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Category: International Research and Comment
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Demographic Winter
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Anti-smack minister smacked own kids
February 08, 2008 01:46am
Article from:
The startling admission by embattled Community Services Minister Kevin Greene also puts the father of six in direct conflict with his own department’s rule, which is that children should never be smacked.
The child protection sector is in an uproar following yesterday’s revelation by The Daily Telegraph that children had been removed from their grandparents’ home because the grandmother smacked her six-year-old grandson for playing in a stormwater drain.
They were official DOCS carers and had looked after the three brothers and sister several times in the past six years.
Despite DOCS listing smacking as a “risk of harm” offence that must be reported, Mr Greene said spanking could have its place.
“My wife and I have raised six children together. Three are now adults, two are in their late teens and our youngest is 12,” he said.
“There were times when our judgment has been that it was appropriate to smack the children. But we’ve moved past those days of toddler tantrums and disobedient kids.”
Mr Greene also said he supported the law in NSW that allows smacking but outlaws excessive physical punishment.
“While discipline is a personal judgement for parents, one thing is paramount – the child’s health and safety should never be threatened by the course of action parents take.”
Foster care workers yesterday were asking how DOCS can punish foster carers for doing something their own minister has condoned.
“It puts a lot of confusion in carers’ minds when he is saying, ‘Do as I say, not as I do’,” Foster Care Association president Mary-Jane Beach said.
“Some carers would agree that an occasional smack on the bottom doesn’t hurt and they find the department’s no smacking stipulation difficult. Why would you give a mixed message like that?”
The woman whose grandchildren have been taken away from her was furious at the apparent contradiction.
“It is like the rich and the poor; you have one set of rules for one and one for another,” Catherine (not her real name) said.
“It was just to teach our grandson about getting down the drain.
“If it’s good for him (Greene) why isn’t it good enough for the other parents and grandparents who only do it when a child mucks up?”
The fresh controversy comes amid calls to elevate the Community Services – currently a junior portfolio – to a senior Cabinet position.
Mr Greene is a first-time minister accused of being out of his depth in his handling of recent child death cases.
Andrew McCallum, from the Association of Children Welfare Agencies, said DOCS was not given enough importance by the Government.
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Smacking the Parents
http://www.nkmr.org/english/taboos_smacking_parents_by_james_heartfield.htm
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The consequences of Sweden’s anti-smacking laws for family life should be a warning to Britain,
reports James Heartfield
(This short article first appeared in the June 1999
issue of LM Magazine.)Smacking the Parents A 23-year old Eritrean refugee, raising her two girls on her own, was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment for having spanked her youngest daughter, aged six. The children were placed in an orphanage. They spoke no Swedish and thought that the police bad taken their mother away and shot her, as the Ethiopian police might have. A stepfather who slapped his two boys, aged 11 and 12, after they were caught stealing, was imprisoned for a year. A young Thai widow who slapped her 14-year old daughter’s face was imprisoned for a month, and all four of her children taken from her to a foster home. The 15-year old daughter of a Bosnian refugee was fostered after her mother disciplined her with a belt. The foster parents’ address was kept secret from her family. As Harrold-Claesson says, ‘the law targets immigrant parents, and parents with strong religious beliefs’. According to Sweden’s National Board of Welfare, no immigrant can avoid prosecution by referring to the child-rearing practices in his home country.
The Swedish law is supposed to protect children. But according to Harrold-Claesson, ‘the effect on children is devastating: they lose contact with their families and their playmates to be “replanted in new soil’. She says that ‘real abusers are more devious than the parents who discipline their children out of love, hiding nothing’. But the real damage is done by the law itself: ‘To fail. to discipline a child, not to give it any boundaries, is real cruelty.’ In Sweden even sending, a child to his room, ‘room arrest’, is illegal, seen as cruel treatment and deprivation of liberty.
Harrold-Claesson objects that the authorities start out with an assumption that ‘the family is principally bad – in Sweden the family does not count’. Through the crazy theories of psychologists, ordinary family relationships are viewed with suspicion. ‘One mother I defended was accused of having a “sick symbiotic relationship” with her daughter – they meant that she loved her.’ Where parents are unable to cope because of problems like alcoholism or addiction, the social services stop grandparents from taking the children in, on the grounds that they are to blame for the parents’ shortcomings – they raised them that way.
Harrold-Claesson has successfully defended many parents against imprisonment, even taking Sweden to the European Court itself. For her efforts she has been marked down as a troublemaker. ‘I’m branded as a child abuser’, she says, matter-of-factly. Now the courts in Gothenburg stop her defending parents, by refusing to appoint her as a public defender. ‘You are not to talk about human rights in Sweden, because we are supposed to have them already’, she says.
In the 1980’s right-wing governments in America and Britain tried to enforce personal morality in the name of ‘family values’. That led to bigotry and discrimination. Those ‘problem families’ that failed to live up to the ideal were pushed around, and sometimes broken up. But the reaction against ‘family values’ is in some senses even worse.
For many caring professionals it seems that there is a predilection to believe the worst of ordinary families. Their reverse image of the ‘family values’ ideal is the assumption that all families are potential sites of abuse. If Sweden is anything to go by, a British law against what many consider to be normal parental discipline could act as a green light to childcare professionals to break up families, imprison parents and send children to or secret foster homes. -
Robert E. Larzelere Ph.D
Executive summary of “Comparing Child Outcomes of Physical Punishment and Alternative Disciplinary Tactics: A Meta-Analysis
Robert E. Larzelere1 (1,2) and Brett R. Kuhn1 (1)(1) Psychology Department, Munroe-Meyer Institute, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Nebraska
(2) Psychology Department, MMI, 985450 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, 68198-5450Abstract This meta-analysis investigates differences between the effect sizes of physical punishment and alternative disciplinary tactics for child outcomes in 26 qualifying studies. Analyzing differences in effect sizes reduces systematic biases and emphasizes direct comparisons between the disciplinary tactics that parents have to select among. The results indicated that effect sizes significantly favored conditional spanking over 10 of 13 alternative disciplinary tactics for reducing child noncompliance or antisocial behavior. Customary physical punishment yielded effect sizes equal to alternative tactics, except for one large study favoring physical punishment. Only overly severe or predominant use of physical punishment compared unfavorably with alternative disciplinary tactics. The discussion highlights the need for better discriminations between effective and counterproductive use of disciplinary punishment in general.
to get the full copy email:
Robert E. Larzelere robert.larzelere@okstate.edu
or from the journal at http://www.springerlink.com/content/k0x4468k255187qg/
Selected Publications on Physical Discipline by Parents by Dr. Robert Larzelere, with Internet Links Selected Publications on Physical Discipline by Parents by Dr. Robert Larzelere, with Internet Links (Oklahoma State University)
Larzelere, R. E., & Kuhn, B. R. (2005). Comparing child outcomes of physical punishment and alternative disciplinary tactics: A meta-analysis. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 8 (1), 1-37.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k0x4468k255187qg/Larzelere, R. E. (2005). Differentiating evidence from advocacy in evaluating Sweden’s spanking ban: A response to Joan Durrant’s critique of my booklet “Sweden’s smacking ban: More harm than good”.Unpublished manuscript, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE.
http://people.biola.edu/faculty/paulp/rdurrunl.75.pdfLarzelere, R. E. (2004). Scientific evidence on smacking. BMJ: British Medical Journal (eletter at http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/329/7476/1195).
Larzelere, R. E., Kuhn, B. R., & Johnson, B. (2004) The intervention selection bias: An under-recognized confound in intervention studies. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 289-303.
http://content.apa.org/journals/bul/130/2/289.htmlBaumrind, D., Larzelere, R. E., & Cowan, P. A. (2002). Ordinary physical punishment: Is it harmful? Comment on Gershoff (2002). Psychological Bulletin, 128, 580-589. http://content.apa.org/journals/bul/128/4/580.html.
Larzelere, R. E. (2001). Sweden: Data does not support success claims. Families First (Issue 2), 12-15. http://www.families-first.org.uk/nl/index.html & www.families-first.org.uk/pr/2001-11-01.html Updated and reprinted in 2004 as Sweden’s smacking ban: More harm than good. Essex, England: Families First. http://www.christian.org.uk/pdfpublications/sweden_smacking.pdf
Larzelere, R. E. (2001). Combining love and limits in authoritative parenting. In J. C. Westman (Ed.), Parenthood in America (pp. 81-89). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. (http://parenthood.library.wisc.edu/Larzelere/Larzelere.html)
Larzelere, R. E. (2001, May). We need the full picture on both smacking and vaccinations [Letter to the editor]. Archives of Diseases in Childhood, 84, 450. http://adc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/84/5/450e
Larzelere, R. E. (2000). Child outcomes of non-abusive and customary physical punishment by parents: An updated literature review. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 3 (4), 199-221. (http://ipsapp007.lwwonline.com/content/getfile/4578/4/1/fulltext.pdf)
This review was compared and contrasted with a review by Gershoff (2002) by the president-elect of the American Psychological Association: Benjet, C., & Kazdin, A. E. (2003). Spanking children: The controversies, findings, and new directions. Clinical Psychology Review, 23, 197-224. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VB8-46MJPYH-2&_user=152108&_coverDate=03%2F31%2F2003&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000012538&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=152108&md5=3c4b6ba8493fff1ea9e49d1682ba0cc8 Note that the Larzelere-Kuhn (2005) review follows the Benjet-Kazdin (2003) recommendation that the outcomes of physical discipline be compared with alternative disciplinary tactics that parents could use instead.Larzelere, R. E. (2000). Weak evidence for a smacking ban [letter]. BJM: British Medical Journal, 320, 1538-1539. (http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/320/7248/1538/a)
Larzelere, R. E. (1999). To spank or not to spank [Letter to the editor] Pediatrics, 85, 381-392.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/103/3/696?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=spanking&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCITLarzelere, R. E., Baumrind, D., & Polite, K. (1998). Two emerging perspectives of parental spanking from two 1996 conferences. Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, 152, 303-305. http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/issues/v152n3/ffull/plt0398-2.html
Larzelere, R. E., Sather, P. R., Schneider, W. N., Larson, D. B., & Pike, P. L.(1998). Punishment enhances reasoning’s effectiveness as a toddler disciplinary response to toddlers. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60(2), 388-403. Summary: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/Horn072998.html http://www.fatherhood.org/articles/wh072898.htm Article: http://www.jstor.org/cgi-bin/jstor/printpage/00222445/ap020140/02a00090/0?frame=noframe&dpi=3&userID=8b4e8a3b@okstate.edu/01cc99331600501b6b991&backcontext=table-of-contents&backurl=/cgi-bin/jstor/listjournal/00222445/ap020140%3fframe%3dframe%26dpi%3d3%26userID%3d8b4e8a3b@okstate.edu/01cc99331600501b6b991%26config%3djstor&action=download&config=jstor
1996 Scientific Consensus Conference on Corporal Punishment, co-sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics, including a review of the literature by Larzelere and reply by Diana Baumrind: Larzelere, R. E. (1996). A review of the outcomes of parental use of nonabusive or customary physical punishment. Pediatrics, 98(4), 824-831. (Summary included in http://www.christian.org.uk/html-publications/Advocate2.pdf )
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/results?vid=2&hid=117&sid=36c0289a-7fbc-446a-9f48-4dca187ee788%40sessionmgr2Larzelere, R. E., & Merenda, J. A. (1994). The effectiveness of parental discipline for toddler misbehavior at different levels of child distress. Family Relations, 43, 480-488. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0197-6664%28199410%2943%3A4%3C480%3ATEOPDF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W
Larzelere, R. E. (1994). Should the use of corporal punishment by parents be considered child abuse? No. In M. A. Mason & E. Gambrill (Eds.), Debating children’s lives: Current controversies on children and adolescents (pp. 204-209, 217-218). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/CP6.pdf
Other links on corporal punishment by parents available at http://people.biola.edu/faculty/paulp/
Chris Beckett’s article exposing the “Swedish myth” that no more than one child abuse fatality has occurred in any year in Sweden since they banned spanking there in 1979:
http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/35/1/125Parental Discipline Bibliography Parental Discipline Bibliography
Robert E. Larzelere, Ph.D. (Robert.Larzelere@okstate.edu)
Dept. of Human Development and Family Science, 233 HES, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078 (405) 744-2053Publications
Larzelere, R. E., & Kuhn, B. R. (2005). Enhancing behavioral parent training with an extended discipline ladder. The Behavior Therapist, 28, 105-108.
Larzelere, R. E., & Kuhn, B. R. (2005). Comparing child outcomes of physical punishment and alternative disciplinary tactics: A meta-analysis. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 8 (1), 1-37. http://www.springerlink.com/content/k0x4468k255187qg/
Powers, S., & Larzelere, R. (2005). Behavioral theory and corporal punishment. In M. Donnelly & M. A. Straus (Eds.), Corporal punishment of children in theoretical perspective (pp. 91-102). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Polaha, J., Larzelere, R. E., Shapiro, S. K., & Pettit, G. S. (2004). Physical discipline and child behavior problems: A study of ethnic group differences. Parenting: Science and Practice, 4, 339-360.
Larzelere, R. E. (2004). Scientific evidence on smacking. BMJ: British Medical Journal (eletter at http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/329/7476/1195).
Larzelere, R. E., Kuhn, B. R., & Johnson, B. (2004). The intervention selection bias: An under-recognized confound in intervention research. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 289-303. http://content.apa.org/journals/bul/130/2/289.html
Larzelere, R. E., & Kuhn, B. R. (2003). Discipline. In J. J. Ponzetti, Jr. (Ed.), International encyclopedia of marriage and family (2nd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 462-469). New York: Macmillan.
Baumrind, D., Larzelere, R. E., & Cowan, P. A. (2002). Ordinary physical punishment: Is it harmful? Comment on Gershoff (2002). Psychological Bulletin, 128, 580-589. http://www.apa.org/journals/bul/press_releases/july_2002/ or http://content.apa.org/journals/bul/128/4/580.html”>http://www.apa.org/journals/bul/press_releases/july_2002/
Larzelere, R. E. (2001). Sweden: Data does not support success claims. Families First (Issue 2), 12-15. www.families-first.org.uk/nl/index.html & www.families-first.org.uk/pr/2001-11-01.html Updated and reprinted in 2004 as Sweden’s smacking ban: More harm than good. Essex, England: Families First. http://www.christian.org.uk/pdfpublications/sweden_smacking.pdf
Larzelere, R. E. (2001, May). We need the full picture on both smacking and vaccinations [Letter to the editor]. Archives of Diseases in Childhood, 84, 450. http://adc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/84/5/450e
Larzelere, R. E. (2001). Combining love and limits in authoritative parenting. In J. C. Westman (Ed.), Parenthood in America (pp. 81-89). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. (http://parenthood.library.wisc.edu/Larzelere/Larzelere.html)
Larzelere, R. E. (2000). Child outcomes of non-abusive and customary physical punishment by parents: An updated literature review. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 3 (4), 199-221. (http://ipsapp007.lwwonline.com/content/getfile/4578/4/1/fulltext.pdf)
Larzelere, R. E. (2000). Weak evidence for a smacking ban [letter]. BJM: British Medical Journal, 320, 1538-1539. (http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/320/7248/1538/a)
Larzelere, R. E., & Johnson, B. (1999). Evaluations of the effects of Sweden’s spanking ban of physical child abuse rates: A literature review. Psychological Reports, 85, 381-392.
Larzelere, R. E. (1999). To spank or not to spank (letter to the editor). Pediatrics, 103, 696-697. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/103/3/696?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=spanking&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT”>http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/103/3/696?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=spanking&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT
Larzelere, R. E. (1998). Effective vs. counterproductive parental spanking: Toward more light and less heat. Marriage and Family, 1, 179-192.
Larzelere, R. E., Baumrind, D., & Polite, K. (1998). Two emerging perspectives of parental spanking from two 1996 conferences. Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, 152, 303-305. http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/issues/v152n3/ffull/plt0398-2.html
Larzelere, R. E., Sather, P. R., Schneider, W. N., Larson, D. B., & Pike, P. L.(1998). Punishment enhances reasoning’s effectiveness as a toddler disciplinary response to toddlers. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60(2), 388-403. Summary: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/Horn072998.html http://www.fatherhood.org/articles/wh072898.htm Article: http://www.jstor.org/cgi-bin/jstor/printpage/00222445/ap020140/02a00090/0?frame=noframe&dpi=3&userID=8b4e8a3b@okstate.edu/01cc99331600501b6b991&backcontext=table-of-contents&backurl=/cgi-bin/jstor/listjournal/00222445/ap020140%3fframe%3dframe%26dpi%3d3%26userID%3d8b4e8a3b@okstate.edu/01cc99331600501b6b991%26config%3djstor&action=download&config=jstor
Larzelere, R. E., Silver, C., & Polite, K. (1997). Nonabusive spanking: Parental liberty or child abuse? Children’s Legal Rights Journal, 17(4), 7-17.
Larzelere, R. E., Schneider, W. N., Larson, D. B., & Pike, P. L. (1996). The effects of discipline responses in delaying toddler misbehavior recurrences. Child and Family Behavior Therapy, 18 (3), 35-57. http://www.haworthpress.com/store/ArticleAbstract.asp?sid=DJTMPRBTUTM88LTN3WBU863T3LV58B3C&ID=71017
Larzelere, R. E. (1996). A review of the outcomes of parental use of nonabusive or customary physical punishment. Pediatrics, 98(4), 824-831. Summary included in http://www.christian.org.uk/html-publications/Advocate2.pdf Proceedings of the Scientific Consensus Conference on Corporal Punishment that invited this review and Diana Baumrind’s response: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/results?vid=2&hid=117&sid=36c0289a-7fbc-446a-9f48-4dca187ee788%40sessionmgr2
Larzelere, R. E. (1995). Discipline. In D. Levinson (Ed.), Encyclopedia of marriage and the family, pp. 172-177. New York: Macmillan.
Larzelere, R. E., & Merenda, J. A. (1994). The effectiveness of parental discipline for toddler misbehavior at different levels of child distress. Family Relations, 43, 480-488. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0197-6664%28199410%2943%3A4%3C480%3ATEOPDF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W
Larzelere, R. E. (1994). Should the use of corporal punishment by parents be considered child abuse? No. In M. A. Mason & E. Gambrill (Eds.), Debating children’s lives: Current controversies on children and adolescents (pp. 204-209, 217-218). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/CP6.pdf
Larzelere, R. E. (1993). Response to Oosterhuis: Empirically justified uses of spanking: Toward a discriminating view of corporal punishment. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 21, 142-147.
Larzelere, R. E., Amberson, T. G., & Martin, J. A. (1992). Age differences in perceived discipline problems from 9 to 48 months. Family Relations, 41(2), 192-199.
Larzelere, R. E., & Patterson, G. R. (1990). Parental management: Mediator of the effect of socioeconomic status on early delinquency. Criminology, 28, 301-324.
Larzelere, R. E., Klein, M., Schumm, W. R., & Alibrando, S. A., Jr. (1989). The effects of spanking and other parenting characteristics on self-esteem and perceived fairness of parental discipline. Psychological Reports, 64, 1140-1142.
Larzelere, R. E. (1986). Moderate spanking: Model or deterrent of children’s aggression in the family? Journal of Family Violence, 1, 27-36.
Presentations and Unpublished Papers
Larzelere, R. E., & Mandara, J. (2006, November). Bell’s control system theory: Reconciling developmental and behavioral views of parental discipline. Paper presented at the Theory Construction and Research Methodology Workshop preceding the annual convention of the National Council on Family Relations, Minneapolis, MN.
Larzelere, R. E., Ferrer, E., & Kuhn, B. R. (2006, October). Longitudinal causal inferences given selection biases and regression artifacts. Paper presented at the 6th annual Winemiller Conference on Statistics in the Social Sciences, Statistics Dept., University of Missouri, Columbia, MO.
Larzelere, Ferrer, E., & Kuhn, B. R. (2006, August). Associations of a reasoning vs. punishment continuum with antisocial trajectories. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans, LA.
Larzelere, R. E., Ferrer, E., & Kuhn, B. R. (2005, August). What alternatives can pass the scientific tests flunked by spanking? (A methodological inquiry). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.
Larzelere, R. E., & Kuhn, B. R. (2005, August). Immediate effectiveness of disciplinary tactics by type of noncompliance (A reanalysis of Ritchie, 1999). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.
Larzelere, R. E. (2005). Differentiating evidence from advocacy in evaluating Sweden’s spanking ban: A response to Joan Durrant’s critique of my booklet “Sweden’s smacking ban: More harm than good”.Unpublished manuscript, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE. http://people.biola.edu/faculty/paulp/rdurrunl.75.pdf
Larzelere, R. E., & Baumrind, D. (2005, April). The role of power assertion in the effects of parenting styles on adolescent outcomes. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta.
Larzelere, R. E., Ferrer, E., & Kuhn, B. R. (2005, April). Do parenting practices predict subsequent child aggression after controlling for child effects? Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta.
Larzelere, R. E. (2005, March). Children and violence in the family: Scientific contributions. (a submission to the UN Global Study on Children and Violence, on behalf of the American College of Pediatricians). Unpublished manuscript.
Larzelere, R. E. (Chair). 2003, April). Linking physical discipline to child outcomes: When are causal inferences justified? Symposium presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Tampa, FL.
Larzelere, R. E. (2003, March). The difficulty of making valid causal inferences from passive longitudinal designs. Invited presentation at the conference “The Future of Longitudinal Studies,” Berkeley, CA. (http://ihd.berkeley.edu/larzelere.htm)
Larzelere, R. E. (2002, August). Child outcomes of disciplinary reasoning: A literature review. Paper for a poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Chicago.
Larzelere, R. E., & Smith, G. L. (2000, August). Controlled longitudinal effects of five disciplinary tactics on antisocial behavior. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington DC.
Larzelere, R. E. (1999, June). Discipline of children: To spank or not to spank? Debate presentation (with M. A. Straus) at the Second International Conference of the National Foundation for Family Research and Education, Bankff, Alberta. (Summarized at http://people.biola.edu/faculty/paulp/debate.html)
Larzelere, R. E. (1997, September). Implications of research on parental spanking for understanding the effects of parental discipline responses in general. University of Kansas Medical Center’s Department of Pediatrics Grand Rounds, Kansas City, Kansas.
Larzelere, R. E. (1997, August). Premature advocacy against all parental spanking: Going way beyond science. Invited response to symposium, “Should APA take a position on spanking? A child advocacy perspective,” I. A. Hyman (chair), at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Chicago.
Larzelere, R. E. (1997, August). Critique of Straus et al. (1997) study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and its implications for the broader topics of nonabusive spanking and parental discipline. Unpublished document sent to FAMLYSCI listserve.
Larzelere, R. E. (Chair). (1997, August). Escalation processes within discipline incidents and their prevention. Symposium presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Chicago.
Larzelere, R. E., Larson, D. B., Sather, P. R., Schneider, W. N., & Pike, P. L. (1997, August). Conditions influencing reasoning’s effectiveness as a toddler discipline response. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Chicago.
Lyons, J. S., & Larzelere, R. E. (1996, August). Where is evidence that non-abusive corporal punishment increases aggression? Paper presented at the XXVI International Congress of Psychology, Montreal.
Sather, P. R., Larzelere, R. E., & Pike, P. L. (1994, August). Side effects of parental discipline responses to toddler misbehavior. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles.
Larzelere, R. E., Schneider, W. N., & Rose, A. N. (1988, August). The Discipline Record: Assessing parental discipline of toddlers. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Atlanta.
Some of these materials can be found at http://people.biola.edu/faculty/paulp/
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International investigations into Swedish child abuse situation
International investigations into Swedish child abuse situation
Below:
1. Short news report of situation
2. Intro and credentials of lawyer in Sweden critical of Swedish anti-smacking law.
3. Short report extract of European Children’s Ombudsman critical of Swedish data collection mechanisms.
4. Short NCHR (Nordic Committee for Human Rights) criticism of investigative Committee on the Rights of the Child into Swedish compliance.1.
Tue, 14 June 2005
© 2005 Newstalk ZB News
Smacking ban does not work, says SwedeA Swedish lobby group says a total ban on smacking does not work.
Sweden has already enacted legislation similar to that planned for New Zealand, which would prevent parents using physical force to discipline their children.Lawyer Ruby Harrold-Claesson, from Sweden’s Nordic Community for Human rights says as a result, parents live in fear and families are broken up on a regular basis by the authorities.
She claims parents have been terrorised by officials, and children confiscated and destroyed by the system.
She says 18,000 children are in care, and the foster home industry has become a cash cow.
Ruby Harrold-Claesson says she is distressed another country wants to follow Sweden’s example where she claims social workers and the Administrative courts have total control over parents.
2.
Ruby Harrold-Claesson
Chairman of The Nordic Committee for Human Rights
Mrs. Ruby Harrold-Claesson, Lawyer, was born in Kingston, Jamaica, as daughter of Mr. and Mrs O. J. Harrold. She is married to Håkan Claesson, engineer. They have two daughters, Simone and Lorica and one son, Leif. Ruby Harrold-Claesson lives in Gothenburg, Sweden and can be reached at: + 46 – 31 – 70 20 385 (office); Fax: + 46 – 31 -70 25 242.Besides her mother language English, Mrs Harrold-Claesson speaks Swedish, French and Spanish.
Ruby Harrold-Claesson started her academic career by studying Law and Political Science in France. In Sweden she has done post-graduate studies in Legal History, after which she took a Swedish law degree.
Ruby Harrold-Claesson runs a private law firm in Gothenburg. Ruby Harrold-Claesson works with family law, e.g. guardianship cases and cases dealing with parental rights; criminal cases etc.
Ruby Harrold-Claesson has referred several cases of breaches of Human Rights to the European Commission for Human Rights in Strasbourg.
3.
Skrivelse
2004-12-22 Skrivelse:Observations of the Children’s Ombudsman with respect to the written replies of the Government of Sweden concerning the list of issues (CRC/C/Q/SWE/3) raised by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in relation to the consideration of the third periodic report of Sweden.
6. Child abuse
There is no data available on victims of child abuse aged 15 to 17 years of age. In the view of the Children’s Ombudsman, the fact that the statistical data on crimes against children 15 years of age and older is not separated from the data concerning adult victims makes the monitoring of the implementation of some of the rights contained in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (hereinafter “the CRC”) difficult. The Children’s Ombudsman considers that this data should be further disaggregated, in particular by gender.3. Individual complaints mechanisms for children
There are many complaints mechanisms in Sweden that in principle are available to individual children. However, most of these mechanisms may only issue recommendations concerning the issue at stake. In most cases, an effective remedy can only be obtained through a court procedure. As a rule, however, only the legal custodian(s) of a child can initiate legal proceedings on behalf of the child. Furthermore, as the Government notes in its written replies, there are no mechanisms that are especially designed for children. As a consequence, in practice only those children, whose parents are willing and able to complain on their behalf, have an effective remedy to possible violations of their rights.4.
COMMITTEE ON RIGHTS OF CHILD CONSIDERS THIRD PERIODIC REPORT OF SWEDEN
On January 11, 2005, the Committee on the Rights of the Child considered the third periodic report of Sweden on that country’s efforts to implement the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.Introducing the report, Elisabeth Borsiin Bonnier, Permanent Representative of Sweden to the United Nations Office at Geneva, said the work of her Government to implement the provisions of the Convention within Swedish society had been constantly on-going since the country had ratified the treaty 15 years ago.
Committee Experts raised questions concerning child asylum seekers, the treatment of children with disabilities, acquisition of citizenship, and placement of children in foster families, among other things.
Moushira Khattab, (Egypt), the Committee Expert who also served as country Rapporteur for the report of Sweden, said Swedish children were fortunate to enjoy their rights.
The NCHR finds it surprising that Moushira Khattab, the person who has served as country Rapporteur for the report of Sweden, could say that “Swedish children were fortunate to enjoy their rights”. Judging from Ms. Khattab’s CV, her working languages are Arabic, English, French and German, it is quite obvious that she is unfamiliar with the tens of thousands of cases where the social services and the administrative court system in Sweden deprive children of their basic Human Rights to private and family life by forcibly taking them into public care and placing them in foster homes among total strangers. These child care cases are completely lacking in fairness, transparency, accountability and the rule of law. It is also quite obvious that Ms Khattab is not acquainted with the judgements in public care cases that the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has delivered against Sweden since 1982. It is also quite obvious that Ms Khattab has never visited the NCHR’s web site where there is more than sufficient information to prove the serious violations of the basic Human Rights to private and family life of tens of thousands of children and their families.