They’ve got their heads screwed on the right way, as opposed to the majority of our Parliament.

And Labour MP David Cunliffe eh? Votes to say that parents must not use any force in correction, and then turns round and publicly smacks one of his own children…

Ah, the ironies…

Graeme Edgeler, Wellington, NZ, wrote about Dr Larzelere: “A much better expert than Ruby Harrold-Claesson.”

While I have no intention whatsoever to compete with Dr. Larzelere, I must inform you that I am only a Swedish lawyer, who works in the Swedish court system, inter alia with cases where parents who have smacked or not smacked their children have been accused of child abuse, arrested, remanded in custody and fined or imprisoned and their children have been taken from their care and placed in foster homes or institutions.

I am also doing research on the Swedish anti-smacking law for my PhD.

I can also inform you that I took the initiative to a letter to the Swedish Chancellor of Justice – signed by 23 lawyers, including a former prosecutor and a judge who formerly served in the Administrative Court of Appeal in Gothenburg – requesting an investigation into the gross failures of the court system to guarantee parents a fair trial. For those of you who understand Swedish I invite you to see http://www.nkmr.org/lvu_utan_saklig_grund.htm

Ruby Harrold-Claesson
Lawyer
President of the NCHR
http://www.nkmr.org

WTF ??

The extremist you mention actually merely citing scripture. It concerns me ( as a theologian) that some people think merely citing scripture makes one a dangerous fanatic

The statement is a proverb. Its genre is comparable to phrases such as “the pen is mightier than the sword”. No one considers this proverb to mean that writing is ineffective when done with typewriters or fighting must be done with swords. Pen and sword stand as illustrative examples of fighting and writing.

Similarly when one utters a proverb stating that using a rod may save a childs soul from hell one is not endorsing daily beatings. “Rod” is here (as elsewhere in scripture) used as an illustrative example of discipline. Moreover the words “soul” and “hell” translate the Hebrew “nephesh” (which means roughly or self life) and “schoel” (which means “the grave”).

When the genre and context are taken into account. The text states only that disciplining a child, correcting adverse behavior, will in many contexts save his life.

Now it would be odd for a text that uses corporal punishment as an illustrative example of good disciple to entail it was bad discipline hence it can be legitimately argued that the text implies that corporal punishment is a permissible form of discipline. But to suggest that the text teaches you must daily beat up your child is nonsense.

Matt

Feedback: Dr Larzelere Claims Un-Scientific
Wednesday, 2 May 2007, 11:24 am
Opinion: Scoop Feedback

Letter To The Editor: Dr Larzelere Claims Un-Scientific

“Dr Robert Larzelere, who claims to be scientific in his support for smacking children makes outrageously unscientific allegations about changes in children’s behaviour in Norway since that country introduced a smacking ban (NZ Herald, 1 May). He relies on anecdotes from ‘his colleagues’ about parents ‘not knowing how to control their children’.

The unfortunate facts are that in his own country which has a culture supportive of violence toward children there are eight times the number of deaths of children at the hands of their parents than there are in Norway (Unicef report, 2003). There is no scientific evidence that Norwegian children are better or worse behaved than American children. Only that more of them survive their childhood.”

Dr Ian Hassall
Auckland University of Technology – Institute of Public Policy

Linda A

Rubbish. A lot of anti-smackers don’t equate smacking with child abuse and are not extremsists. There are only a few who hold that view. However, if being anti-smacking is extremist, then so are many people in the pro-choice camp who seem to think smacking is the only, or best form of discipline.

Larzelere says:
smacking could be counter-productive for children of 7 or over when they were old enough to “internalise” the rules of good behaviour.

For months I have been saying that. Smacking is a very blunt and largely ineffective form of discipline. As much as I think Bradford’s bill is a waste of time, the one positive thing that might come out of removing S59 is that parents might start using some alternatives to smacking. They may even come to the realisation that other methods get better results.

However, I agree that the state changing laws to get to this outcome is the wrong way to go about it. A decent education programme would be far more effective in achieving that goal.

The evidence shows, as the good doctor has pointed out, that bans on smacking only increase family violence and abuse. And there are sound behavioural reasons why that is always likely to be the case.

Actually, when you ban smacking, but don’t give people good alternatives, you may see an increase in problems. However (as I keep saying) there are better alternatives to smacking and IF you ban smacking, you HAVE to provide alternatives.

I agree there are far far more extremists and zealots on the other side of the debate.

On behalf of a majority of kiwis I have decided that we must understand that this government in their blind and vengeful wisdom has not bothered to ratify a UN agreement endorsing mum and dad as equal persons (Hellion and Ogress hate fathers). The infantile of a twisted government say they care about children and the family, which in reality is abhorrent hypocrisy spoken by deranged feminist activists!
All this concern about the plight of vulnerable children by government is mere window dressing as this freakshow of fools has twice voted at United Nation’s level not to support the equal status of mothers and fathers? Surely it would be in the child’s best interests to treat parental genders the same! It’s makes the concern for spanking the children seem rather meaningless? Equal = remember that word at school? Yeah right!
Do you think a socialist contagious conscience could give the honest answer? Thought not – welcome to reality as the Labour/Green social engineering brigade is being exposed, as foolish making no sense ogresses.
People are blind to the truth that this government is the most family unfriendly in our short history. The behaviour of Clark, Bradford, Maori Party, Media etc.. is beyond belief . They think they can fix child abuse overnight by signing a bill of bullshit. This government is incapable of providing any practical solutions to avoid child abuse, however they enjoy creating fatherlessness with adversarial tactics for effect, which promotes child abuse! Go figure because I don’t understand this hypocritical nonsensical totalitarian nutbar government.

Almost word for word what I said on your site months ago, He reads Kiwiblog!

A back-up especially when time is short.

“…does the state pass a law mandating that all mothers must breast feed until at least a year old?”

Now you’ve done it.