Policy dictates that all state wards recieve pocket money each week, regardless of their behaviour (ie: caregivers are not legally allowed to suspend these payments if the child has misbehaved or refused to do their weekly chores). They are also entitled to new clothes every three months (paid for with our taxes), and if they decide not to go to school or are expelled, they are sent to glorified babysitting services where they spend the day swimming, bone-carving, watching movies and sitting around smoking cigarettes. I liken this to prison, where inmates are treated to SKY tv, free gym memberships, free food, rent and power, while the rest of us eek out a living and are also confined to home and work due to lack of disposable income to entertain ourselves anyway.

From the point of view of a parent and a caregiver I am appalled at the absolute ignorance of those behind the smacking bill.
Congratulations - you have just given New Zealand’s future criminals yet another opportunity to disregard the expectations of the rest of society, and another excuse for their disgusting, disruptive and damaging behaviour. Now destructive adolescents have another law to hide behind, which will protect them from what they truly need - a bloody good spanking!

I am not so sure, for the analogy being drawn is between punishments. Not demonstrating that the law we are proposing to change is about imprisonment but questioning why it is not. That follows too, from the wording of the UN document on which this is all based, and asking why it is excluded while spanking is included is actually quite legitimate IMHO, given the basis on which this furore is all predicated.

I can accept that we aren’t doing it, but the question of WHY we aren’t is a valid one. The effective reasoning would be exactly and completely the same.

respectfully
BJ

Even I can’t be completely certain that public flogging or stocks would not be more effective and less damaging than imprisonment for some criminals. “Shaming” is a powerful way to tell us social animals that we’ve done something that is anti-social. Also, that is the “official” punishment line.

Most small groups will engage in beatings or shaming of some sort when a behaviour needs to be extinguished quickly and memorably. I observed this on a gasoline tanker with the behaviour that needed to be extinguished being smoking.

As for the child, we are not discussing beatings. Nor whippings.

This society is not IMHO, ready to take the step to completely remove spanking from the parental repertoire of methods to modify behaviour. It may reach that stage after a generation without the farm implements and with appropriate parental supports (more than exist now).

The question of whether this is a useful thing to do is open, given the Swedish results.

respectfully
BJ

The days are long gone that it was acceptable for adults who were convicted of crimes to be flogged. But they are still imprisoned. Depriving a person of his or her liberty, be they an adult or a child, as a consequence of anti-social behaviour is acceptable to society. Beating an adult is not acceptable as punshment, so why is it that the law condones beating a child as a punsihment? Simple as that.

Dunk : Because nobody is contesting the right of parents to constrain the liberty of their children. What we contest is the right of parents to cause pain and physical harm to their children.

So the analogy has the market value of a bucket of spit.

“If smacking is assault then time-out is imprisonment.

So, to be consistent, time-out should be banned. But I don’t see anybody here calling for this.

Why not?”

I am surprised at the story you tell …

You write: “Under Sue Bradford’s law.�

(Not a “law�. Sue is asking for the removal of one “section� of a law because lawyers and child care experts say that “those words are not being understood in the way that the people who wrote the law meant them to be understood.�

Some children in this country are being SERIOUSLY beaten, and the people who do these beatings are getting away with it! This is why this law needs fixing, (and taking out those words will fix it.)

You write: “You and your child are in a supermarket … for a single moment your attention is not on your child …�

Most of us have “been there done that�! … and NO the child does NOT get a nice big hug and told that everything is ok. HOWEVER to “slap your child around the ass tell them they are totally wrong and you are very upset with them� is NOT the best way to deal with the situation.

It seems from the responses in the media that we need to have more “Parenting Skills�… TV programmes, classes, groups, courses in schools etc …

“a person who agrees with Sues anti-smacking law 100% �
… might come to the help of the busy shopper and spend some time entertaining the child. (I often do!)

I don’t know where you got the idea of …�she gets on her cellphone calls up the police and reports the incident, there just happens to be a policeman in your local supermarket area/mall and they meet you outside where you are arrested for abuse and your child removed from you.�
(Were you thinking of attacking the child with an axe?)

“The police MUST investigate any complaint made to them even if they believe that complaint to be false or a waste of time … �
… as they “must� under the law as it stands now.

However, (and this is what the proposed amendment is about) under the current law PEOPLE WHO DO ACTUAL PHYSICAL HARM to children ARE GETTING AWAY WITH IT ! Prosecutions taken against them fail, because of the the wording of that section of the law. To stop this from happening, the law must be amended!

We should all “be on the same side� … making sure that ALL our children are safe, and helping parents and caregivers to have the support, the knowlege and the skills to do this important task!

You and your child are in a supermarket, the child wants a drink which is sitting on a shelf in reach of your child, you happen to be trying to locate on another higher shelf the normal brand of a item your partner has asked you to pick up for them, for a single moment your attention is not on your child, they grab the drink from the shelf open it and start to drink before you realize whats happening, you realize and of course naturally you are very upset at your child’s not only lack of respect for your authority over them, but also toward the owner of the store you happen to be standing in, you take the drink of your child of which as a upstanding citizen of New Zealand you are now obligated to pay for, and as a result your child gets a nice big hug and told that everything is ok.

Or you slap your child around the ass tell them they are totally wrong and you are very upset with them, which is then seen by a person who agrees with Sues anti-smacking law 100% she gets on her cellphone calls up the police and reports the incident, there just happens to be a policeman in your local supermarket area/mall and they meet you outside where you are arrested for abuse and your child removed from you.

The police MUST investigate any complaint made to them even if they believe that complaint to be false or a waste of time, and if the law is found to be broken they do not have a choice in which laws they can and can not proceed to prosecute, they must act within the bounds and reasons of the letter of the law

Sue says that the police will not prosecute in such circumstances she is wrong

This law is about Sue believing her way of child raising is the best and only way, she is attempting to force parents to raise kids like she does.

Well Sue one of your kids committed suicide, thats the best indicator of what sort of parent you truly were

I only have time to spend a few minutes every now and then at Frog blog. I’m really busy at the moment, but happy to return and respond to your questions as soon as I can fit it in. You may wish to address mine in the meantime.