First Govt. - now schools invading, legislating against everyday families

from www.northernadvocate.co.nz | 11.08.2007

Two Kaipara schools and a small playgroup have made a clear stand they won't tolerate child abuse in their community.

Aranga School principal Myle Ferris is challenging every New Zealander to lobby parliament for better resources to prevent such senseless and abhorrent acts and to increase sentences for those who commit them.

"Words cannot express my disgust at the cowardly, gutless behaviour of those who beat young children," said Mr Ferris.

Aranga School and Aranga Playgroup, along with Te Kopuru School, supported the nationwide three-minute silence at 12.12pm on Wednesday which acknowledged the death of little Nia Glassie, a victim of domestic violence.

Mr Ferris said he and his staff had explained to pupils what was an acceptable home environment and what they should do if they felt unsafe or afraid.

"We have made them aware of their rights and have told them we are here for them if they need to talk about anything," he said. The school newsletter repeated the anti-abuse message.

"We have to get away from thinking it's the parents' responsibility to bring up their child - its actually the community's. The community needs to be ever vigilant to child abuse and to report any such abuse to the authorities.

"It's time the Government and its agencies stepped up and acted to prevent future tragedies of this kind. We want the government to increase the penalties to abusers of defenceless children; we demand they work toward the removal of drugs from our communities, because we know that much of this abuse stems from substance abuse by parents."
------------------------

"We have to get away from thinking it's the parents' responsibility to bring up their child - its actually the community's. The community needs to be ever vigilant to child abuse and to report any such abuse to the authorities." - Says who?

"Mr Ferris said he and his staff had explained to pupils what was an acceptable home environment" - Nanny State

Ferris, Aranga school, your hearts appear to be in the right place. However handing over even more power to Nanny State is not the answer to our problem of Child abuse. Many of these Beaurocrats are social engineers, tinkering with our Nation's families, digging their hands deeper into our pockets and invading good, functioning families as we see in these two cases below "Toddler tantrum brings three cops knocking " and " No I don't abuse my kids but thanks for checking".