Latest study unreliable

www.stuff.co.nz | Friday, 14 December 2007 reports...

"Three out of four young parents physically discipline their children - and one in eight have seriously assaulted them - a Christchurch study reveals."

"The study, completed before smacking was outlawed, asked 155 parents under 25 how they acted towards their children in the previous 12 months, taking into account punishments such as smacking and assaults such as burning and choking.

Researchers concluded the use of child physical punishment was likely to be common among young parents and up to 12 per cent engaged in "harsh or abusive treatment".

Lead researcher Canterbury University Associate Professor Lianne Woodward said social and family background had a big influence on the parents' use of physical punishment..."
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155 parents were surveyed says the Newspaper report. This "research" cannot be taken seriously, as it cannot posssibly be representative of the population of Christchurch, let-alone the rest of New Zealand. Look how fast Kiro is to jump at it and say "see, we've got to change". The study was done prior to the bill passing into law, so quite apart from anything else, the results are irrelevant to today.

12% of the parents surveyed apparently admitted to having beaten their children up at some stage. What demographic was surveyed? It seems pretty improbable that anyone would admit in a survey to having beaten up a child.

"punishments such as smacking and assaults such as burning and choking." - This is well put, it clearly seperates smacking from abuse. Smacking is classified as punishment while burning and choking are said to be assult. It's pretty obvious that these are assult. However we've got Sue Bradford and Cindy Kiro and their colleagues screaming out bloody murder, claiming that a parent who cares enough about their child to give him/her a loving smack now and then is a heartless child-abuser.

Over-all, the statistic that 75% of young parents smack their children comes as no surprise. The finding that 12% of young parents abuse their children however, is rubbish. We know for a fact that child-abusers form a very small percentage of our population.