest rates of child maltreament deaths are Spain, Greece, Italy and Ireland. None have bans on smacking.
Greece has extended adult protection against assault to children, Spain has promised to do the same and Ireland is expected to follow. Italy's Supreme Court handed down a decision regarded as outlawing corporal punishment in 1996. So they all seem to think there's something in it.
This year's UNICEF report noted that comparing rates of child maltreatment deaths was very difficult because of the definition issues highlighted in Beckett v. Durrant. But there seems little doubt that in overall child welfare and deaths by accident and injury Sweden is miles ahead.
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ron,
Greece has extended adult protection against assault to children, Spain has promised to do the same and Ireland is expected to follow
That doesn't change the fact that in 2003 those countries didn't have a smacking ban, yet they had the lowest rates of child maltreatment deaths. How can that possibly be? Clearly, it is difficult to see any relationship between smacking and child deaths.
But there seems little doubt that in overall child welfare and deaths by accident and injury Sweden is miles ahead
Little doubt if you are trying to maintain an ideological position. But considerable doubt if you look at the stats. As Beckett makes clear, when deaths from undetermined causes are excluded, Sweden ranks 9th (not 12th as I wrote earlier) in the OECD. So Sweden just manages to make it into the top third of countries in the OECD. At least two other Scandinavian countries rate worse in 18th and 19th positions. Both of those countries have had smacking bans in place for quite some time.
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Ron
Remove the subjective element of maltreatment.
"It was an accident X fell down the stairs" might work in some quarters and so not be recorded as maltreatment.I haven't looked at Beckett's book & am quite happy to rely on the data I have linked to (as imperfect as it is).
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Little doubt if you are trying to maintain an ideological position. But considerable doubt if you look at the stats. As Beckett makes clear, when deaths from undetermined causes are excluded, Sweden ranks 9th (not 12th as I wrote earlier) in the OECD.
And if you don't exclude "undetermined" causes, Sweden has the best record in the the world. That's what UNICEF's Innocenti report on maltreatment of children in rich countries said this year. That report cited UNICEF's own 2003 figures, the ones Beckett uses, but noted in the same paragraph the difficulty of determining cause.
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FFS, I guess we can relitigate the smacking ban until the sun goes cold, but can I take it as read that we all agree any deliberate act that puts a three year old in a coma - and requiring a ventilator to breathe - sucks, blows and chokes? Sorry for getting snappy, Ron, but I do have to wonder sometimes - and I'm talking as someone who was a very heavily qualified supporter of the repeal of S. 59.
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As one of the dwindling number of male teachers in the profession - I would think again about teaching, if I was instructed to use the cane or the strap. Or indeed about applying to a school that had corporal punishment as a part of its behaviour management system.
Teaching, to me is a position of respect. Not of power. Respect needs to be earned, and that imo is not via a cane or a belt.
My students asked: "That doesn't make sense. Why should teachers be allowed to cane us, if you just passed a law that says our parents can't?"
Once you get past all of the ideological positions and researched statistics - you are left with the question - 'Who are you going to get to do it?'
Society demands much from teachers. To demand that I inflict a physical punishment on one of my students, for the purposes of behaviour management, and then demand that I educate them in such a way that this same society will be a better, brighter place seems a tad hypocritical to me.
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A little followup here.
This article irritates the hell out of me because while it's full of statistics, the crucial information - the number of teenagers in population, and hence the per capita rate of offending - are omitted. A 39% increase sounds terrible, but since it's an increase in an absolute figure, it doesn't really tell us anything.
Paul Easton, if you're reading this: C-.
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This article irritates the hell out of me because while it's full of statistics, the crucial information - the number of teenagers in population, and hence the per capita rate of offending - are omitted. A 39% increase sounds terrible, but since it's an increase in an absolute figure, it doesn't really tell us anything.
I would have blogged this this morning if my laptop hadn't died. The rise in apprehensions for violent offending is real, although moderated by the 19% rise in the youth population since 1995.
But ... as the Herald's story eventually gets around to saying, the per capita rate of overall youth offending is falling.
But obviously, no one has told Ron Mark. Amusingly, this morning the Herald's story was bylined "By Ron Mark" ...
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Let's be fair to Ron Mark.
1. He is talking about violent youth offending - which is up per capita.
2. He's talking about extending criminal liability below 14 - and the stats don't tell you how many 10-13 yo's or 12-13 yo's were prosecuted because the answer is zero (save the odd murder/manslaughter).
3. If the number of 14-16 (youth) offences is down, we can say that the system is working, perhaps then it is sensible to extend to system so it can work its magic on those who are younger...
It'd be nice if all his bill did was extend the jurisdiction of the youth court (rather than mucking around with "serious offences" and the District Court), but he isn't without a leg to stand on.
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