Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Everyday mums and dads now in the firing line

Source: Family First

NZ Herald August 14, 2007
When Karyn Scherer's 2-year-old threw a bedtime tantrum, the last thing the busy working mother expected was three police officers knocking on her door. But that's what happened on Saturday night after a neighbour of the senior Herald journalist called 111. The police who responded said they had to check everything as quickly as possible, given the number of children who suffered harm. READ MORE

Karyn Scherer : No, I don't abuse my kids, but thanks for checking READ MORE
"I have written editorials in favour of the anti-smacking law and I have been asked to appear on TV to present my arguments. I have bored my colleagues with my views on the matter, and I must admit I am now wondering if those who argued that the anti-smacking law would come back to bite good parents on the bum might have been right ."

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

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."
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"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".

The anti-smacking bill fear - the nanny state

from www.geekzone.co.nz | 14 Aug

This is not a technology blog post - be warned. It's almost a political statement. It is here to let our PMs know I am not a supporter of the so-called Anti Smacking-bill.

Why? Because it terrorises parents, spreading fear that a idiot neighbour (which I don't think we have any) or badly informed citizen can just call the Emergency services number and report a parent with "hearsay", for something that every child do, such as a tantrum or a bed time crying.

A good example is this story on New Zealand Herald, "Toddler tantrum brings three cops knocking " and "No I don't abuse my kids but thanks for checking".

My daugther Isabella cries in the morning. She cries when she doesn't want to go to bed. She cries in the middle of the night to let us know she wants some milk. She can't speak yet, so she does one of the things she can to communicate with us. to catch our attention when we are not looking - because she's really good at baby sign language I must say, but it only works when we are looking at her, obviously.

I don't believe the anti-smacking bill will make child abuse in New Zealand go away. Parents who were accused of having killed children are not worried about what can happen to then if they smack a child - because they do worst things as we have seen in the latest stories of toddlers being taken to hospitals just to die a few days later.

That is not smacking. That's beating. That's abusing.

I told my wife one evening that I was thinking a police officer would knock in our door, and if that happen I would happily say "Great you are here officer. We need a baby sitter". Not really. We don't. And we don't need a nanny state that is worried with small things while people go around killing children.