It is now official. The Child Youth and Family service ("CYF") has publicly revealed that any parent who smacks a child will probably have that child removed from the family. It is government policy not to allow such a parent to have their children.
The particular case that has brought the awful situation to light has been highlighted in the NZ Herald. It concerns two exemplary parents who have been refused by the state to be allowed to care for their grandchild. Why? Because responsible and lawful smacking is part of their excellent parenting care.
CYF operations general manager Marama Edwards said the agency "has a no hitting or smacking policy for caregivers".By implication, this has to mean in principle that the agency has a "no hitting or smacking policy" with respect to all parents. Imagine your child discussing with a friend at school how he had been smacked at home, being overheard by a teacher who then subsequently informed CYF. At that point CYF has the draconian power to march into your home and remove your child (and other children if there are any) on the grounds that it has a zero-tolerance for smacking. Way beyond the law. No legislative authority to take this extreme and draconian position. But allowed and encouraged by politicians and the organs of state power nonetheless.
The actual letter of the law states:
THE LAWClearly CYF regards itself as way above the law.
Allowed:
Parents can use reasonable force to: Prevent harm to the child or others.
Stop the child committing a criminal offence.
Stop offensive or disruptive behaviour.
For "the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting".
Not allowed
It is illegal to use force for "correction".
Here is the actual case reported by the NZ Herald:
Grandparents described as "the perfect family" have been banned from taking in their baby grand-daughter because they believe in smacking. Brian and Hannah Johnson, of Tauranga, have two adult children of their own, have been Child, Youth and Family caregivers for a niece for 13 years, and have brought up an 8-year-old grandson since he was a baby.
But CYF has refused to let them take in their grandson's 21-month-old half-sister because they told CYF they smacked their grandson occasionally as "a last resort". Mrs Johnson, 57, said a CYF social worker told her last week: "We were the perfect family, perfect grandparents, if it wasn't for that little thing and that was smacking.
"I feel like our name has been tainted now," Mrs Johnson said. "I went out of my way, I worked for them for this long time unpaid, I have done it out of the kindness of my heart to be of service to them, I have been up to the CYF office so many times it's not funny. I don't feel like I've been fairly treated."
She sought help from Ngai Te Rangi social services, the Maori Party, the Social Development Ministry, Social Development Minister Paula Bennett and finally the Family First lobby group. Family First director Bob McCoskrie said the Johnsons' experience, and six other new cases he has documented, showed "good families" were being penalised by the 2007 law change that banned parents from using force against children for "correction".
"Not only are police resources being wasted on investigating 'smacking' allegations, but CYF is ignoring the intent of the law and is removing children from good homes where the parents may use a smack," he said. The Johnsons' daughter, who is now 27, was still living at home with them when she had her first child eight years ago. She moved in with the baby's father soon afterwards, but suffered severe post-natal depression so her parents took the baby boy back until she was better.
"She and her partner broke up. He's in Australia now. So I've had him [the boy] ever since," Mrs Johnson said. The daughter had a second son, to a different partner, five years ago. CYF removed that baby because of domestic violence and gave him to the baby's other grandmother. A baby girl born 21 months ago, with a third partner, was also removed by CYF because of "domestics". The Johnsons were reluctant to take her but eventually offered to do so rather than leave her in non-family foster care.
CYF officials were keen at first to give her to them, but changed their minds after interviewing the 8-year-old boy at his school and re-interviewing Mr and Mrs Johnson. "They asked [the boy], 'What are the things you don't like?' He said, 'Smacking and vegetables'," Mrs Johnson said.
"When they had the interview with my husband, he actually admitted to smacking, but it was not to say that we did it all the time. It was a last resort. "It's usually a smack with the hand, but as a last resort we use a wooden spoon."
CYF operations general manager Marama Edwards said the agency "has a no hitting or smacking policy for caregivers. This couple's choice of disciplining methods is the reason we declined their application to be CYF family caregivers for this child," she said.
2 comments:
When the 2004 Care of Children Act (CocA) was passed in to legislation NZ families had no idea of the far reaching implications of what this meant for every day family life in NZ. It was because of this act that Sue Bradford's bill gained so much ground because it could be argued that it supported the purposes of the CoCA, where Part 1 states: "To that end, this Act—
(a)defines and regulates—
(i)parents’ duties, powers, rights, and responsibilities as guardians of their children." Parents have been reduced to guardians. Once there was a distinction between parents and guardians. Now that parents are defined as guardians this act then applies to all adults who have children in their care whether by birth, fostering, adoption or other informal arrangement.
Essentially this gave the state the role of uber parent to whom we will all be held accountable and the agency through which we are accountable is CYF! The only problem is that CYF answers, if indeed it does at all, to perverse legislation such as CoCA.
CoCA also states that children must be protected from all forms of violence (Section 5 [3] "...the child’s safety must be protected and, in particular, he or she must be protected from all forms of violence as defined in section 3(2) to (5) of the Domestic Violence Act 1995 (whether by members of his or her family, family group, whānau, hapu, or iwi, or by other persons)..."
So firstly redefine smacking as an act of violence, spuriously equating it to be the same as a common assault on an adult, then persuade the masses that a smack is one and the same as an assault on an adult, and the way is paved for the legislation.
A very poorly written piece of legislation and so confused; particularly because of the ridiculous clause that gives police discretion to prosecute or not. This leaves everyone uncertain as to what is legal or not at any one point in time until the police declare their position on a particular situation). The result of this is that even legal experts are unable to argue how it might be applied: see here http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10588870&pnum=0
I'm waiting for rugby or karate to be banned as these could be argued to be forms of violence that parents, guardians, family / whanau are legally obligated to protect children from and if they don't well could be prosecuted for not doing so!
It wont be long before expressing a contrary view will be equated to committing the act of smacking, for to argue against the bill is to support those who oppose it and act in contradiction to it which means one has or will do so too, so why not intervene now (ahead of time) in the name of protecting the child!
Parents beware!
The triumph of anti-parent ideology over common-sense.
With this draconian decision against the above grandparents, CYF prove they don't understand the difference between a smack and child abuse - and their actions here show the same level of disproportion, so it is no surprise.
Oh, that these people were accountable for their actions.
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