Community Agencies Horrified by those Promoting Physical Discipline of Children

This week New Zealand organisation Family Integrity promoted a booklet that advocates smacking children. Family Integrity's National Director Craig Smith said the booklet was a “biblical apologetic of the ancient institution of corporal correction.” Family Integrity also helped to fund the visit of controversial Swedish lawyer Ruby Harrold-Claesson, who spoke at the Select Committee to oppose efforts to repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act.

Community agencies working in the area of family violence prevention have reacted strongly to the booklet and to claims made by Harrold-Claesson. “Family Integrity’s views are extreme and repugnant to all reasonable New Zealanders,” said Murray Edridge, Chief Executive of Barnardos NZ. “And if Ruby Harrold-Claesson, whose visit to New Zealand is paid for by them, shares their views, then we don’t need her here.”

“The media reports of today have exposed Family Integrity’s views on hitting children and now is the time for us to give a strong message that those practices are unacceptable,” he continued. “An organisation which bases parenting views on the premise that children are ‘little bundles of depravity’ has no place in reasoned discussion of child management.”

“Earlier this week Child Youth and Family released statistics of the spiralling child abuse notifications in this country, yet here is an organisation which attempts to enter the national discussion by publishing instruction on how to beat a child with a rod in ten to fifteen minute sessions.”

“But it is worse than simply the physical abuse which is inherent in such instruction. Family Integrity insist that the child is not to struggle and to accept the thrashing as having been deserved and good for them. That is not physical abuse alone, that is brainwashing and emotional abuse.”

Mr Edridge asked why we should listen to Ruby Harrold-Claesson. “Why should we listen to her when she comes under the sponsorship of such an extreme organisation? We understand that she is now distancing herself from Family Integrity, yet she herself is quoted in Sweden as saying ‘Children are emotional creatures who listen well through their skin.’ From Internet interviews she is reported as acknowledging that she is not a member of the Swedish Law Society and that she is banned from practising in courts in Western Sweden.”

Relationship Services also voiced strong concerns about the Family Integrity booklet. Jo Ann Vivian, Relationship Services’ National Practice Manager, said that "To encourage parents to use smacking as a way of challenging defiance and anger merely perpetrates existing problems in society and families where force and 'might is right' wins out. It is nonsense to say parental authority requires corporal punishment to be effective, and flies in the face of research on the impact on children of such behaviour."

"To discipline children for expressing feelings of anger sends a very unhealthy message. People need to understand that anger as an emotion is OK - it is acting inappropriately or violently on that emotion that is a problem."

"How on earth do our children learn this if they are being physically punished, not just for an action, but for expressing a feeling? We want the young people and prospective partners and parents of New Zealand to learn how to appropriately express feelings, and to develop strong healthy relationships based on trust and respect, not violence, power and control."

The Green party also argued that the Bible gives no mandate for beating children Green Party Social Development Spokesperson Sue Bradford said that “campaigners against the proposed changes to section 59 of the Crimes Act are distorting the Bible to justify a regime of corporal punishment that puts children at risk of abuse.”

"Many Christians that I have met in the course of this debate do not share Family Integrity's interpretation of the Bible. In particular, they do not share Family Integrity's belief that physical force should be used on children and infants in order to "drive out" a "rebellious spiritual condition" from their hearts” said Ms Bradford.

"Obviously, I do not believe that infants and children are sinful, or inherently spiritually rebellious. I think such views put children at risk of physical harm. My understanding of Christian teaching is that God's justice is mainly about forgiveness and restoration, and far, far less about retribution and punishment.
"The commonly cited ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child’ is not even a Biblical text, but comes from a poem by Samuel Butler, meant satirically. By some interpretations, even the 'rod' mentioned in the Bible is said to be not an instrument of punishment, but one that signifies a shepherd's duty of compassion and care” Ms Bradford added.

For more information about Family Integrity see: www.familyintegrity.org.nz

For an interview with Ruby Harrold-Claesson see:
http://www.sfm.no/Arkiv-2005/Art-Jan-05/14.01.2005-RHClaesson.htm

For more information about the Bill to repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act see the February 2006 issue of the NZFVC newsletter at: http://www.nzfvc.org.nz/12585.pub