Child Neglect – The Bomb in the Brain
As a country, NZ does need to address the protection of several hundreds of thousands of children. Their happiness is seriously being disadvantaged, their ability to manage and organise their lives is compromised and their ability to take up education is being wasted by missing the opportunity to have a proper developing upbringing.
YouTube Documentaries:
The Bomb in the Brain Part 1 – The True Roots of Human Violence
The Bomb in the Brain Part 2 – The Freedomain Radio Interview with Dr Felitti
The Bomb in the Brain Part 3 – The Biology of Violence: The Effects of Child Abuse
The Bomb in the Brain Part 4 – The Death of Reason – The Effects of Child Abuse
The Bomb in the Brain Part 5 – A Postscript and Prescription
NZ MSD website doesn’t seem to have any material that satisfactorily covers emotional neglect of children, especially in terms of diagnosis and what treatment should be given. No wonder that their social workers bumble around and get it right only a small amount of the time, they don’t know what they are doing.
Interestingly, Stefan Molyneux’s series about roots of violence seems to cover emotional neglect of babies incidentally, more effectively than anything on the MSD website.
You can whip school teachers as much as you like, but if the parents have failed to develop children through the first 1 to 3 years of life, no amount of schoolteaching can ever make up the damage done by neglect. See Brainwave Trust button above.
The most powerful resource available to protect and develop these children, is their own fathers. Why then does the familycaught$ act so spectacularly to deny and destroy the relationship between these children and their fathers? They are just relationship vandals and thieves.
If the father’s time and care is worth so much to the children’s life chances, why does the Child [and Spousal] Support Act pressure fathers to give priority to handing over cash to the mothers, when it is the father’s time that is so much more valuable to the child?
At times, Parliament seems to be a bunch of easily led idiots?
Another situation which illustrates the critical nature of babies early development, is the effects of institutionalisation of babies in orphanages:
Georgette Mulheir: The tragedy of orphanages TEDSalon London Spring 2012 · 10:41 · Filmed May 2012
Ye Gods; so much sense in such a small article. Particularly in regard to the relative ineffectiveness of teachers without the basic groundwork from home.
Comment by andrew — Sat 31st May 2014 @ 1:27 pm
Dear andrew, your statement is much more true than the general wisdom gives it credit for.
I have seen neglected children, (from financially rich but time poor families) go on to squander large amounts of value given to them, as they could not see the consequences of their actions. Very weak executive decisionmaking capacity.
It would sound easy to cure, but surprisingly, these people often take a decade or two to pull their lives together. Even then, they never get to enjoy the world, the way securely brought up children take simply for granted.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 31st May 2014 @ 5:49 pm
I had a court appointed psychologist say to me that none of my notifications to cyfs, had been upheld, as if I had lied to cyfs.
Gee I wonder if cyfs could have been the ones lying, no, surely not. (Taking off sarcasm filter now).
In fact I know cyfs where lying, and backed my ex wife when she lied. The value placed on fathers at the msd is low, at least thats the opinion of the lawyers, counsellors, and people who had been through court that I know, dozens and dozens of them, and not one said otherwise.
I had a cyfs fabricate complete lies about what happened when my son was physically abused by his mother.
Some changes in the msd need to happen and the pressure from websites such as this and others in the public domain will bring about change.
Change did come in the civil rights movement, and positive change came in the women’s rights movement, so, too, it will come for the men’s movement too.
Too late for my son and I,, but everyone who has been a solider in that war, for children being able to be parented by both parents deserves a medal. The generations to come will benefit if we struggle on instead of accepting it with our motuhs sewn shut.
Comment by TP — Sun 1st June 2014 @ 10:00 pm
Dear TP, sorry to hear about your family depending on competent service from CYFs.
I have met a few stable, honest, reliable social workers. They stand out.
If you look at most CYFs social workers, they are untrained and the the ones with training were uneducated, so are in an even poorer position to serve and protect children.
Look further back, very few had satisfactory or happy childhoods, which leaves them at much increased risk of psychotic listening and hearing problems, which you unkindly refer to as lying. Disproportionately, they have been adopted and abused. This leads to empathy and sympathy more than understanding exactly what the issues are about, well enough to be able to help clients situations.
Perhaps you enjoyed the fairly rare luxury of a happy childhood? Well you just can’t go around projecting your understanding of honesty and integrity onto people who can’t reliably tell truth from daydreams from horror nightmares.
Quite apart from social worker’s personal upbringing problems, the CYFs management style has an insidious way of turning even honest employees into pathological liars. Supervisors are unclear in their delegations to lower staff members. When lower staff members negotiate something with a client, some of the time the supervisor or their supervisor will overrule the agreement made. This leaves the lower staff member looking like a liar in front of the customer. After a while, sorting these messes out quickly becomes impossible and the staff member sees no point in even trying to maintain an image of integrity. They then just lie whenever this appears useful, at work and in their private lives.
Would you admire people, who go out to try to help parents and children in impossible situations, when it would be wiser to prevent incapable parents from having children and help poorer parents with parenting to protect their children?
Dear TP, you could be trying to help social workers to recover from the hazards of their childhood and employment, but you are just sniping at them and being negative. They really need your help and everyone else’s too. You went into their offices for what you could gain from them, when you should have been wanting to help them….. Have you thought about “shouting” them, to put them out of their misery and save children from them?
All sharpness aside, please contact Graeme Axford or myself and lets see if we can make the most constructive outcome…..
MurrayBacon – axe murderer.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 2nd June 2014 @ 9:58 am
Murray
You are the one projecting, and making assumptions.
The social workers said they where with me at a place, where I never was, and said things I never did, which would not have been possible not being there on the date they mention other any other time.
That’s hardly selective hearing, just fabrication.
And, you’re the one sniping.
I’ve read a few of your other bizarre posts. It sounds like you’re trying to hurt the cause of the men’s movement by making unreasonable and inflammatory posts, which make the site look bad.
I’m not going to take the bait thanks Murray.
And to the people doing a good job here and elsewhere, keep doing it!
I am also sure there are good social workers at cyfs, I have met one, I’ve also met several who were incompetent and one who lied.
Talk to panic Murray, these advocates have told me many horror stories and say that cyfs frequently lies. In the end, you can believe whatever you want, it makes no different to me.
I’ll get through this and get a great result for my child who I’m fortunate enough to have a wonderful relationship with.
Comment by TP — Mon 2nd June 2014 @ 10:19 am
Yes…
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study at CDC
The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 2nd June 2014 @ 11:23 am
Hi Tp
Don’t listen to Murray. He’s often on here ranting and trying to wind people up.
I see he doesn’t address child youth and family making something up that didn’t actually happen, instead tries to be smug and cite some study that doesn’t have bearing on your actual experience.
Murray has too much time on his hands and needs to use it more productively.
The most telling and shameful thing is Murray, instead of being empathetic with you, which is the most human and humane approaches, tries to chide you and act as if he is possessed of some great and secret wisdom. Its just an ego trip for a sad person with nothing better to do.
Glad to hear that your relationship with your child is good, that’s the most important thing.
Unfortunately there is a lot of trolling here, and Murray is one of the worst culprits.
Comment by Dads fof Justice — Mon 2nd June 2014 @ 1:04 pm
Dear “Dads for Justice”, personal attacks on other contributors are against the rules here at MENZ. You are welcome to disagree with him, but you must support your arguments with facts rather than ad hominem.
If anyone is trolling it is you; I can see that your comment came from the same computer as the one TP used to make the previous comment you are pretending to reply to.
Please mend your ways, or your comments will be moderated in future.
Comment by JohnPotter — Mon 2nd June 2014 @ 1:34 pm
I talk to myself too! When it gets really bad, I am forced to seek help. But the help I get is never what I think I need, do you have that problem too?
Sorry about the sympathy, thought you got too much at work? Funny place to ask for sympathy. Anyway, you are good at giving stimulation to yourself, so I guess it is all taken care of?
Taking the piss out of me about being a troll, so what if I lived under a motorway bridge for a few years? That was years and years ago, at least 4. It just isn’t relevant now, IMO.
I am trying to persuade fathers (and any mothers cut out of their children’s lives) that they are an important and necessary force in their children’s lives, when relationship vandals are trying to cut them out. I am trying to persuade them not to give up, in the face of being lied to that their children don’t need them at all.
I will complain to John about you calling me ad hominem. I know I am a bit neanderthal, but ad hominem is too much.
The Care of Children Act makes both parents joint guardians, in most situations. The CYFS Act also requires that family, including the father, be notified when decisions are to be made. Too many CYFS social workers and familycaught$ judges fail to honour this clause, because in their personal value systems fathers just aren’t necessary or useful (and they make sure that this becomes true for the unfortunate child):
8Parents and others to be informed of decisions
(1)Where any person takes any action, or makes any decision, under this Act that significantly affects any child or young person, that person shall ensure that, wherever practicable, the following persons are informed, as soon as practicable, of that action or decision and of the reasons for it:
(a)every person who is a parent or guardian of, or a person having the care of, the child or young person:
(b)the child or young person.
(2)It is not necessary to inform a child or young person of any action or decision if-
(a)that child or young person is incapable of understanding it; or
(b)it is plainly not in the child’s or young person’s interests to be so informed.
(3)The information required by subsection (1) to be given to any person shall be given-
(a)orally and, where practicable, in writing; and
(b)where practicable, in a manner and in language that the person understands.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 2nd June 2014 @ 6:43 pm
We don’t mind you talking to the voice Murray – just don’t lose the argument!
Comment by Downunder — Mon 2nd June 2014 @ 8:50 pm
… or voices if you’re multi-tasking.
Comment by Downunder — Mon 2nd June 2014 @ 8:51 pm
Go [smile to] yourself John (adjusted by Murray to meet minimum ladylike standards)
Comment by TP — Mon 2nd June 2014 @ 9:01 pm
Oh and you need to actually study the definition of ad hominem, as you’re using it the wrong context.
I criticized both the argument itself and the charter of the person making it and did not conflate the two.
I won’t be back its absurd here, just a bunch of rabid monkeys taking swipes at each other and invalidating the good work that needs to be done.
With all its shortcoming the family court is making more progress than you are with the mens movement, its a real shame.
Comment by TP — Mon 2nd June 2014 @ 9:28 pm
I am hearing lots of voices and some of them are sane, thank Dog. I am losing something, I don’t think it is the argument?
(I apologise for #12 and #13, neglected childhood and charm school, it seems.)
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 2nd June 2014 @ 9:44 pm
Too troo
Here is a worthwhile challenge, can we lift up the teamwork and performance of the men’s movement?
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 3rd June 2014 @ 10:45 am
I guess that Dads fof Justice/TP’s comments show clearly how painful and destructive an emotionally neglected and abused childhood can be. Even decades later, they carry deep scars and their relationship ability is damaged by the emotional bagage that makes up their pathological life. They can’t even get themself down to 1 person.
So, when any of you get an opportunity to help a social worker, please be proactive and help show these people how to live a good life and what happiness is.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 3rd June 2014 @ 2:59 pm
In the CDC document, Nurturing is listed last, despite it having the largest overall social impact. Emotional neglect is when there has been a marked lack of Nurturing, due to lack of caregiver skills, usually related to mental health condition. These cases are often less noticeable that physical abuse, but the damage runs deeper and is far harder to cure. This lack of good nurturing affects far more children, than come to notice for physical abuse, many hundreds of thousands of children in NZ:
Safe, Stable, and Nurturing Relationships/
Environments (SSNRs) are Important for Preventing Child Maltreatment
Young children experience their world through their relationships with parents
and other caregivers. SSNRs between children and their caregivers provide a
buffer against the effects of potential stressors such as CM and are fundamental to
healthy brain development. They also shape the development of children’s physical,
emotional, social, behavioral, and intellectual capacities, which ultimately affect their
health as adults. As a result, promoting SSNRs can have a positive impact on a broad
range of health problems and on the development of skills that will help children
reach their full potential.
Safety, stability, and nurturing are three critical qualities of relationships that make a
difference for children as they grow and develop. They can be defined as follows:
â— Safety: The extent to which a child is free from fear and secure from physical or
psychological harm within their social and physical environment.
â— Stability: The degree of predictability and consistency in a child’s social,
emotional, and physical environment.
â— Nurturing: The extent to which a parent or caregiver is available and able to
sensitively and consistently respond to and meet the needs of their child.
SSNRs are important to promote. There is reason to believe SSNRs can help to:
â— Reduce the occurrence of CM and other adverse childhood experiences
â— Reduce the negative effects of CM and other adverse childhood experiences
â— Influence many physical, cognitive, emotional outcomes throughout a child’s life
â— Reduce health disparities
â— Have a cumulative impact on health
For more information on the importance of SSNRs:
CDC Essentials for Childhood: Steps To Create Safe, Stable and Nurturing Relationships
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 3rd June 2014 @ 3:09 pm
I see there’s a story in the paper about a Southland woman who has been given her baby back just a few months after cutting its throat.
While I freely admit to not knowing the exact details of the case I wonder whether msd/cyfs would have been so generous if the father had done it? Read the story and try to substitute the psychobabble and the descriptions of the obscure syndromes with words like deadbeat horrific manipulative etc I think that would be pretty close.
Comment by Daniel — Wed 4th June 2014 @ 8:32 am
Hi all,
some food for thought:
I wonder if those who have spent a long time involved in the injustice system get unwittingly brainwashed and sucked into speaking their jargon. I believe this is exactly what they want. They win if you play their game.
It is arrogant for anyone to presume you know better how to bring up children. No harm = no foul. No victim = no crime. No evidence = no crime.
Just because a female says it happens is the best reason to disbelieve her as most females are narcissists as they have been brought up in a matriarchal society in the western world ever since chivalry was invented by feminists in the dark ages brainwashing men into thinking woman are deserving of more rights than expendable men.
If all us dads refused to engage the corrupt system it would collapse.
As soon as we get sucked into thinking we know better than the parents how to bring up children, then we are guilty of the sin of arrogance. Successive governments since theLabour Party’s Rogernomics have removed all children’s and parents rights using the ‘we know better’ arrogance of how to bring up children and their ambiguous definitions of ‘domestic violence’ to mean that anything can be domestic violence and all is required is a female to complain about a male and his life is fucked.
The Domestic Violence Act and Care of Children Acts are so ambiguous that they have been designed to allow Judges to only apply them against males in order to disenfranchise us and set women and men against the ‘accused’ men and thus divide and conquer and retain power over us tax and freedom slaves. Those that do not toe the party line get attacked by the system.
Most people are cowards or they do not wish to speak out as they do not want to jeopardise their jobs.
Those you do not speak out against are those who have power over you. If you do not speak out and defend your rights and your children’s rights to 50/50 care then you will soon lose the ability to fight for your rights.
Comment by Phil Watts — Wed 4th June 2014 @ 9:36 am
Reunited: Meeting of mum who cut her baby’s throat
Daniel, stories such as the one you have highlighted are important, but we mustn’t lose sight that lower level harm, to huge numbers of children is doing NZ far more harm.
The story you highlighted is dramatic and unusual. However, small amounts of damage to huge numbers of children, day by day, year by year, end up being far worse overall, than a few dramatic cases.
I take Phil’s point about Acts being ambiguous, but I would argue that in secret caught$, they don’t follow legislation in any serious sense anyway.
So ambiguity isn’t the guts of the problem!
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 4th June 2014 @ 9:55 am
This mother is under constant supervision and is not allowed to be alone with any child.
That seems to me to be appropriately cautious and also child focused on the need for significant adults like mother and father both to be involved with the child.
Although I don’t know this case from what I have gathered there are cultural issues that need consideration for the child as well as protection from the parents poor mental health.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Wed 4th June 2014 @ 12:32 pm
My point is that a man wouldn’t get the same leeway in the same situation. Cyfs to their credit appear to have been reluctant to play the game but were able to be persuaded it seems.
Cultural issues? I believe the father is NZ euro, the mother is Asian, that is no excuse for cutting a baby’s throat – I don’t think that is a tradition in any culture that I am aware of. Men and women could be seen as having different cultures and the benefit of the doubt is all one way where this is concerned.
Comment by Daniel — Wed 4th June 2014 @ 12:45 pm
Murray you are right that secret courts have no incentive to reach sensible decisions. Sunlight is the best disinfectant as they say and would make it hard for family court/IRD reviewers to justify their decisions in many cases. Don’t hold your breath.
Comment by Daniel — Wed 4th June 2014 @ 12:49 pm
Sorry Daniel but I beg to differ. If Father had been primary care giver for a young child while his partner worked and that was what was wished by both them then I think CYFS would have no problems with this. I have several cases I work with where CYFS support fathers in parenting roles even though there has been negative history.
As I said I don’t know any details from this case but certainly I view different cultures as an important consideration for the best care of children to involve both cultures actively.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Wed 4th June 2014 @ 2:24 pm
Daniel, I see your point that mother’s may be treated a bit more softly, but it seems that the mother drew blood, but certainly did not kill or seriously injure the baby.
My point is that looking over all of NZ, the silent injuries suffered by 2 or 300,000 children amount to more serious social damage, than a few dramatic assaults.
Media and familycaught$ dramatise a few drops of blood, but turn a blind and ignorant eye to emotional damage to a large fraction of ALL of NZ’s children. Emotional neglect occurs when babies and toddlers are cared for my mothers and fathers who are depressed or have other impairments to responding appropriately and frequently to their baby’s needs.
The Media use violence to sell newspapers. familycaught$ address extreme violence, because media dramatise it and familycaught$ are protecting themselves, rather than children.
It is easy for me to say children need to be protected from emotional neglect by their caregivers, but as emotional neglect cannot be seen in a photograph of child and caregiver, or even an x-ray photograph, then how can we protect the child? It may be obvious years later, but we want to prevent damage before it occurs, not just criticise (or prosecute) after the damage is done.
The consequences of emotional neglect show up in psychopaths and ASP Disorder people, doing crimes. It shows up as disorganised children walking into school at 5 years, but being unable to learn satisfactorily. These issues cost us many $10 billions each year.
Well trained observers, watching an inadequate caregiver, may detect that the caregiver is emotionally neglecting the baby. The caregiver might be ok while being watched and then later neglect the baby when they are not being watched.
We have a difficult problem, to protect babies and toddlers from emotional neglect!
Research shows the caregiver characteristics that generally lead to serious emotional neglect. They are depression, even at levels well below formal DSM5 or ICD10 diagnosis level and several other mental health conditions.
I am not trying to raise stigma about mental health issues. I am trying to address how we can protect all children’s right to a happy childhood, to be able to take up education given to them and to be able to work as an adult and have good adult relationships. To protect children, we need to understand how parent’s mental health difficulties might impact onto the child? With this understanding, we can choose to offer support to parents, we might remove the child from the parents home, we might persuade two families to live together, to protect the children from the poorer set of parents……
If children are growing up in a household with two (or more) adults, who commit to a long term caring relationship, then the child is much better protected from any mental health issues that the caregiver may have. The baby is able to learn from both parents and the problems of the parents are much less likely to restrict the development of the child.
If parents separate in a way that the children are not seeing both parents daily, then the children are NOW at risk if the main caregiver has poor mental health. In this situation, the separation has greatly increased the risk to the children. This is why it is critically important that parenting plans be within limits set by the mental health of the individual parents. This is why unilateral removal of children should be seen as child endangerment, not as a legal strategy to gain control (but usually at the cost of the children’s welfare).
The familycaught$ doesn’t usually set limits on parenting plans, based on parent’s mental health, as there is just too much paramount financial interest in using the children as bargaining chips.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 4th June 2014 @ 3:41 pm
Seriously Allan Harvey, you are claiming that a few months after a father cut a baby’s throat in an attempt to murder it, CYFS would accept that father again being present in the baby’s house and looking after that baby? No way! CYFS would never go along with it in the case of a male perpetrator but instead would bully the mother if she so much as expressed a wish for that outcome, threatening to remove the baby from her if she allowed the man anywhere near the child. Parents vs CYFS will then drag on in the Family Court for years while CYFS’ rules remain the default. That’s what CYFS do and I have seen numerous examples of exactly that in situations where the man’s previous behaviour was a lot less dangerous, a lot less harmful and/or his violence a lot less certain than this woman’s was. The CYFS office you speak of is mythical and I bet you can’t come up with one example in which it has allowed a man to live with a child a few months after he inflicted serious injuries in an attempt to kill that child.
The issue of whether it’s a good idea to give the child back to this mother is a separate one. It may well be that the standard risk-averse back-protection behaviour by enforcers such as CYFS is not in the best interests of many targeted children. The risks (actually, certain damage) to a child’s development and future through ripping parents away will often outweigh the risk of tragedy should those parents remain.
But compared with any similar male, this woman has been given a pussy pass of unbelievable proportions. Your claim that she will be under constant supervision and not allowed to be alone with the child seems as unrealistic as your portrayal of CYFS as defender of errant fathers’ family role. The article states that the family was permitted to return home together, that is, father, mother and baby. No way in hell will mother be constantly supervised when with the baby. Maybe for a week or so! What does constant supervision mean anyway? Will she and the baby join her husband when he goes to the toilet? Really, this pussy pass was given in the full knowledge that ‘constant supervision’ is a pipe dream in any real household. That’s why any similarly violent father would be lucky to be allowed 90 minute fortnightly meetings with the child at a female-run supervision centre that he has to pay for (where female staff are paid to keep eagle eyes on him, providing supervision that is much closer to ‘constant’ but never totally so) and even that wouldn’t happen for a few years after the attempted murder.
Again, maybe supervision is not that important now that the mother is not currently a violent lunatic. Similarly, a father who seriously injured a child in attempting to murder him/her but whose causal drinking/drugging/gang involvement/depression/insanity has currently been ameliorated should perhaps also be able to live again with the child. But would that happen? When that big winged pig flies past your window.
Comment by Man X Norton — Wed 4th June 2014 @ 10:49 pm
Murray Bacon in #25 wrote:
In your reading of the article you usefully linked you must have missed the part that said
If that’s not serious injury, what is? And the emotional impact for the child from that experience at the hands of its mother will be massive, not to mention the impact of the woman’s ongoing impairment due to depressive and psychotic traits. The child may well develop Borderline Personality Disorder. Yet when it comes to situations in which a man so much as raises his voice towards a woman while their child sleeps in another room, we hear CYFS and feminist propagandists claim that child will be emotionally harmed at some subconscious level by that man’s ‘violence’ so he should be prevented from living with the child.
We have come to expect from our Courts and government departments, when it comes to women’s violence, the kind of excuses and empathy shown by authorities towards this woman. But it’s very strange that even expert male contributors to a men’s movement site would show such minimization when it comes to a woman’s violent behaviour and concerning the state-sponsored pussy pass she has been given.
Comment by Man X Norton — Thu 5th June 2014 @ 8:56 am
Dear Man X Norton, I do take your point. I hadn’t read the article to the end!
However, my point is that if 15% of NZ schoolchildren are having learning difficulties that are very difficult to treat, up from 5% 20 years earlier, then we have a major social problem. These problems flow through to employment outcomes, crime and adult wellbeing….
I suggest that we are giving too much attention to a small number of dramatic cases and failing to address huge numbers of children seriously impacted by lack of satisfactory parenting.
The familycaught$ is focussing on protecting children from a “perceived” threat of death and in so doing, making the problems of several hundred thousand children worse, by denying them access to their fathers.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 5th June 2014 @ 1:52 pm
Yes, I agree with your general thesis, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore such ridiculous favouritism toward violent females compared with males.
Comment by Man X Norton — Thu 5th June 2014 @ 8:07 pm
Dear Man X Norton, public welfare can only be enhanced, by setting a similar standard for all people and by being proportionately sensitive to all hazards, exactly as you say.
I agree with Allan, that CYFs are almost certainly going to work hard to see that that woman is never left alone with a young baby, at any time in the future. Her access would always be supervised. The only exception might be if she manipulated an individual “women are earth-mothers” social worker or other supervisor and was left alone with a baby. This is similar to applying supervised access to a man, for the same reason, where this restriction would be applied for the future, unless the man or woman could show major changes that indicated safety (which would be very hard to prove).
I suggest that the prejudice that you are referring to, is “without evidence” familycaught$ applying supervised access, as part of a criminal legal strategy for power and control of access.
Such “without evidence” POs can be left in place for years and where the father refuses supervised access, the end result is that by acting in a non-proportional manner – the familycaught$ is an agent for widespread serious social harm.
Is this the fault of familycaught$, or the fault of the father, or the fault of the mother?
All I would say, they should be carrying responsibility for their actions in a mature and professional way.
Perhaps the father could claim his decision was based on pride, which is a poor excuse. Or perhaps that familycaught$ devalued him and said he was of no value to the children. He is a fool if he listens to what familycaught$ says, as they are thieves first and manipulators second, neither of which should be listened to by a good parent.
The mother isn’t showing care for children by using perjury and dishonesty. Such an attitude suggests she is poorly placed to care for children away from the father and that this situation should not be allowed to occur. The criminal aspect suggests she needs a period of time in jail, with the children safely cared for somewhere else.
The familycaught$ has no excuse at all and they should be “shouted” at, to protect children.
Either way, it is the children that wear the most harm done by “without evidence” DV POs. Subsequently, the harm is shared with society, costs and damages of crime, hospital costs, educational expenditure wasted, poor employment performance, unsatisfactory adult relationships – it even comes back onto women too.
For any action to proceed Without evidence, implies without wisdom. This approach guarantees a non-proportional response by the familycaught$, to the situation before it. Any judge who would take part in these rituals, is more dangerous than just worthless.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 6th June 2014 @ 9:53 am
Murray (#30): As I previously wrote, the idea that this mother’s proximity to the baby will be constantly monitored when the two live in the family home with the father being the only other occupant, is patently ridiculous.
Aside from that, the case shows the sexist definitions of supervised contact. For men it’s 90 minutes a fortnight being watched closely by women paid for the purpose, while for women it’s having the child live with her at home full time on the promise that someone will be somewhere nearby most of the time.
Comment by Man X Norton — Fri 6th June 2014 @ 10:01 am
Dear Man X Norton, I have only seen one similar case. CYFs offered to the parents that if the mother took a job and the father stayed home with the child, they could continue to care for the baby. The father started to make arrangements, which was quite difficult for him, as he owned his own business. The mother refused to take a job and after several discussions with CYFs not making any progress, CYFs said we will not return the baby to your care. I assume that the baby was placed for adoption, as had occurred with her earlier children. (It is dangerous to generalise from a single case.)
So, in that situation, CYFs were very careful to make sure that the child was not left alone in the mother’s care, at all.
Your accusation includes two parts, the system and how it is implemented.
The system is legislation and social policy eg benefits and pensions. There are some glaring inequalities built into access to benefits, pension much more accessible for women due to differential life expectancy, which partly balances men’s better access to employment in that age range? National’s new parental leave policy seems to build in fresh prejudices for the mother at the possible cost of the father. Child Support legislation is quite unfair against NCPs and is implemented even worse still.
CYFs and familycaught$ are run by people, many of whom run on very negative stereotypes of men. There is some truth in these stereotypes, especially historically, but many of these people build their stereotypes into the way that they work with fresh cases, to make these things come true. (The same argument can be made against many customers entering familycaught$ too.)
One example is CYFs refusing to contact fathers and involve them in decisions being made about children. Then they publicly complain about fathers not being involved!
In essence, these prejudices are culture and familycaught$ and CYFs have a culture that is steeped into their staff, from the day that they start work. Part of this is PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and vicarious traumatisation. They claim to be professionals and deny that their decision making capability is compromised by the emotions evoked by horrible stories that they hear.
It doesn’t matter whether the story was true or not, if the listener believes that it might be true, they are easily traumatised. They know some of the stories are true…. if not which ones…..
By denying their emotional response, they deny themselves the opportunity to try to recover their balance and sanity.
By chance, I spoke with an ex-social worker, who had left the service a few years earlier. She told me how she would maltreat her husband at home. She would snap out of it, but a few weeks later she would realise that she was doing it again. Again, she would snap out. She also noticed that each time, she had got to a worse state before she woke up to what she was doing. By now a few years had gone by. She decided to get out of social work and looked around for alternative work. She then became aware of the prejudices that she and other people working in familycaught$ were showing, both in work performance and how they talked of their home lives.
She couldn’t get anything that paid as well, up front. However, after finding that the effects of work on her home life were persisting, she decided to just get out at whatever pay she could get. She said that she never regretted the change, her family life was worth far more than the money involved.
Culture is a workplace safety issue. Police and Fire Service are now constructively addressing surviving the stresses of their work. CYFs and familycaught$, although too well funded, are still in the we need more money, we are professionals mode and the carnage continues, of customers and their own staff. (Ambulance at the bottom of the cliff?)
We can only protect children, by looking honestly and fairly at the hazards that are risking the proper development of the children. Prejudice in decision making contributes very little to making life better for children or parents and where prejudice displaces competent decision making, it is just destructive.
In familycaught$, prejudice often results in selecting from an artificially restricted list of options. This is destructive.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 6th June 2014 @ 11:07 am
No, not really. CYFS tried to get circumstances in place that would not leave the mother at home alone with the child for long periods during the day. But even then, when she came home from work it’s totally unrealistic that she would never be alone in a room or even in the house with the child. As I wrote earlier, what happens when the man goes to the toilet? What happens when the man answers the telephone or the door, or has to attend to somebody trying to break into his car outside, or in numerous other situations that will provide opportunities for the mother to be alone with the child and to harm it if she pleases. And after looking after the child all day the father is going to be strongly inclined to take opportunities to have a break.
And again, CYFS would never entertain such facades of supervision when it comes to a male accused.
And again again, it may well be that such arrangements are a desirable thing with respect the child’s welfare overall, but that’s not the point.
Comment by Man X Norton — Fri 6th June 2014 @ 11:44 am
Dear Man X Norton, I can’t give much more detail as I only saw things from a distance. The arrangement with CYFs provided for random inspections, to check that the baby was not left alone with the mother. The main protection was the mother being out of the house for most of the day. As far as I could tell, it was working ok, but for the mother’s refusal to get work.
I accept your comment about going to the toilet. However, I am sure that the father would be careful to not go to the toilet, if the mother was around and in any way agitated. This did work ok for a short period of time, but was scuttled by the mother’s refusal to make it work. He knew that he could get help with a phone call, if it was ever needed in an emergency. I don’t think there ever was an emergency problem.
In this instance, I am not able to fault CYFs approach. From what I have heard others say, when a father can get a foot in the door, CYFs may be quite reasonable for fathers? From what I have seen, I think the biggest problem is refusing to inform fathers in the first place, thus effectively freezing them out of their children’s lives.
familycaught$ are rigid and predetermined, rather than evidence based, leading them to do much harm.
I believe that our legislation is mostly ok, it does need very careful looking through and sorting out.
The major problems lie in implementation, by familycaught$ and CYFs staff. Private agendas substitute for skills at gathering correct information and making decisions based on evidence.
If you would like to show me examples, privately, I would be interested to see…. Details are best not discussed publicly.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 6th June 2014 @ 1:37 pm
Dear Man X Norton, I watched the programme on 3rd Degree, about the mother cutting her child’s throat.
Although the subject material was horrific, as you told me, the material was sensitively and well presented. The psychiatrist looked as though he was finding it difficult to maintain his composure and contain his own feelings.
It is really important that the public and fathers in particular, have a realistic understanding of the impact of childhood neglect and abuse on parenting skills.
Being better informed, would allow parents to make safer and more secure decisions about how they wish to allocate their lifetime. If we know our own limits and we also give young parents more support, then these horrific situations might be much less frequent and parents may have happier lives. It is hard to live within our limitations, if we don’t know clearly what they are. Finding them out, when being charged, is far too late.
However, these difficult situations do occur and keep occurring, so we do need to have a workable system for protecting children.
In years gone by, large families gave almost all children significant experience of caring for children, older and younger. This naturally gave most children a fairly full and realistic understanding of the practicalities and needs of babies and children. They could also see where their own feelings and temperament fitted in with the requirements of parenting.
Forewarned is forearmed. This knowledge and experience could be arranged through schools. Taking care of children can have a significant contraceptive effect. In a large minority of cases, it might lead to fathers being at home with children, without a baby’s throat being cut. Fathers need to be prepared for this, or in these cases they need to look for a better qualified wife, if they do want to work fulltime.
I believe that we should strive harder to be proactive in protecting children. In essence this is what CYFs are trying to do, in not allowing dangerous parents to ever care for babies and small children, who cannot protect themselves. At present, CYFs only proactively address violently dangerous, they are not addressing protecting children from parents who fail to respond sufficiently and appropriately emotionally to their babies. They do the small task fairly well and completely ignore the huge and most important task?
Yesterday TVNZ 7# had viewers comments about CYFs and they were not kind. These related to a programme the night before about poor liaison about problems with foster children. Foster parents complained that CYFs claimed to not know what types of abuse the children had suffered.
It sounded to me that this was an evil manipulative technique, to get foster parents to take seriously damaged children. But it backfired terribly on the foster children, when foster parents gave up when they realised the extent of the problems that they faced. They also commented that in the end, they had to put the safety of their own children, visitors and the wife too, before caring for the foster child.
I was surprised (horrified) how casual CYFs were in responding to questions from TVNZ 7# about their performance in responding to requests for help. How can they manage their own performance, if they try to sweep issues under the carpet? Much more media enquiry is needed, to protect children.
I am suggesting that attempting to retrospectively protect children is doomed to painful and expensive failure. This failure makes leaky buildings look like a small issue.
Effective protection of children needs to be proactive.
CYFs presented themselves as only being fit for ground meat in burgers, due to managerial irrelevance.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 11th June 2014 @ 1:19 pm
Fathers play such an important role. Let’s not keep mum about dads by Yvonne Roberts
‘My father had a profound influence on me,” Spike Milligan used to say. “He was a lunatic.” Fatherhood has spent a long time anchored in the dark ages, refusing to budge no matter how many tributes from doting daughters or portraits of the Beckham brood entwined with dad are published.
Many fathers want to spend more time with their children, but can’t for economic reasons. Fairer pay for women would help.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 11th June 2014 @ 10:06 pm
Dear Downunder, the assumption of the mother as the primary attachment figure has rarely been checked.
(This comment has been copied in from the Post: Make verbal abuse of kids ‘an offence’.)
Women’s groups, including familycaught$, have pushed the accountant’s rule, that attachment must be proportional to the number of hours spent with the children, as this assumption will advantage them!
Accountant – knows the price of everything and the value of nuffink.
On the basis that most children were cared for by a mother and the rest were abnormal in some way (victims of disease, horse and car accidents, crime or desertion), the remainder of children were not considered seriously by researchers. The latter group were seen more as pollutants of research on healthy families, so by ignoring them in early research, you would be more likely to gather worthwhile results.
Attachment research has moved on from the early days, it is now 70 years old. However, many researchers have not thrown off the shackles of early assumptions. I don’t believe that John Bowlby ever intended his early work to bed these assumptions in so heavily.
A NZ psychologist Glen L. Harding wrote a Master’s thesis Infant Attachment to the Father in 1974 on relative strength of mother and father attachment, at 12 months.
– – – – – – – – –
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Curiously, that thesis hasn’t been referenced in any other psychology papers, as far as I can detect.
In my opinion, a large number of fathers seriously underestimate the value to the children, of the relationship with them.
In part, this may be out of respect for the mother’s role, in perhaps providing most of the hours of care.
In part, society doesn’t sufficiently respect the value of caring for children. I can only support complaints made about this by women.
More critically, the familycaught$ dangerously undermines fathers, in their value to the children. This serious derangement on their part corrupts not just the decisions that they make, but also has a negative impact onto the quality of decisions made by both mothers and fathers whom they uneducate.
Father’s lack of awareness of their critical role in the upbringing of children, unwittingly leads many of them to tolerate situations where the children are being seriously disadvantaged, by the time restrictions placed by jealous, hazardously under skilled mothers.
The important issue is that sensible, constructive, safe decisions can only be made using an accurate and fair assessment of the value of all of a child’s relationships.
In my opinion, we should respect the children’s relationship with the other parent, respect its difference from the relationship with ourself – to do anything else is just relationship vandalism – it adds nothing but heartbreak to the world.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 11th June 2014 @ 10:48 pm
Plight of Emotionally Neglected Children in NZ
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 12th June 2014 @ 11:52 am
@Murray – attachment is a huge subject.
Yes, I agree men don’t always recognise the significance of attachment and their value, but they are often facing conflicting circumstances that a mother is not.
A mother who has little or no attachment to a child may be spending much more time with a child but a father who is spending much less time can be facing multi conflicts and pressures to resist that bond because they cannot cope with or simply cannot facilitate adding that to their environment.
I think sometimes there is an element of self preservation in there.
I also think there are times when a child fails to bond with either parent and then there is a question as to whether they will ever bond with an adult, (perhaps sometimes a grandparent or an uncle/auntie, perhaps a number of people of a superficial basis)
Then it gets complicated further as children grow up by influences that cause them to reject a parent. Sibling rivalry that is not dealt with by one parent but is not allowed in the presence of the other parent causes conflicting environments.
Currently:
1. there are too many feminist myths floating around
2. fathers face too much negative interference in child relationships
3. they face negative social stigma
4. they are often conflicted in what they can offer
But there is no doubt they have an important and viable place in attachment theory – it just doen’t fit the feminist social model.
Comment by Downunder — Thu 12th June 2014 @ 5:03 pm
#39 Downunder – spot on. Add to your list, if the mother is having difficulty handling the children, but has only poor work prospects, then that adds to the pressures against the father providing more care for the children.
The most important point that I am trying to make, is that division of marriage work into pure outside work and pure housework is ok for the children, if the mother is of at least average skills caring for children.
If the mother is depressed or or had a difficult childhood herself, then she is likely to need a lot of support, especially after giving birth.
If such support isn’t made available, or if it is offered and rejected, then there is a large risk of marital breakup, when that is the most hazardous thing that could happen for the children. Presently, at this point, the person who could help the children has lost all control of the situation!
Recipe for disaster for the children.
Attachment isn’t the end all and be all of issues about caring for children. If all attachment relationships are broken without warning, then this can make huge problems for very young children. They aren’t very young for long!
Attachment has been blown out of all proportion, by people who present it as meaning that 3 year old children shouldn’t spend overnights with fathers, or 4 years old, or 5 years old. Maybe the problem is the mother’s, not the children – funny coincidence that overnights seem to be such an important issue for child support payment calculations? What is really going on?
Children need role models, people who can illustrate and talk about the world of work, wider family and give solid discipline – should it be needed. For children older than 2 years, these other issues should be the more important factors for almost all children.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 12th June 2014 @ 7:59 pm
Our culture values male pleasure more than female pleasure.
The point is we need to establish culture that works well for men and boys, not just moan about what other people are saying.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 13th June 2014 @ 9:24 pm
Mum, not dad, more likely to neglect kids JESSICA STRUTT The West Australian
The news media are starting to pick up on the statistics that have been published through the last 20 or 30 years.
Blame doesn’t solve problems, just knowing our limits and staying within these limits, by obtaining sufficient support.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sun 15th June 2014 @ 2:59 pm
Protecting Children from Neglect and Violence
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sun 15th June 2014 @ 3:03 pm
Responsibility – Although Merepeka Raukawa-Tait (in NZ Herald) doesn’t actually use the word “responsibility”, her article does discuss responsibility for properly bringing up and developing children.
Merepeka Raukawa-Tait: Train parents to understand their job
At present, the DPB solo parent’s benefit is available as of right, even when the sole parent lacks the motivation or skills to be able to safely parent a child.
If children are our most precious resource, then we would only allow parents with the necessary skills to care for children?
As babies are the most vulnerable and cannot write letters of complaint to CYFs, we must only allow competent parents to care for them alone.
Women are not competent caregivers by right of birth, (as poor beleaguered familycaught$ assumes).
Parenting skills start to develop from birth, when the caregiver responds to the baby’s communications, smiles, laughs. Neglect to respond appropriately, then fails to develop the skills to read bodylanguage, which is pretty fundamental to good parenting.
It is no fault of a father or mother, if they were neglected by their parents at birth. They probably don’t even know, apart from their difficulties to develop secure adult relationships.. Why blame them?
The point is to make sure that they are not left out of their depth, thus letting their children suffer.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 17th June 2014 @ 8:54 pm
OXFAM suggests NZ needs to address tax avoidance, so that families on low wages are not overtaxed
Kiwi kids: How we can save them: Lucy Lawless interview: Patrick Kelly’s dream is that he’ll wake up
……..
SOCIAL DISINTEGRATION
LL: So the issue is money?
PK: Money is only part of the issue. It’s also about social disintegration. For example, our own evidence at Starship would suggest that the rate of shaken baby syndrome in Pacific islanders is no higher than the general population in the first year of life, whereas it is in Maori. And I have wondered if that is because many urban Pacific Island babies are still much more in the bosom of their extended family.
LL: There’s always someone to pass the baby off to?
PK: Well, exactly. If you’ve got 13 people living in the house, six of whom are female and many of whom have extensive experience with childcare, then you’ve got an insurance policy for when you lose it in the middle of the night. Whereas if you are a young Maori urban mother, cut off from your tribal roots and family, who’s flatting somewhere with a whole bunch of unrelated people who are abusing drugs and alcohol, and you lose it in the night, you don’t have much of a support network.
But it’s important to note that the same stresses and factors can be seen in every ethnic group, and it’s not just the people we usually perceive as “at risk”. Being an upper-middle-class Pakeha with a tertiary degree doesn’t prepare you for parenthood or ensure that you won’t lose your temper with a crying baby in the middle of the night.
……………………….
LL: In fact you deal with kids much younger than 13, don’t you?
PK: Our work is roughly 50/50 split between various forms of sexual assault, which nowadays tend to be largely in teenagers, and physical abuse and neglect, which tends to be largely in much younger kids. The seriously abused kids are the ones who end up in Starship. For them the mortality rate is quite high, 10 to 20 per cent. The children most likely to die are the ones who come in with head injuries from being shaken or slammed, or abdominal injuries from being stomped or punched.
LL: Are the impulses behind that similar to a shaken baby situation – the frustration with a child being … well, a child?
PK: The factors are complex. In that situation, the person who injured the child typically doesn’t volunteer exactly what they did or why, but when that information comes out it’s often about a child who was crying or a toddler who was demanding – just doing what babies or toddlers normally do – with an adult who for some reason cannot cope or doesn’t want to.
Sometimes it’s where the adult, particularly the male, doesn’t have any biological relationship to the kid, so this is a child whose behaviour he has no particular motivation to tolerate. But not infrequently it’s the child’s own parents … In a lot of cases it’s fairly ordinary people who just crack under the pressure. They shake that baby, often with the intention, not of hurting them, but of shutting them up.
LL: And even one shake can do it?
PK: If it’s violent enough, one shake can do it. Violent to and fro movements cause subdural bleeding. The immediate outcome is that the baby is concussed, so she might stop crying, which is exactly what the caregiver was wanting. But they may not realise the only reason is that they’ve essentially knocked her out. Even if it never happens again, that child could still have some long-term neurological problems as a consequence of that event
…………………
Dr Kelly suggests it’s been 20 years of missed opportunities. He says a commitment to research the interventions that worked (and didn’t) in 1994 might have meant a lot fewer referrals in 2014.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
mcb comment: Dr. Kelly is dead right, however NZ has a very poor record of failing to perform literature searches and even when they have been performed, then failing to heed the research anyway. The major blockage, is refusal to listen to research, refusal to listen – full stop.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 18th June 2014 @ 10:29 am
For all of the blaming of poverty, I suggest that parental mental health and parenting skills should be the exact targets. (Certainly poverty is part of the equation, but not the main factor.)
Kiwi kids worse off than those living in India’s slums – author NZ Herald
‘Tick for Kids’ to tackle child poverty NZ Herald
[If a father cannot have a good working relationship with his children, then his children cannot benefit from the relationship. More importantly, they cannot be protected by his good mental health, if the relationship is blocked. If the father is denied a working relationship, then his level of skill cannot protect his children. Such relationship vandalism is only ever carried out by parents with poor parenting skills, thus you can be confident that their children will suffer by the lack of relationship with the other parent.]
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 18th June 2014 @ 10:41 am
Setting The Agenda for Child Protection?
The Glenn Inquiry promised to focus on abuse of children, but the focus was diverted to women victims of violence.
Feminists use shame as a powerful distractor and manipulate the agenda away from protecting children.
Most men are easily shamed by:
All Men Are Rapists
All Men are Murderers
When men are ashamed, they try to defend themselves. Many listeners hear the hurt and the defensiveness and just assume that the defensiveness shows that they are guilty! Often it is more important to leave a baseless accusation alone and put the focus onto the important issue, as you see it.
Camille Paglia suggested that men are the most creative minority group the world has ever known.
Sure, men do the most violence in our society. So what?
Is the violence carried out by a few men, good reason to deny many children time with their own fathers?
(Before answering this question, consider the effects discussed above, on children of being in solo mother, married parents, solo father and parent/stepparent households.)
Women
do the most failure to respond appropriately to babies
do the most emotional neglect of children
almost certainly do the most sexual abuse of children.
The three drivers listed above are not satisfactorily discussed in our society, as excuses are made for women’s performances.
Back to the undermining of focus onto the most important issues, should women be ashamed too?
Looking through the Wikipedia article on child development
The names of the developers of major theories about child development are:
Urie Bronfenbrenner
Jean Piaget
Lev Vygotsky
John Bowlby
Erik Erikson
John B. Watson
Sigmund Freud
Counting the women and the men, leaves it quite clear that women might pop out many children, but they are not so observant and sensitive, as to be able to establish even one major development in this important field. Thus, we need to be careful about leaving children in the care of women, for more than a few hours at a time.
However, as the scale of the social consequences of poor parenting is changing from huge but able to have a blind eye turned, to huge and unable to be hidden, we are being forced to face that women are not always loving little earth mothers, at all.
Government forecasts of Departmental expenditure showed Corrections ie prisons as becoming the most expensive department in the future. This is clearly totally unsustainable and these problems must now be faced.
The Glenn Inquiry promised to focus on abuse and violence of children and adults. It promised to break the intergenerational cycle of abuse.
The report delivered has focused on violence to women and empowering women, by removing parental accountability to the fathers of their children, using without-evidence POs.
But is this a solution?
Both NZ and international statistics (NIS-4 USA) show clearly that children in solo mother households are more likely to be violent as adults and to be career criminals. Statistics show that children from repartnered households are intermediate between solo mother parented households and married parents of the child households. Children in solo father households are close to married households, in the risks of antisocial outcomes for the children. Anti-social parents are much more likely to develop anti-social children.
The recommendations from the Family Violence Death Review Committee/Glenn Inquiry would reduce accountability of mothers to fathers and will put more children into solo mother type households, increasing these hazards.
The statistics show that proper parental involvement by the father, greatly reduces risks for children (ie answers the intergenerational cycle) and also reduces the costs and risks imposed onto wider society. Mothers may not want to be held accountable to fathers or to society, but it is only through proper accountability, that children can receive the best from both of their parents. As a society, we have tried for a long time to be soft on solo mothers and we are now paying a huge social and financial cost, for suspending this accountability. In the end, we should not leave children in the care of parents who lack the skills and motivation to parent well. In all professions, incompetents cannot see this themselves. Standards must be set and judged by people who do have these skills. It is society’s duty to make sure that children are not left in the care of parents who lack the basic skills.
Although NZ legislation protects father’s right to be involved in the decisions about the development of their children, these are given scant respect by CYFs, Police or Family Court. The result is two hundred thousand children, left largely in the sole care of mothers or incompetent parent couples and hugely at risk of child neglect. Not just risk of neglect, but actual neglect on a huge scale, in particular emotional neglect. This is high risk for developing low empathy, poor impulse control, violent children, both girls and boys. This shows up in the poor performance of a large segment of school entrants, who are needing intensive remedial reading and social skills programmes, often individually.
As a society, we would benefit from following existing legislation and actually protecting children’s right to a good relationship with fathers and all of their wider family, this is an important part of healthy development. This may not work well for the very few, where extreme violence occurs, but will greatly improve outcomes for the vast majority. It is the wider, lower level problems that holds our society back, fills our prisons and hospitals.
Good quality parenting also gives the best path to break the intergenerational cycle of abuse and violence. Good parenting does require proper accountability both ways between parents and honest good faith negotiation between parents. Good parenting involves giving children the best development that both parents can provide and where mothers lack a skill, letting fathers care more for their children.
Many fathers need to put in more time with their children, to save them from mothers lacking some parenting skills.
All of our children need the parenting of both parents, to develop well and be happy citizens. More often than we care to admit, fathers should be putting in much more time with children, to protect their own children from the limitations in the mother’s skills.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Obtaining Protection Orders, by perjury, to exclude the father, is the most dangerous path we could possibly follow.
Christine Bristol’s loss of her children to murder suicide by their father, is consistent with her making a perjured rape allegation, leading to a murderous over-reaction by her husband, due to him perceiving that the courts would be likely to react disproportionately and seeing no hope for himself as a parent. The wrong, unnecessary and cruel outcome is there for all to see. We need to learn from our experiences and act more responsibly for our children.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Presently, many fathers are restricted in their development of parenting skills, by wrongly being denied time with their children.
If men are concerned about the quality of upbringing that their children are receiving, then don’t be baited by feminists into discussing male violence and a few deaths per year.
Set your own agenda – by what you see as important. If you want to focus onto the quality of your children’s upbringing, then discuss this in public and why it is important. Demand accountability.
The organisations that protect poor parents from accountability, must be swept away into the rubbish and be replaced by organisations that properly demand competent accountability by both parents, for their performance.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 1st July 2014 @ 11:29 am
Back to the notion that whenever possible, children take the best from both parents:
Jamie Ford teaches mental toughness to some of the country’s top athletes, business people and broadcasters. A former Salvation Army officer, he has faced enormous personal trauma but believes how we think determines how we feel and act
1. Where did you learn about mental toughness? I was working as a social worker in alcohol and drug rehabilitation for the Salvation Army and Presbyterian Services and came across work by (American psychologist) Albert Ellis. He made the connection early on between how we think and our emotions and our actions. That was long before scientific research but cognitive psychology now clearly demonstrates he was right.
…….
4. How do you cope with that now? Now I’m more easily able to identify what I can control and what I couldn’t control. I do what I can and don’t upset myself about what I couldn’t do. ……..
5. What was your childhood like? I thought I was having a fantastic childhood and I suppose most of us do. You don’t have anything to compare it with. Now I would say there was quite a lot of unhappiness and not a lot of emotional nurture. I was 15 when my father died very suddenly at the age of 49. My mum’s concept was that, “It’s better not to talk about it!” We didn’t talk about Dad, how we missed him and his great sense of humour, how much we loved him, how vital he was to us kids as the source of emotional nurture in our home. So we were alone in our great sadness and grief over his absence from every aspect of our lives. I clearly remember one of my sisters getting up from the dinner table and going to her room in tears when something occurred during dinner that reminded her of Dad, but we didn’t talk about it.
……..
7. Can you teach mental toughness to children? Children are actually very good at understanding that problems or adversity is temporary – they get hurt, ask an adult to kiss it better and they’re off again. But learning to compartmentalise their problems so it doesn’t spill over into all of life is harder. Practical examples help. Use a mandarin and get the child to refer to it as “everything that is going wrong”. Then get them to peel it, take out one segment and label that with the name of the one thing that’s gone wrong. Pull out the other segments and label them with things that are going okay. Segment by segment we can show them that even if one part of life is a bit off the rails at the moment, most things are fine.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Please do not take mother versus father or male versus female directly out of this single example. The children took the best from their mother and the best from their father, while they had access to him. The father’s death obviously cut off the children’s access.
I hope this well illustrates why children’s access to both parents should be maintained through separation, certainly not relationship vandalised to promote mafioso wealth plunder out of the family.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 11th July 2014 @ 10:09 am
A baby needs to be given a large amount of relevant stimulation almost every day. The odd day of no stimulation will not kill, but will do material damage. Just because a baby doesn’t show bruises or broken bones, doesn’t prove that it is being given appropriate stimulation, to properly develop its brain.
These Bulgaria or Ukraine or Romanian examples don’t prove that NZ is safe for babies. Many NZ babies and children are growing up in homes which better meet adult needs, a few calories and a lot of alcohol, but don’t meet the children’s needs to develop as capable citizens. Parental depression, substance addictions or other mental health issues are huge hazards for babies, who cannot protect themselves from parents who look lazy and are not taking good care of their children. We must act long before the children are jailed for violence!
Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children (Full length)
Liquor store attack: Teens identified
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 11th July 2014 @ 10:19 am
If fathers wish to have a better chance to defend their children’s relationship with them, they do need to be able to speak knowledgeably, quickly and eloquently about child development. Then, there is a small chance that they might be listened to in familycaught$.
Maybe a big investment of time, for a rather small chance of being heard?
How much do you value the quality of your children’s upbringing?
If you fail to try, then you may be giving away a lot of quality in your children’s upbringing, just because you were not prepared to face up to the legal worker’s paramount financial interest, by speaking for your children’s proper needs.
My hero Evgeny Orlov successfully cross examined a s133 psychologist and led her to admit that her recommendation for refusing shared care was based on her “professional opinion” only and had no scientific basis in her own systematic observations or her reading of peer reviewed published research. To do this does require a moderate knowledge about child development.
This does take some time, so the only answer is – Be Prepared.
This knowledge should not be too difficult for fathers to acquire, as all of the developers of current child development theory were men. Not a single woman has ever developed a major theory about child development, that has survived rigorous challenge.
One free example of child development training:
The Clinical Psychology of Children and Young People
by Professor Matthias Schwannauer, Dr Stella Chan, Dr Emily Taylor, D Clin Psych, Dr Joanne Williams
University of Edinburgh
course provided through Coursera
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 19th August 2014 @ 11:52 am
It just happens that present discussion in the Clinical Psychology of Children and Young People course is about the relative roles of caregivers for children:
So, fathers – don’t give in too easily.
When needed, fight sensibly to protect your children from mothers and familycaught$.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 20th August 2014 @ 10:04 am
Misery in Motherhood ie postnatal depression article from Scientific American
A deep despair mars the first year of motherhood for as many as one in five women. Without treatment, postpartum depression can weaken critical bonds between a mother and her child.
[Fathers show depression almost as often as women, so both sexes of parents may need help, often both. Too often we give help if it is asked for. Thus we end up failing to help many parents who do need assistance with depression and the like. Proactive support for young, inexperienced parents is a very sensible investment into giving children good quality upbringing. And it is a great benefit for the parents themselves. mcb]
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 27th November 2014 @ 7:53 am
Family Guy from Scientific American
Move over, ‘mommy brain.’ Men go through their own biological changes after a baby is born. But dads are programmed to challenge their kids, not coddle them By Emily Anthes
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 27th November 2014 @ 8:29 am
Dear rc, the nanny is cruel to the toddler, but not quite injurious.
The nanny does attend to the child, even if nowhere near as well as she should.
The jumping fairly gently on the girl’s torso probably came fairly close to breaking ribs, but not quite. Very high risk, but not actual death, this time.
So what? Ten days later, the bruising has probably healed. Maybe 6 months later, the emotional scars are largely gone, depending on what else has happened through that same period of time”¦..
But, for about 1000 babies each year in NZ, the caregiver is failing to respond appropriately to the child’s needs, especially in terms of emotional responding. The caregiver may be distracted, bored, depressed, seeking drugs more than caring, psychotic due to abuse and PTSD”¦..
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sun 30th November 2014 @ 1:08 pm
Emotional health in childhood ‘is the key to future happiness’
LSE study says money, success and good grades are less important
by Jamie Doward
Lord Richard Layard, who is emeritus professor of economics at the LSE.Photograph: Linda Nylind/Observer
Mick Jagger famously couldn’t get it, but now economists think they know what’s required to get some satisfaction.
After investigating the factors in a person’s life that can best predict whether they will lead satisfied lives, a team headed by one of the UK’s foremost “happiness” experts, Professor Richard Layard, has come up with an answer that may prove controversial.
Layard and his colleagues at the Wellbeing research programme at theLondon School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performanceconclude that a child’s emotional health is far more important to their satisfaction levels as an adult than other factors, such as if they achieve academic success when young, or wealth when older. The authors explain that evaluating the quality of a child’s emotional health is based on analysing a range of internal factors in a person’s early life, including whether they endured unhappiness, sleeplessness, eating disorders, bedwetting, fearfulness or tiredness.
The academics claim that their study, What Predicts a Successful Life? A Life-course Model of Well-being, published in the latest edition of theEconomic Journal, offers “a completely new perspective on which factors contribute most to a satisfying life”. The study claims to challenge “the basic assumption of educational policy in recent years – that academic achievement matters more than anything else”. This claim appears to be an implicit criticism of former education secretary Michael Gove, who instructed schools not to focus on “peripheral” issues such as children’s moral, social and cultural development in favour of academic excellence. Gove’s successor, Nicky Morgan, has pledged to reverse this approach.
Layard and his team analysed data from about 9,000 people who were born over a three-week period in 1970 and then tracked by the British Cohort Survey, a study that asks them to complete an extensive questionnaire about their lives every five to seven years. They were also asked to rate their satisfaction at key periods through their lives. The team then examined factors including their income, educational achievement, employment, whether they had been in trouble with the law, whether they were single, as well as their physical and emotional health – to gauge how significant these were in determining satisfaction. In addition, a range of factors that affect a child’s development – for example, intellectual performance, family socio-economic background and emotional health were also examined.
Many people have assumed income is the most important factor in an adult’s life satisfaction. But the academics say their data makes clear this is far less important than emotional health – both in a child and in an adult. “Income only explains about 1% of the variation in life satisfaction among people in the UK – one sixth of the fraction explained by emotional health,” they note. Or, to put it another way, money really cannot buy you happiness.
The findings are controversial. As one of Layard’s colleagues, Andew E Clark, notes in an accompanying paper, the suggestion that “education and income are among the least important determinants of adult success, as measured by life satisfaction “¦ risks provoking outrage among some.”
But the economics of happiness or wellbeing is now a growing and respected discipline within economics that is starting to influence politicians.
David Cameron has stated: “It’s time we admitted that there’s more to life than money and it’s time we focused not just on GDP but on GWB – general well-being.”
The findings raise questions about the extent to which intervening in a child’s life will pay dividends later on.
“Child interventions can produce massive savings to public finances but these are often at a much later date,” the authors note. They conclude: “By far the most important predictor of adult life-satisfaction is emotional health, both in childhood and subsequently. We find that the intellectual performance of a child is the least important childhood predictor of life-satisfaction as an adult.”
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 4th December 2014 @ 8:57 pm
The Consequence of Father Removal
Filed under: General – Ministry of Men’s Affairs @ 2:49 pm
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 13th December 2014 @ 7:25 pm
Protecting Our Children From Abuse and Neglect by American Psychological Association:
Caring Adults: What A Child Needs Most
Children depend on many adults as they grow up. Parents, relatives, teachers and child care workers all provide children with love, support and guidance.
No one wants to see children grow up with fear, anger or neglect. But no one is born knowing how to care for children. Sometimes we make mistakes that hurt them.
Whether you are a parent, a teacher, a relative or a caregiver, you can make a difference and help the children you love grow up in a caring, loving environment. Adults don’t have to be perfect, just willing to listen, learn, grow and change.
. . . . . . .
What Is Child Abuse?
This is an example of physical child abuse.
Teresa had just changed 18-month-old Dale’s dirty diaper when he had another messy diaper; this made Teresa angry. She thought that putting him in hot water would punish him for the dirty diaper. When she put him in the tub, he cried loudly. Teresa slapped him to stop the crying and didn’t notice the scald marks until after the bath was over.
Examples of Physical Child Abuse
Shaking or shoving Slapping or hitting Beating with a belt, shoe or other object Burning a child with matches or cigarettes Scalding a child with water that is too hot
. . . . . . . . .
Examples of Child Neglect
Not meeting a child’s need for food, clothing, shelter or safety
Leaving a child unwatched Leaving a child in an unsafe place
Not seeking necessary medical attention for a child
Not having a child attend school
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
The APA document extracted above, focusses mainly on toddlers and older.
It mentions: Not meeting a child’s need for food, clothing, shelter or safety.
But it fails to mention the very foundation of civilised humans – the need for emotional responding to a baby, from day 0 to day 500 and onwards.
Without 1 or 2 responsive parents, the child’s development needs are not being met and many areas in the brain fail to develop fully. The result is a child, that even with huge remedial inputs after reaching school age, will never obtain full human intimate responses, will never develop full executive function and will only obtain very limited enjoyment of life.
At present there is no way to diagnose from the baby that it is not being properly developed, until the damage is severe and extremely difficult to resolve.
The only way to protect children, is by making sure that their caregivers are competent at responding, ie have the skills and are not distracted by financial deprivation, or seeking addictive drugs, or unable to respond due to depression.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 13th December 2014 @ 7:43 pm
The Invisible Scar
raising awareness of emotional child abuse, its effects on adult survivors & the power of words on children
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
There is a lot of good and useful material on this website, from many contributors. MCB.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 24th December 2014 @ 5:46 am
Liz Mullinar discusses the problem, but not how hard it may be to resolve.
(Much safer and better for children, to not traumatise them in the first place!)
TEDxNewy 2011 – Liz Mullinar – Treating the core problem of childhood trauma.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 13th February 2015 @ 2:04 pm
Treating trauma and in particular childhood trauma, is difficult and expensive.
When economists take an interest in a social problem, it is huge enough to have a serious cost onto whole societies.
Although NZ is generally a peaceful country, surprisingly we still have major social problems which track back to untreated childhood trauma.
Although treatment is important, it is far better to not traumatise children in the first place.
The two most important requirements to protect children from trauma, are better parenting skills and also not allowing seriously damaged parents to have sole care of children. (It could be said that the familycaught$ and DPB damage to families are the largest causes of this problem..)
Healing Trauma, Healing Humanity: Rolf Carriere at TEDxGroningen
Background info on Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing from Wikipedia.
CBT is also usually required, to resolve trauma.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 13th February 2015 @ 2:58 pm
Robbyn Peters Bennett discusses traumatisation of children by family violence.
Violence — a family tradition | Robbyn Peters Bennett | TEDxBellingham
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 13th February 2015 @ 4:57 pm
Suicidal out-of-home Adolescents who applied for the Independent Youth Benefit by Narelle Dawson 2005
The Independent Youth Benefit is available to children between 16 and 18 who are not supported by their parents, due to their parents refusing to support them, unemployed and also available to children who lay false allegations of Domestic Violence against their own parents.
Different children have different needs [obviously!].
However, Narelle Dawson has pointed out, to a large degree, unsupported children have needs for much more social support, than your typical NZ child. Generally they are not getting the degree of care that they individually need, to stay alive.
In essence, CYFs is regularly failing under the standards that they set for other parents!
More to the point, is to protect children from becoming neglected and having unusually high needs to support.
Protect ALL children from neglect.
Protect ALL children from parents and carers, who cannot respond appropriately to the child’s needs.
I suspect that the link above may not remain active for long. However, with knowing the full title, it should still be easy to find on the internet.
The full title is:
A Profile and Longitudinal Evaluation of Multiple Risk
Factors, Protective Factors, and Outcomes for Suicidal and
non-Suicidal out-of-home Adolescents who applied for the
Independent Youth Benefit (IYB)
By
NARELLE DAWSON
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 26th May 2015 @ 11:39 am
familycaught$ aren’t the only child damaging relationship vandals!
‘I can’t talk to my wife and son’: Ex-Brethren man reveals shock ‘separation rule’
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 26th May 2015 @ 5:44 pm
Arbitrary restrictions on children’s choices for their own development, surely is child abuse?
Look at the reasons that the Exclusive Brethren leaders give, for their restrictions…..
No uni for Exclusive Brethren kids
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 26th May 2015 @ 5:46 pm
Much discussion above is in the negative. For a more positive and important consideration of infant rearing see:
Natural Parenting â€- Back to Basics in Infant Care
I know that evolutionary analysis brings up uncomfortable images of our descent from apes.
Doesn’t worry me much, as there are so many aspects about my life that make these links obvious and unavoidable…. Anyway, lets learn from our ape teachers.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 19th June 2015 @ 10:34 am
If young men were more skilled to identify potential mates with poor parenting skills or motivation, much marital blitz and child neglect could be saved. The linked article shows women’s ability to hide the truth about their parenting skills (or lack thereof). Be warned:
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Strategic Reactions to Infants: Female Self-Presentation in a Romantic Context
by Dina Dosmukhambetova, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK. Email: [email protected]
(Corresponding author).
Antony S. R. Manstead, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
Abstract:
Research has demonstrated that humans engage in various self-presentational
behaviours in the context of mate attraction. We build and expand on these efforts by showing that
female facial behaviour also responds to the manipulation of romantic motivation in ways
congruent with the logic of evolutionary theory. Given that childbearing is an important goal of
human courtship, we hypothesized that during the initial stages of romantic encounters one way that
women can advertize their quality is through their emotional reactions to children. Two studies
were conducted to determine whether women would self-present in the context of romance by
augmenting positive reactions (e.g., smiling more) or by attenuating negative reactions (e.g.,
frowning less). In both studies participants were undergraduate psychology students. Study 1 was
an online study; it examined reported facial expressions towards and cognitive evaluations of
infants. Study 2 was a laboratory study in which participants’ spontaneous facial behavior was
videotaped while they watched a video of infants (vs. a neutral film). In both studies we found
support only for the hypothesis that, when in a romantic context, women attenuate negative
reactions. Such attenuation was found for facial expressions, but not for cognitive or affective
evaluations of infants.
Keywords: emotion, facial expressions, FACS, mate attraction, nonverbal behaviour,
strategic communication
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Introduction
Successful reproduction is one of the most important goals of the existence of any
living organism, and humans are no exception to this (Symons, 1979). Evolutionary theory
holds that humans will selectively assort themselves with members of the opposite sex who
possess traits that have been associated with successful reproduction over our evolutionary
history (sexual selection; Darwin, 1859). Directly or indirectly, these traits have been
selected for because of their beneficial influence on the likelihood that offspring would
survive and reproduce themselves. For example, according to this logic, female youth is
valued (Feingold, 1990) because young women are able to bear more children (Buss,
2007). Because infants are the focus of human reproductive efforts, it seems reasonable to
expect that, in the context of the initiation of certain types of romantic relationships, one of
the ways humans will advertize their quality is through their emotional reactions to infants.
The focus of the current research is whether or not women advertize their quality in such a
way within the context of romance.
In humans, the young are not initially able to lead independent lives, so they rely on
parental care for food and protection. This dependency puts a selective pressure on parents
to be affectionate enough to provide for their offspring (MacDonald, 1992), which in turn
provides a fertile ground for self-presentation, such that persons are likely to be motivated
to strategically modify their emotional reactions to children in the presence of potential
partners. Normal parenting, of course, involves expressions of both positive and negative
emotions, so it is important to note that we are not arguing that persons who express
negative feelings towards children necessarily are or will be bad parents, or that persons
who express positive feelings towards children necessarily are or will be good parents.
What we propose is that in the context of long-term romance, where one’s stance towards
children is relevant, concerned parties will be motivated to make a statement about their
typical reaction to children by modifying their emotional reactions towards them.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 26th June 2015 @ 6:01 pm
Depending on Dad is a Father & Child study of fathers with children eight and under where there is little or no mother involvement conducted in 2009 and published in 2011.
The Research Case for Involving Young Men in Young Parents Services
Harald Breiding-Buss, Jonathan Young
September 2007
Depending on Dad is a very constructive report.
Reading it, I was left with a strong feeling that many people in social services in NZ just perceive all men as seriously privileged and all supports should be given only to women. This is easy to say and may give women a warm fuzzy feeling, but it does ignore the realities of life in NZ, for a substantial number of children. Many children are not being given a fair degree of support, on the basis that they are being mainly cared for by their father.
Support should be given on the individual basis of need, not on the basis of national statistics (which are too often not-honestly presented anyway!). In a similar manner, DV cases should be heard on the basis of the facts of the case, not on the basis of national statistics (again often dishonestly presented too). Proportionality in justice, means getting the judicial response in proportion to the facts of the case being judged and nothing else.
When a child is cared for equally by both parents, with both on WINZ benefits, child [and spousal] support is deducted from the father’s benefit and paid to the mother. This is to show that fathers are “meant” to provide financial support. Does this mean to the point of wringing a small number of dollars from their benefit and adding that to the mother’s benefit.
So the father is in essence paid a lesser benefit and the mother a higher benefit, on the assumption that she will be paying the important part of the child’s expenses and the father spends his benefit on alcohol or the like. Assumptions don’t serve optimum child development.
This leaves the father looking less financially competent in front of the children, irrespective of the facts of the situation.
With a small amount of thought, most of us can identify many examples where the father may have been the more effective parent, for any number of reasons.
Why should he be financially disadvantaged and penalised, to make an often incorrect and always irrelevant point?
This example illustrates the type of thinking on which NZ benefits and familycaught$ operate, which is far away from serving children’s best interests.
As a country we need to throw away those old prejudiced and dull mentalities and focus on properly protecting children’s and vulnerable parent’s interests.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 31st August 2015 @ 8:53 pm
Child abuse and neglect – the emotional effects: the impact on children and adolescents:
information for parents, carers and anyone who works with young people.
From the Royal College of Psychiatrists
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 31st August 2015 @ 8:54 pm
Murray (#67): Are you sure that when both parents are on am equivalent WINZ benefit and caring equally for children that the father has so-called ‘child support’ deducted and given to the mother? I thought the formula was simply based on incomes and in equal shared care each parent paid each other the set percentage for that number of children, so if both earn the same they both end up with the same.
Comment by Man X Norton — Mon 31st August 2015 @ 9:14 pm
Dear Man X Norton, thank you for correcting me.
My information was old and I had not checked on the recent changes. I can only applaud a more equal treatment of parents!
I am interested to know if it actually works equally in practice? I seem to remember in 1984, All pigs are equal, but some pigs are MORE equal.
Under the old system, 50% equal wasn’t equal enough for a father to benefit from equality, according to IRD Child [and spousal] support staff, as they assumed the mother was carrying the majority of the child’s expenses!
Many people who were not affected by the old unequal treatment considered it quite fair that fathers should pay child support and mothers receive it. Probably those unaffected were on good salaries and the difference in benefit between the two parents seemed nominal to them. It wasn’t nominal, when you have very little over after paying essential expenses.
I certainly remember many fathers who were affected being extremely annoyed by the inequality and the effects it had on their ability to parent and give the children experiences.
Thanks again,
MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 31st August 2015 @ 11:37 pm
Sharing understanding of the impacts of mental illness. Depression Quest
Depression is only one aspect of emotional neglect.
However, the game illustrates that the old “just snap out of it” attitude is easy for a well person to say, but surprisingly difficult to access, if you are suffering from moderate or severe depression.
Emotional neglect also generally includes elements of:
difficulty reading other people’s body language (this makes social interactions much less successful)
difficulty regulating own emotions
difficulty in foreseeing other people’s responses to own actions(…social interactions much less successful)
In any case, Depression Quest will hopefully spread wider understanding of the lived reality of depression (and emotional neglect). This should lead to better social supports and less stigma of mental illness.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 1st September 2015 @ 2:04 pm
Depersonalization disorder from http://www.minddisorders.com.
The article is fairly long. It is perhaps easier to speed read, if you use your browser search, for emotional. This will highlight this word in the article and help you to read the sections most relevant to emotional abuse and neglect.
The most useful extracts:
Best of all, lets protect children from being harmed in the first place.
Panel beat your cars happily and protect your children from harm in the first place.
(Do I need to say it, it is better to write off cars and not children? Some say that there is less paperwork after writing off a car, than a child. Really, it is that writing off cars is more fun.)
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 3rd September 2015 @ 10:04 am
This whole thread aims to show fathers that they are important for their children’s healthy development.
I know that this isn’t the impression given by familycaught$ judges to fathers, but then what useful information do they have about anything?
Please note that I am not suggesting either parent is more important, just that children’s upbringing is safest and most secure when they have working relationships with both parents.
At some times, one parent might be “more important”, at other times the other. More important isn’t the issue, it is giving children the best and the safest upbringing.
The Effect of Father Involvement in Childcare on the Psychological Well-being of Adolescents
Cross-Cultural Study by Taisuke Kume from New Male Studies Journal
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 14th September 2015 @ 1:31 pm
Attachment, from Dr. Lisa Firestone PsychAlive:
This whole thread is about attachment of children to their parents.
This is particularly important through separation, as this will reduce the time that children spend with at least one of their parents.
Although the familycaught$ seems to assume that children will be most attached to the parent that they have spent the most time with (if this is the mother!), in practice they tend to be a little more attached to the parent who best meets their developmental needs.
If that parent happened to be the father and they are then restricted in their access with the father, these children’s development may be damaged. It is important that fathers are aware of these issues and able to confidently argue in familycaught$, if they want to be able to protect their children from familycaught$ caused damage.
Dr. Firestone’s website gives links to YouTube videos on these topics.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 29th October 2015 @ 7:32 pm
Murray
This thread on its own shows your dedication.
To me your good work humbles me.
Downunder and others too.
When we finally meet.
I will not only want to shake your hand.
You deserve a hug.
Comment by DJ Ward — Fri 30th October 2015 @ 7:50 am
….. in practice the children tend to be a little more attached to the parent who best meets their developmental needs.
…so there is an odds on chance that this is the father!!!!!!!!
Funny how the familycaught$ can’t observe this!
So, don’t take the familycaught$ asset stripping process too seriously, or you might do yourself some mischief.
Remember – you want to protect your children, from the familycaught$.
Strippers R fun!
Just watch them carefully and know where your wallet is.
Trust sex workers way more than legal workers.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 30th October 2015 @ 7:22 pm
#75 DJ Ward, thanks for your positive comments.
The important issue, is to persuade young fathers to learn about child development and welfare, so that they can be better placed to protect their children and family finances from familycaught$ and perhaps inadequate mothers.
Cheers,
MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 31st October 2015 @ 7:35 pm
This is sound advise Murray but in reality the inadequate mothers are supported, rewarded and not held accountable.
Parenting order breaches are encouraged, because nothing happens to them they know to do it again.
Flag it, leave the children, its what they want based on actions.
Perhaps the insidious plan extends;
Is the Court Process a cash cow for lawyers, psycologists who would have little work otherwise? Yes.
When the children turn into wayward teenagers, more work for the lawyers, psycologists etc.
When they end up on the wrong side of the law, police, lawyers, courts all get to perpetuate their existence 10,15,20 years on.
So off the wall decisions of the court to favour the inadequate parent bodes well for the financial future of all and at what cost, just a kid and a father.
The long term rewards are too good to overlook so they overlook inadequate behaviour from the mother for the greater good of themselves – future prof and assured of revenue.
Comment by paul smith — Sat 31st October 2015 @ 11:21 pm
Dear Paul, you have said it all clearly.
…….It looks like a comedy, if you aren’t worried for the welfare of the real people involved. Just a fishing game, of pulling in the suckers, letting out the line and pulling them in again”¦ Milking them while the money is coming out and then dropping them like hot cakes when the money and borrowing capacity has run completely out.
If you have some integrity and feeling for the welfare of vulnerable people, then the familycaught$ is a tragedy of relationship vandalism, of proportions so huge, that most people can’t see it. The wasted money is a small issue, compared to the unnecessary social damage.
Remember that if dealing with familycaught$ isn’t fun, you aren’t doing it right. Maybe you hadn’t protected yourself properly, before dealing with them?
Just business as usual”¦.
The thieves and relationship vandals of familycaught$ might justify to themselves that they are only doing what somebody has to do. Some germans tried that excuse at Nuremberg, but most were hanged by the victors. Funny that USA refuses to join International Criminal Court, as it won’t guarantee that the international process won’t be used against them! That is exactly the point of why it is a good idea.
These legal worker ooze greed and contempt for legal process out of every pore of their body. It ain’t pretty. In my opinion they should be hung slowly and eventually tried afterward?
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sun 1st November 2015 @ 12:55 pm
Interesting article on Equal Shared-Care
The article mentions the much poorer economics of solo parents, compared to together parents.
The elephant in the room is mental health, as solo parents are often solo due to inability to create and sustain efficient adult intimate relationships. (‘Oh, I am putting my children ahead of my own relationships’, may be a cover for inability with respect for adult relationships, especially intimate.) This lack of adult relating is often accompanied by weakness in ability to relate to children. This does impact onto parenting skills, so that such parents often should not be left in sole care of young children, for long periods (to the mind of a young child) eg over 1 1/2 days. This consideration is a strong child protective argument in favour of shared parenting, if the parents refuse to live together.
Although we should avoid stigmatising solo parents, the economic and parenting inefficiencies do remain in effect and do need to be rationally addressed, as suggested in the article.
Certainly, a good place to start would be much increased funding for mental health treatment and social supports.
Another aspect is due consideration, in the setting of social policies, to avoid use of fertility as an enforced meal ticket. This is difficult to achieve, as it is rather easy to use children as manipulation pawns.
The catch cry of the children’s interests must be used, after carefully disentangling it from the mother’s and father’s interests”¦.
Another elephant in the room, is that a more balanced policy along the lines suggested would almost certainly balance incentives, so that women’s initiation of divorce would be more at the level of men’s, ie a marked reduction in the total divorce rate.
This would greatly improve children’s outcomes, due to being much more able to benefit from frequent contact with both parents and the better economic efficiencies of being in a two parent family.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 7th November 2015 @ 9:26 pm
Dr. Allan Schore on Attachment Trauma and Effects of Neglect and Abuse on Brain Development
the PsychAlive website has a lot of interesting material about self, therapy and child development: http://www.psychalive.org/
Dr. Allan Shore’s video playlist
_____________________________________________________________________________
The PsychAlive website has a lot of material around child development.
The PsychAlive authors cover the territory very well.
__________________________________________________________________________________
NZ (along with every other country in the world) has serious problems with the quality of parenting. It isn’t just a matter of blaming the least skilled 1 or 2 % of parents, more than 50% of parents leave something to be desired. So what?
The most skilled parents don’t put themselves into highly critical parenting situations, such as parenting alone. They willingly share their children with the other parent, they demand that the other parent spend time with the children, as they want to give their children the best opportunities. They share work, to make sure that the other parent has time to spend with the children.
They don’t want to put this responsibility just onto the other parent, they also cultivate the children’s relationships with wider family and friends too. (Quite the opposite to what some sole parents do???) There is a rather trite saying “it takes a village to raise a child”. Much wisdom is enclosed in it.
Who wants to use the sole parenting situation and their own children’s upbringing, to prove how good parents they are?
Good parents don’t so much talk about their parenting skills, they just get on and do the best for their children. This doesn’t include setting up and enforcing sole parenting situations, at their children’s cost.
Do our familycaught$ judges understand these issues, in a useful way?
Be knowledgeable and try to protect your children’s interest, despite such people.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 12th November 2015 @ 8:23 am
Children Benefit When Parents Have Safe, Stable, Nurturing Relationships from CDC USA.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 12th November 2015 @ 10:25 am
Maybe there is a lot of bitching about judges or women without hearts, but:
My Husband’s Other Wife – She died, so I could find the man I love.
By Emily Yoffe.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Please keep your eyes open to all of the possibilities ahead. Don’t be swayed by dull prejudice, like a judge, but keep hope and optimism sensibly (ie well informed about the world) in your heart.
In the meantime, there are 29 positions available in the Men’s Centre Suicide Bomber Squadrons. Please apply soon! There are special rewards (virgins), for plutonium reprocessors.
MurrayBacon – axe murderer.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 12th November 2015 @ 5:57 pm
Parenting together, or separated, takes good negotiating. So, who to listen to, but the masters of negotiation?
The Clayman Institute for Gender Research Stanford University – Negotiation
Even if the words “good faith” are not mentioned specifically, her lecture is based on good faith negotiation. Curiously, the Family Court Rules are set up to foster and require good faith negotiation. Somewhere in the system, there is a devil that corrupts these rules, at a huge developmental cost to children and the quality of good parents lives. Lets put steel stakes through these devils.
It is also worth looking at “Lean In” too.
There are a lot of important points here, that many men sometimes forget. Over all of society, it is a two way street. We need to take good care of both sides.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sun 29th November 2015 @ 8:22 am
Intelligence and metabolism by Ray Peat
Ray Peat’s article illustrates and explains the impacts of quality of childhood on the quality of the person’s whole life. (In essence, it shows why it is so important that all of the factors which conspire to degrade the quality of children’s upbringing be destroyed, such as neglectful parents and familycaught$)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Appropriate stimulation is an essential part of the developmental process. Inappropriate stimulation is a stress that deforms the process of growth. Mediators of stress, such as serotonin, can cause persistent distortions of physiology and behavior.
Education can either activate or suppress mental energy. If it is mainly obedience training, it suppresses energy. If it creates social dislocations, it disturbs mental and emotional energy.
Stress early in life can impair learning, cause aggressive or compulsive behavior, learned helplessness, shyness, alcoholism, and other problems.
Serotonin activates the glucocorticoid system, which can produce brain atrophy. Antiserotonin agents protect against brain atrophy and many other effects of stress. The brain-protecting neurosteroids, including pregnenolone and progesterone, which are increased by some kinds of stimulation, are decreased by isolation stress, and in their absence, serotonin and the glucocorticoids are relatively unopposed.
Since excess serotonin can cause thrombosis and vasospasms, and the excess cortisol resulting from hyperserotonemia can weaken blood vessels and the immune system, a person’s longevity is likely to be shortened if something doesn’t intervene to alter the patterns induced by stress early in life.
================================
Baroness Blatch: ‘My Lords, the levels of achievement are well above the national average of our own state schools.’
‘This is a school which attained 75 per cent A to C passes in 1998, and 63.9 per cent in 1999. Those figures are well above national averages. There is no truancy; and there is the highest possible level of parental satisfaction with the school. When those parents are paying their money and know what they are paying for, who are we to take a different view about the philosophy of education in a private school?’
Comment during debate in House of Lords, June 30, 1999, on Chief Inspector of Schools Woodhead’s threat to close Summerhill, a democratic school which had been started in 1921.
In 1927, the government inspectors had recommended that ‘all educationalists’ should come to Summerhill to see its ‘invaluable’ research, which demonstrated that students’ development is better when they regulate themselves and are not required to attend lessons.
================================
Having written about animal intelligence, and the ways in which it is similar to human intelligence, now I want those ideas to serve as a context for thinking about human intelligence without many of the usual preconceptions.
Intelligence is an interface between physiology and the environment, so it’s necessary to think about each aspect in relation to the other. Things, both biochemical and social, that enhance intelligence enhance life itself, and vice versa.
Psychologists have tried to give their own definitions to words like idiot, imbecile, moron, and genius, but they have just been refining the cliché s of the culture, in which ‘dummy’ is one of the first words that kids in the U.S. learn. Many psychologists have tried to create ‘culture-free’ tests of intelligence, making it clear that they believe in something like innate animal intelligence, though they usually call it ‘genetic’ intelligence. Other psychometrists have transcended not only biology but even rationality, and have catalogued the preferences of people that they define as intelligent, and designed ‘I.Q. tests’ based on the selection of things that were preferred by ‘intelligent people.’ This behavior is remarkably similar to the ‘psychometry’ of the general culture, in which ‘smart’ people are those who do things the ‘right’ way.
About thirty years ago, someone found that the speed with which the iris contracts in response to a flash of light corresponds very closely to the I.Q. measured by a psychologist using a standard intelligence test. The devices used to measure reaction time in drivers’ education courses also give a good indication of a person’s intelligence, but so does measuring their heart rate, or taking their temperature. Colleges would probably be embarrassed to admit students on the basis of their temperature (though they commonly award scholarships on the basis of the ability to throw a ball). Colleges, to the extent that they are serious about the business of education, are interested in the student’s ability to master the culture.
The way a person has learned during childhood can shape that person’s manner of grasping the culture. To simply accelerate the learning of a standard curriculum will increase that person’s ‘I.Q.’ on a conventional test, but the important issue is whether it is really intelligent to learn and to value the things taught in those curricula. Some educators say that their purpose is to socialize and indoctrinate the students into their discipline, others believe their purpose is to help their students to develop their minds. Both of these approaches may operate within the idea that ‘the culture’ is something like a museum, and that students should become curators of the collection, or of some part of it. If we see the culture metaphorically as a mixture of madhouse, prison, factory, and theater, the idea of ‘developing the student’s mind’ will suggest very different methods and different attitudes toward ‘the curriculum’
Even sophisticated people can fall into stereotyped thinking when they write about issues of intelligence. For example, no one considers it a sign of genius when a slum kid is fluent in both Spanish and English, but when some of history’s brightest people are discussed, the fact that they learned classical Greek at an early age is always mentioned. No one mentions whether they were competent in idiomatic Spanish.
One of the old cultural stereotypes is that child prodigies always ‘burn out,’ as if they were consuming a fixed amount of mental energy at an accelerated rate. (This idea of burn-out is isomorphic with the other cultural stereotypes relating aging to the ‘rate of living,’ for example that people with slow heart beats will live longer.) Some of the men who have been considered as the world’s brightest have, in fact, gone through a crisis of depression, and Terman’s long-term study of bright people found that ‘maladjustment’ did increase with I.Q., especially among women. But the facts don’t support the concept of ‘burn-out’ at all. I think the facts reveal instead a deep flaw in our ideas of education and professional knowledge.
In a world run by corporation executives, university presidents (‘football is central to the university’s mission’), congressmen, bankers, oilmen, and agency bureaucrats, people with the intelligence of an ant (a warm ant) might seem outlandishly intelligent. This is because the benighted self-interest of the self-appointed ruling class recognizes that objective reality is always a threat to their interests. If people, for example, realized that estrogen therapy and serotonin-active drugs and x-rays and nuclear power and atomic bomb tests were beneficial only to those whose wealth and power derive from them, the whole system would lose stability. Feigned stupidity becomes real stupidity.
But apart from ideologically institutionalized stupidity, there are real variations in the ability to learn, to remember and to apply knowledge, and to solve problems. These variations are generally metabolic differences, and so will change according to circumstances that affect metabolism. Everyday social experiences affect metabolism, stimulating and supporting some kinds of brain activity, suppressing and punishing others. All of the activities in the child’s environment are educational, in one way or another.
Some of the famous prodigies of history illustrate the importance of ideology in the development of intellect. Family ideology, passing on the philosophical orientations of parents and their friends, shapes the way the children are educated.
…………………………………….
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 1st December 2015 @ 6:42 am
There is much discussion that poverty impacts negatively on the quality of children’s development.
Sure, there is an obvious correlation, but correlation alone does not prove causation!
I suggest that parent’s mental health often causes poor development of children, just as it often causes poverty in the household. When one or both parents (together or separate) are suffering from untreated mental health problems, money coming into the household is often poorly utilised, due to erratic planning of spending. Thus pouring in huge amounts of funds is likely to do fairly little to improve the standard of living of the household or improve the children’s developmental opportunities. The only concrete way to lift up the family, is to provide appropriate mental health treatment and ongoing support. Of course, this should be a human right, but in practice our society is poor at providing appropriate mental health support for parents. Removing social stigma would help to allow parents to access the services that are available.
We should be looking to remove the evil forces that damage children’s relationships with family, such as untrained and poorly trained CYFs social workers and familycaught$ legal workers.
Even having said the above, poverty is still an important issue and must be actively addressed.
TED The quest to end poverty Playlist (12 talks)
Big improvements are within our grasp, if we can throw off the leaches, who benefit from the status quo.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 8th January 2016 @ 7:31 pm
Enduring neurobiological effects of childhood abuse and neglect
May be summarised as:
It is kinder and better to take care of children, than to allow them to be damaged and then try to sort it out afterwards. Repairing damage done to children, is only marginally possible. Waiting for children to show severe problems and then giving extra help or removing from parents, is acting far too late, that is the problems are close to unrepairable. How can we treat children like that?
Annual Research Review: Enduring neurobiological effects of childhood abuse and neglect
Martin H. Teicher1,2 and Jacqueline A. Samson1,2
1
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; 2
Developmental Biopsychiatry Research Program,
McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA
Background:
Childhood maltreatment is the most important preventable cause of psychopathology accounting for about 45% of the population attributable risk for childhood onset psychiatric disorders. A key breakthrough has been the discovery that maltreatment alters trajectories of brain development.
Methods:
This review aims to synthesize neuroimaging findings in children who experienced caregiver neglect as well as from studies in children, adolescents and adults who experienced physical, sexual and emotional abuse. In doing so, we provide preliminary answers to questions regarding the importance of type and timing of exposure, gender differences, reversibility and the relationship between brain changes and psychopathology. We also discuss whether these changes represent adaptive modifications or stress-induced damage. Results: Parental verbal abuse, witnessing domestic violence and sexual abuse appear to specifically target brain regions (auditory, visual and somatosensory cortex) and pathways that process and convey the aversive experience. Maltreatment is associated with reliable morphological alterations in
anterior cingulate, dorsal lateral prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex, corpus callosum and adult hippocampus, and
with enhanced amygdala response to emotional faces and diminished striatal response to anticipated rewards.
Evidence is emerging that these regions and interconnecting pathways have sensitive exposure periods when they are
most vulnerable.
Conclusions:
Early deprivation and later abuse may have opposite effects on amygdala volume. Structural and functional abnormalities initially attributed to psychiatric illness may be a more direct consequence of abuse. Childhood maltreatment exerts a prepotent influence on brain development and has been an unrecognized confound in almost all psychiatric neuroimaging studies. These brain changes may be best understood as adaptive responses to facilitate survival and reproduction in the face of adversity. Their relationship to psychopathology is complex as they are discernible in both susceptible and resilient individuals with maltreatment histories.
Mechanisms fostering resilience will need to be a primary focus of future studies. K
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 9th April 2016 @ 10:30 am
Yes Murray, but similar stress-related abnormalities will probably be caused by ripping children away from their parents, aside from the psychological effects. Also, as the article acknowledges, this neuroimaging stuff is difficult to interpret with respect to actual effects on the personality etc.
Comment by Man X Norton — Sat 9th April 2016 @ 1:48 pm
I agree.
Although I do support removing children from parents, I think that every time it happens should be seen as a major state failure, to advise parents before they marry, before they choose to have children and a state failure to support them with the children.
Therefore, these supports should be judged as successful, when the number of child removals is very small eg 10 per year rather than 2000 per year! To achieve that would take a lot more support and also helping wider families to help their family members too.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sun 10th April 2016 @ 3:44 pm
The psychology of a failing jail: Jail as an abusive and sexually abusive foster ‘family’ for ‘children’ with multiple trauma – Implications for rehabilitation
by Elizabeth Morgan
Dr. Morgan’s thesis tackles a harsh subject, society’s responsibility for protecting children from child abuse and the failure at that responsibility leading on to recidivist prisoners doing much harm to selves and society. Her Master’s thesis looked at perpetrators of child killings in NZ.
Abstract:
This thesis considers the failure of the Washington, DC jail to rehabilitate its criminals. The data come from a diary kept during 25-months of participant jail observation.
The theory is based on a synthesis of the following concepts:
1. the power differential between different social groups;
2. order, energy/mass, time and space, which are the basic concepts of physics;
3. the similarities between physical and psychological trauma;
4. the principles common to the care of all trauma and
5. the Death Spiral, a process in which severely injured people cannot behave safely and must, over time, either injure themselves and/or other people.
The theory proposes that adult criminal behaviour is to a very great extent the expression of severe, neglected childhood psychological traumas, most of them arising from severe abuse. The theory further proposes that the DC jail’s failure to rehabilitate criminals arises from its failure to provide a safe environment. This violates the first principle of trauma care.
The theory is tested by comparing it to the data about the legal system, the jail administration, the employees and the inmates.
The data show that the administration of the jail behaves like a well-intentioned but neglectful, abusive and sexually abusive head of an abusive foster family. The inmates are the jail family’s foster ‘children’. The jail fails to rehabilitate them because it recreates the very conditions that originally caused their unsafe behaviour.
The data also show that many inmates are massively injured and thereby trapped in a Death Spiral. But hurting others, or oneself, remains a matter of personal choice and social permission. Inmates who survive by endangering and exploiting others had no motivation to change because the criminal system rewards them in many different ways.
The thesis suggests that a safe environment and fairness are fundamental to all criminal rehabilitation and could be offered to every inmate as follows:
1) by outside supervision of the jail to ensure non-abusive jail ‘family’ function;
2) by providing special units for severely injured self-destructive criminals who have a strong motivation to change;
3) by providing criminals who endanger, harm and exploit others only with a safe environment, good modelling by jail employees and self-help opportunities;
4) by offering substantial support to employees who face many of the same problems that criminals face.
In my opinion, Dr. Elizabeth Morgan is following in the tradition of Lawrence W. Sherman, the USA criminologist, who wrote a series of papers What Works……
The most famous example:
Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn’t, What’s Promising
Within severe funding restrictions, I believe that the NZ jail system is performing well and creative in applying new rehabilitative ideas for inmates.
In any case – it is still better to care satisfactorily for children and ensure that they are not harmed in the first place.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 13th April 2016 @ 9:21 pm
The name Elizabeth Morgan rang some scary bells for me.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Thu 14th April 2016 @ 7:29 am
It is fairly ironic that Dr Morgan writes her thesis on trauma and she has a daughter who has significant trauma arguably as a result of her own actions (and inactions). This was an extremely high profile international abduction case 30 years ago. Unfortunately, while I don’t disagree with Dr Morgan’s analysis and findings about prison the reason why she had the opportunity to gain the data she used raises significant doubts about her objectivity in everything she does.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Morgan_Act
Comment by Allan Harvey — Thu 14th April 2016 @ 7:40 am
Yes – it occurred to me afterwards too. I am getting a NZ lady mixed up with a handful of a USA lady. And the dates too, she seemed to have done her doctorate before her masters???!!!!
When I read the following paragraph, I thought this doesn’t seem like the NZ lady. Also her being a surgeon, where the NZ lady was lawyer and police prosecutor!
So, thanks Allan, I strongly support what you say.
I am curious that she was allowed to include the the paragraph that I quoted above into her PhD thesis! without any disclaimer by Canterbury University at all?????? Maybe that was what triggered the earthquake a few years later?
Another question is why she was never charged with child abduction? (The USA is quite a lot more inclined to charge women abductors than NZ, Australia, Japan, France, Germany, UK etc. Money and/or social position may have protected her.)
Nonetheless, I also support the essence of her observations and thesis. The wrongs and wrongs of her personal story don’t detract from the value of her trauma thesis to society, as long as all due care is taken. Curious and curiouser……
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 14th April 2016 @ 9:11 am
Thanks for that Allan. According to the article the daughter stopped seeing her father at age 5 and she had been fighting against going to her father for some time by then. At that age a child is unlikely to form an enduring opinion about one parent unless there was serious injurious violence or severe neglect for which there would have been clear evidence. Sexual exploitation in the absence of painful injury tends to be accepted by young children whose abhorrence of it only develops in older childhood with their comprehension of sexuality and social norms. The allegations against this girl’s father seem highly suspect and of course were not supported when scrutinized in Courts.
The fact that when the daughter next saw her father at age 18 in a Courtroom she screamed and demanded his removal from the room so she wouldn’t need to endure the trauma of seeing him, is strong evidence of parental alienation over much of her life. It’s most unlikely that such an emotional response would be based on real experiences before the age of 5 unless those experiences involved serious pain and injury, for which there would have been clear evidence.
Comment by Man X Norton — Thu 14th April 2016 @ 9:14 am
At present news media are excited about the attempted child kidnapping case in Beirut. It’s worth a few observations.
Many fathers have experienced ex-partners’ abduction of their children to unknown and/or faraway places. We can all have empathy for Ms Faulkner and some may support her actions in trying to kidnap her children and take them back to Australia. Certainly, news media especially Australian ones have shown a lot of empathy for her. For example, this Australian article refers to a ‘heartbreaking choice’ allegedly offered to Ms Faulkner that she settle for access rights to her children in order to reduce or remove the charges against her. Well, it would be interesting to know how often Australian media refer to the standard arrangement for fathers of a minor level of ‘access’ with their children as breaking those fathers’ hearts.
What’s missing in most coverage is any background or context for this case. The limited information available is that Ms Faulkner married Mr Elamin in Australia where the children were born. The family then moved to live in Mr Elamin’s home country Lebanon. Then Ms Faulkner took the children back to Australia allegedly after an explosion in Beirut not far from their home. There is no clear account of this but it appears that she took the children to Australia without their father’s agreement and this brought about their marital separation. He then visited his children in Australia periodically and in the last of those visits in May 2015, with the agreement of Ms Faulkner, he took them back to Lebanon for a holiday to see their paternal extended family. Once in Lebanon he informed Ms Faulkner that he wouldn’t be returning them.
So in fact, Ms Faulkner had deprived the children of their family unit, abducted the children to Australia and left their father with no choice except to move back to Australia or to visit them there when he could. He probably knew it would be pointless for a male to appeal to a western feminist saturated family court for some rights as a father concerning where the children lived, but we don’t actually know whether he tried. What does seem clear is that he carefully worked to create an opportunity to do what she had done to him. When he did, she found this unacceptable and did not visit them internationally as he had. Instead, she obtained a custody order in Australian Family Court, a strange gesture because any such order would carry no weight in Lebanon. When fathers have their children abducted to other countries they are obliged either to live with it, move there or to mount proceedings in the foreign Court concerned.
It appears now that the Lebanese Court is steering Ms Faulkner towards accepting an access arrangement. That Court’s respect for the father’s right to choose where the children primarily live is anathema to western feminist saturated societies, but really is no different from the sexist position taken by western jurisdictions in the opposite gender direction. One assumes Ms Faulkner still has the option of applying to the Lebanese Court to change the parenting arrangements, as so many fathers have to do.
Of course, the extensive coverage of this case stands in contrast to the lack of attention media pay to the much more frequent cases in which men have their children abducted and their hearts broken, as indeed happened to Mr Elamin. And in covering this case news media consistently fail to mention that fathers are much more often subjected to child abductions than are mothers.
Comment by Man X Norton — Thu 14th April 2016 @ 10:20 am
I don’t know a lot about this case as it was before my time in the parenting dramas arena of the Family Court. Like us all we never imagined such conflict, such hurt, such injustice could exist until we have personal experience.
Dr Morgan clearly believes her ex husband (an eminent oral surgeon) had committed serious abuse on his daughter. Dr Morgan was protective, and the courts found her overly protective. Protection of children is important and I can empathise with her situation but she really took it to the extreme. I almost makes Kay Skelton seem moderate.
I have dealt with a similar delusion by a mother and her extended family. They were also very protective of their daughter who with help from me and others maintained contact with Dad under supervision for many years. They have been flying solo for many years now and have a positive loving active relationship. Mum has accepted she may have been wrong but deep down she still worries and that fear she works with and hides from her daughter because she loves her more than she hates her father.
Getting balance is important.
Yes Dr Morgan did get a good education in the US jail and yes it was great Canterbury University helped her make some useful sense from the experience.
Comment by allan harvey — Thu 14th April 2016 @ 12:16 pm
IN the threads above there is reference to parental alienation. For a number of years i have been like a dog sitting at the table waiting for crumbs from the children in terms of their company, and having them in my lives, They are 20 and 17. My 17 year old is away at university attempting to gain entry to medical school. I still pay child support. I wrote her an email last week saying in a non judgmental way, that she possible needed to get the party/work balance under control, after viewing a number of her activities on social media. I got a “Dear pathetic man” response, followed by a posting on social media that xxxxx(my name) is a c…t, and can f…k off and leave me the hell alone. I have decided after many years of prostituting myself to the children that i can’t make them like me. I always considered my role was that of a loving father, and not their mate.I never thought i would, but i’m walking away from them for quite some time. I can’t take the hits and keep on getting up. I know i am not the first or last to have posted such stuff, but oftentimes these things do not have the happy ending we are told about-“they’ll come back to you, they will grow up”etc etc. Sometimes they are so head f….d by their mother that there is no coming back.
Comment by shafted — Thu 14th April 2016 @ 1:40 pm
“Overprotective” [if there is such a thing] can be more dangerous than just protective.
I am always extremely suspicious of any parent (male or female irrespective) who wishes to dominate their children’s lives and takes positive value from damaging or destroying the children’s relationship with the other parent.
There would be a worthwhile job here for a real Family Court, if such a thing could ever be made to exist?
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 14th April 2016 @ 3:56 pm
Allan @ 96: One can only assume that Dr Morgan, and other alienating parents, had protectiveness as their primary motivation. It may well be true and often appears that way. The mind’s workings are complex and people will often be acting out their subconscious violence and manufacturing consciously acceptable reasons for their behaviour.
People at the time of the religious witch hunts did the same, seeing evidence that their neighbours were carrying out witchery but having this view motivated by fear/anger over some past issue.
The disparagement and disrespect routinely shown towards the male gender appears to be generating frequent delusional protectiveness. Strangely enough, prior to the feminist revolution of about the 1970s men were probably more abusive on average than they are today, yet there was more trust in men then and the modern, almost ubiquitous demon-fear of men wasn’t common. Are the individuals who develop demon-fear delusions under the new social reality at all responsible?
Unfortunately, the social reality to some extent shapes things and many men who otherwise would not have become violent and antisocial will now behave in accordance with the characteristics feminist society labels them with.
Comment by Man X Norton — Thu 14th April 2016 @ 9:25 pm
Dear Man X Norton, you are giving the benefit of the doubt. Generally nice, but when considering deliberate alienation of children, I think an unbiassed, sharp and appropriately critical eye is needed.
In my opinion, it is the familycaught’$ uncritical support of many mothers playing those games, that encourages and supports a lot of alienation. Unfortunately, often there is a little truth in these parent’s criticism of the other parent. But a little truth is not in most cases justification for allowing, supporting and setting into concrete child alienation.
In such cases, parenting training for both parents and individual supports would be better for all concerned, than milking the dispute for all it is worth. The familycaught$ lack the skills to see the parent’s capabilities and weaknesses and to act constructively and appropriately, in a way to improve the situation. There is a strong conflict of interest between milking and properly serving.
Although the Kay Skelton case was presented to the public as an unusual and rare aberration, it was the extreme end of a far too common situation. Too common because it wasn’t appropriately discouraged by familycaught$, supported even.
Change of custody is a powerful deterrent for most parents, but used far too little. Don’t like the idea of custody of children, but when working in familycaught$ that seems to be the mindset.
It is up to parents to protect their children from familycaught$.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 15th April 2016 @ 9:29 am
Murray Bacon
I can concur with some of your statements, however just finished in the family October 2015 court whereby a vindictive mother applied for a P.O. without notice and it proceeded and no evidence to mitigate was provided by her. I was in Australia on contract work and good money, and had to return to ensure I didn’t lose contact with my son, I have 50/50 shared care. The bitch didn’t show up and then I had to prove to child support I had this arrangement WTF! Go and check my tax records you clowns, working for families tax credits for last 6 years daaahhh.
Nothing happened to her at all. So this morning I sent an email to John Key outlining the last 10 years. The Family Court is an incestuous pit of paedophile enabling judges who go about de-fathering NZ. My son was abducted or kidnapped for 31 days mate so it is not rare at all, and skeleton was no aberration. You have to publicly smash these people otherwise more follow (and I don’t mean physical)
I am still waiting for report which says “Case dismissed due to lack of Prosecutorial Evidence”. They won’t send it so I recorded judge Druce and he is pissed and I want him to sue me as I publicly called a practising HOMOSEXUAL. However I think he is to scared due to the amount of high court judges who have slammed him amongst others.
Comment by brent — Fri 15th April 2016 @ 10:15 am
I agree with you Murray @ 100. I didn’t intend to try to whitewash deliberate alienation whatever might motivate it. I agree with education for parents but not simply ‘parenting training’. I would suggest a law against any act likely to to contribute to parental alienation, such as badmouthing an ex to the children or discussing adult issues with children below a certain age. This is a form of child abuse as bad as or worse than many criminalized actions. Then parents could be educated about the law and informed that only the Court can make determinations about the adequacy of any parent, and that no parent is legally allowed to take it upon him/herself to impede the other parent’s relationship with the children aside from our normal rights of self-defence or protection of another from immediate harm.
Unfortunately, in order for this to work our family law will need to change fundamentally towards having to respect the equal rights of both parents to make decisions about and to be part of their children’s upbringing. The criteria applied here will need to be limited to criminal legal boundaries, not the spurious idea of ‘the best interests of the children’ based on feminist or any other ideology. Whatever a Court comes to believe is in the best interests of children is likely to be highly flawed and anyway is unlikely to outweigh the advantages of an ongoing, meaningful relationship with both parents albeit flawed individuals. The current incentives against equal parenting, such as the DPB which motivates many women to seize primary control of children, will need to be removed.
Comment by Man X Norton — Fri 15th April 2016 @ 10:39 am
#102. Bravo. You have hit the nub of the issue on the head. I have (despite having bloody good reason) never bad mouthed the mother, nor involved the kids in adult conversations about child support, custody etc etc. That was the domain of lawyer for child (a complete stranger) and the mother when she tried to abduct them to Australia. She has in no way EVER been held accountable for her admirable work in alienating the children from me, and has never been other than mildly admonished by the legal system. Lies to Admin review officers, undeclared income, dishonoring parenting orders, “you can’t play tennis because dad won’t pay the fees”…..all of this is deemed to be “at the lower end of the scale”. What do we need to have their actions considered serious…my public execution?????
Comment by shafted — Fri 15th April 2016 @ 11:02 am
‘Sir,’ runs the legendary letter from one lawyer to another, ‘I regret to inform you that our respective clients are in danger of reaching agreement.’
Comment by Man X Norton — Fri 15th April 2016 @ 11:05 am
#99
Witch hunt in Salem and elsewhere I suspect were often fueled by self interest, greed, envy, jealousy etc. Alienation also is influenced by the same, I am not that naive as to recognise that. The alienator often needs to maintain their self-delusions to justify their beliefs and actions.
#104
I understood it was improper to read private and privileged communications.
Comment by allan harvey — Fri 15th April 2016 @ 2:48 pm
It’ tiresome though. Constantly turning the other cheek-not defending yourself against injustice in the better interests of the kids who ended up hating my guts anyway
Comment by shafted — Fri 15th April 2016 @ 3:21 pm
THE ABSENT ELEPHANT IN THE 2016 ‘MODERNISING CHILD, YOUTH AND FAMILY EXPERT PANEL REPORT’
Investing in New Zealand’s Children and Their Families
Finding it hard to read these types of articles. I know that the lived reality is printed in pain, missed opportunity, tears, blood and the occasional broken bone.
I will go back to reading Alice in Wonderland, I just can’t handle reading the real thing.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 25th April 2016 @ 12:26 pm
Thanks Murray #107
Comment by julie — Sun 1st May 2016 @ 8:48 pm
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[I suspect that all children are vulnerable?
So, good learning for any parent who wishes to protect their child’s security, happiness and safety. mcb]
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 3rd May 2016 @ 7:53 am
Interesting article about teaching very young children about consent. Survivor Mums Teaching About Consent
I suggest that fathers should be part of this conversation too. (Though when my boys were small, I guess I didn’t see it as a commonly needed issue. This was due to not understanding how much abuse there is around us.)
I am scared a bit about the “Survivor” Mum element. Although her example conversation is very careful in the values that it portrays, I would suspect that many survivor mums or dads would subtly include a lot of messages that could easily be damaging to the child eg stranger danger, being too cautious of doctors, being too cautious of men. Likely they wouldn’t be aware of some of the messages they were putting across.
The article does talk about the feedback from the child, though necessarily briefly. There is a lot of sensitivity required, to really allow children freedom to give uncensored feedback. Surviving alone isn’t sufficient to guarantee this degree of sensitivity, it may be quite a big barrier. This is why involving several people can help overcome our own personal blindnesses. Fathers should be a good place to start, so be prepared! (It takes a village, to raise a child.)
If I was a survivor, I would try to have some of these conversations with another older, experienced adult around, who could give useful feedback.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 4th May 2016 @ 10:36 am
Married geography teacher, 27, SCREAMS as she is jailed for 12 months for having sex with a 16 year old pupil…
Does sexual abuse by a woman of a boy cause any harm at all?
I have heard quite a few ignorant, fully grown men saying “Oh that I should be so lucky!”.
I can understand that they might fail to understand the harm that pressure for secrecy can do to a child and also what being on the receiving end of unwanted sexual attention can be like. Maybe it happens less frequently to men, but if they were willing to listen carefully, they might hear some other men’s anguish and pain from these situations.
The harm from “pressure to keep secrecy” may affect fully grown women and men, not just boys and girls.
These harms are illustrated clearly in the following newspaper article. Although well described, from knowing a woman in the same type of situation, I know that these effects may be much stronger and harming, than the newspaper brings out. It is only when society understands these harms, that a more appropriate approach will be taken to sexual abuse.
The newspaper article portrays the woman teacher as a predatory monster, who knew that she was a predatory monster and should have left teaching voluntarily, or even not entered the profession. Is that really a realistic expectation? There is that old saying “there but for the grace of Dog go I”.
Maybe, more to the point, we should ask what is wrong that the UK teacher training course didn’t bring to her attention, that she had a weakness for underage boys? Surely, if those lecturers are professionals, they would see bringing out proclivities such as illegally-underage sexual desires as part of their own teaching task? This responsibility, alas, isn’t mentioned in the article.
Quite possibly, it would be possible to go a useful step further. If such proclivities were detected, there is no need to reject the teaching student altogether. There is a possibility that between self awareness and manager awareness, she could still be a valuable and effective teacher?
Which also brings out the failure of the school to detect that her teaching relationship was crossing boundaries. The school principal or supervising teachers don’t seem to be under examination in any way? Or is it totally impossible to detect such relationships starting? Difficult question. Maybe the assumption that women are no hazard blinded her supervisors?
The story highlighted is about a teacher taking sexual advantage of a fairly young boy.
It is important to remember that statistics show us that boys are far more often sexually predated on or abused by mothers and family, or family friends. The cultural blindness to women predators is probably stronger in the situations……. The mother probably doesn’t see it as sexual abuse….. Who is responsible for protecting these young boys? I have heard one such story and was surprised by how harrowing and disabling the experiences were, even when the boy was an adult man. These victims know the strength of the refusal to listen to their stories and also feel disabling shame.
Well written, but not really conveying the full reality of the boy’s experience.
If you can directly face the hard questions – the pressure for secrecy is a consequence of the legally imposed sanctions. The victims wish to not harm the offender and the legal sanctions, leads to this dangerous pressure back onto the child.
If we were more confident of our training systems to teach teachers how to handle responses which evolution gave to all of us in varying degrees, then maybe we wouldn’t need any legal sanctions at all?
If we were more confident of our teacher supervision systems then maybe we wouldn’t need any legal sanctions at all?
Anyway, please listen to victim’s experiences and think out of the box a bit. We do have plenty of options to choose from, if we think the issues through.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 20th May 2016 @ 10:10 am
In my rave above, I didn’t distinguish between what the boy desires, wants and needs.
It is typical for victims of underage sex to express normal human sexual desires and relationship enjoyment.
However, they usually have little idea and understanding of what harm a secret relationship can do to other family relationships. Loss of trust by family, especially at this age, can be very hard to fully recover from. These are the very relationships which the child needs the most, to foster the security and quality of their development.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 30th May 2016 @ 11:28 am
Child Poverty & Family Structure What is the evidence telling us?
A very good report from Lyndsay Mitchell and financed by Family First.
I agree that family structure is an elephant in the room, in terms of quality of child development and countering child neglect.
In my opinion, Family First also have another elephant in the room. They and NZ society too, are partly ignoring WHY family structure is so important?
There are two WHYs in action:
1. WHY a together family can achieve markedly more for the children’s development and welfare? They consider that very well.
2. WHY some people are unable to sustain long term adult relationships and unable to sustain high quality parenting relationships? This factor causes the WHY above. Without addressing it, then children’s development cannot be protected either. Our society and Family First are both reluctant to go into these issues in detail, especially when addressing solo mothers in particular.
I agree that solo mothers shouldn’t be stigmatised, for being solo mothers.
However, where this affects their children, society does need to address what is going on more successfully. This isn’t a clear line and most people are uncomfortable in looking into these issues. Ignoring these issues, results in ignoring the plight of the children.
Young parents do need more active social supports. We are reluctant to both accept and to give help. Sources of help should primarily be wider family. Barriers to such help need to be addressed.
Young parents too often lack life and parenting skills. Perhaps another word for this is mental health.
On Sunday TV programme, Professor Ritchie Poulton mentioned social self control at 3 years old as being a strong indicator of adult income, assets, relationships and employment success. There is a push to address this skill actively in preschools.
Small modern (isolated) families don’t give the pathways for teaching parenting skills, that happened naturally within large families 50 or 100 years ago. We need to develop social mechanisms for encouraging such learning opportunities in wider families and/or with neighbours too.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 30th May 2016 @ 11:55 am
Murray @113: Stigmatizing on the basis of stereotyping is seldom justified for any group including sole mothers. However, I get tired of people referring to sole mothers as if we always need to feel sorry for them.
If a mother is abandoned by the children’s father, she deserves support and special consideration. If she left the children’s father because he had been truly violent, either repeatedly or with high seriousness, to her and/or the children then she deserves support and special consideration.
However, when I see a sole mother portrayed as a brave, devoted parent struggling to raise her children against the odds, I often ask myself “So where’s the father and what happened to him, why isn’t he on the scene, and why isn’t he mentioned?” I also consider the fact that sole mothers are often receiving between $500 and $1000 per week, as much or more than many people on low wages earn. The truth is that most sole mothers result from one of the following:
– Deliberately getting pregnant as a career move to one or more men without any intention of providing the children with a family or father;
– After making a life commitment to a man and having children with him, deciding he really wasn’t good enough or she isn’t ‘happy’ enough, so breaching the marital vows and getting rid of him;
– Calculating that she can do better on free government money than having to share the children’s father’s low income;
– Calculating that she can seize the inherited and/or previously earned assets of the children’s father for her to use without further accountability to him;
– Giving in to sexual attraction for a new, more exciting sexual partner after growing bored with her children’s father;
– After separation, refusing equal shared care with the children’s father;
– After separation, lying about him to obtain a protection order or otherwise shutting him out the children’s lives;
– Alienating the children against their father.
In any of these cases I really think stigmatizing is important to try to discourage mothers in future from similar choices. Mothers who are not providing a biological family unit that includes the father need to have a damn good reason for that. Stigmatizing needn’t involve depriving those sole mothers of basic financial aid but they should not be respected, approved of or shown special consideration. The biggest share of responsibility lies with our government for incentivizing their father-removal choices through its DPB, so-called ‘child support’ regime and so-called ‘relationship property’ laws. However, the sole mothers need to share responsibility for their choices.
Comment by Man X Norton — Mon 30th May 2016 @ 8:21 pm
Dear Man X Norton, you have excellently summed up the challenging reality that society faces.
Many, most even, agree strongly with what you say. I apologise for looking for small differences in our positions, as we so largely agree. However, some of these differences may be important to finding working solutions?
Stigmatising creates painful and damaging social divisions, discourages help seeking and discourages offering of help. The presenting situation is so long after “the decision” was made, the decision cannot be unmade in any way. The only solutions lie before the decision, through better quality child development (even if despite the parents) and empowering children to make better self-protecting decisions eg contraception or strength to take longer term views about their relationships. As well as better supporting parents, education preschool through to secondary needs to play a larger role in social education. I know that some “religions” are barriers to this, especially “christian” derived backward looking “religions”.
I have heard both women and men make this comment. I generally consider this comment to have considerable positive social value. It is living with the consequences of our decisions in the real sense. However, it can slide into stigma, if overdone. It can be constructive to children, to hear these comments made about others, as part of learning carefully about available life options.
It is nigh impossible to bring accountability home onto parents and protect children from paying some of the price that their parents incurred, who make these mistakes. I consider that the familycaught$’ refusal to put any accountability onto such custodial parents (mainly mothers), does huge harm to many aspects of the children’s lives. Especially in encouraging fathers to get lost.
So failing to enforce accountability does even more harm to the children, than properly allowing appropriate accountability to occur. Any good parent knows that allowing children to escape totally from the consequences of their actions, damages the child’s development. Every bit as true for parents, as for children. But familycaught$ doesn’t know this! (The familycaught$ only extremely rarely are willing to accept responsibility for their part in outcomes. This is similar to the way that they refuse to have a working accountability system supervising their daily work. The quality of any profession can be clearly seen in the quality of the way that they are supervised.)
Realkiwi has drawn attention to the range of forces that are putting pressure onto fathers to not take part in their children’s lives.
Smoke, mirrors and millions of dollars going astray
In many cases it is laziness or lack of resources, that leads to organisations failing to track down fathers and include them in decision-making. This exercise is extremely important, for children’s well-being. I hope people support him.
I guess, what is the point of contacting the father, if you already know that involving him in decision making will be an embarrassing sham?
Maybe, it should NOT be a sham? If familycaught$ “judges” had sufficient skills to accurately and relevantly measure parenting skills, then fathers could be constructively involved in decisions affecting their children – as legislation requires should happen! Why not actually follow legislation in familycaught$?
The familycaught$ is meant to act as checks and balances, to bring out these failures and get them properly acted on. Too often, they fail to address these occurrences in any constructive way at all. They are ignoring their legislated duties and the situation can only be remedied, by replacing these judges with people who do read he legislation and take it seriously.
Agree.
Agree. But when young children, with poor knowledge about the consequences of their actions or inactions effectively make decisions that may seriously disadvantage their future lives and children’s lives, society has seriously failed to carry it’s responsibility.
It isn’t appropriate or constructive to punish the child (later solo mother), when we as a society have failed to educate her for her responsibilities and life options. Same for the boy child. It is not right to punish children, for our societal failures.
I have tried to lay out a method by which the education system can help make up for failures of many parents to socially educate their children.
Schools are doing many of these things now, to some extent. These educations need to cover parenting and relationship skills more carefully and give children clearer feedback about where they stand in relationship and parenting skills. This may assist less capable parents to realise what they are facing and perhaps choose not to have children, or to realise that if they have children, they need the support of a partner to be a successful parent.
Many people consider that the Government has no place in families and their values.
However, by reacting to parenting failures, only when they become obvious, far too much harm has already been done to the children. This approach usually fails to protect the children’s developmental interests. Proactive social and parenting education, support and child protection is the only way that children can be satisfactorily be protected.
We need to make sure that children have sufficient skills, before they are fertile, to protect their life options. Criticism afterwards cannot change what has already been decided and become a fact of life. This is a huge challenge!
Lets aim to succeed as a society. Setting up children to fail and then criticising them, is just a huge hypocrisy. At the time the decision was made, we were adults and the child was just a child.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 31st May 2016 @ 10:35 am
Some good argument Murray @115. However, sole mothers are not children and many aren’t even spring chickens.
Your main argument, that we shouldn’t stigmatize people after they have made the choice, could equally be applied to criminals. No point punishing them after the event, just do prevention. After all, punishing and disapproving of them will harm their children who were not responsible for their choices. We as a society are responsible for not raising the criminals properly. So let’s give them lots of money and feel endlessly sorry for their struggle.
I still argue that a bit of old fashioned stigmatization will tend to reduce the appeal of sole motherhood for the up and coming and intending leeches. Just as we hope, a little bit at least, prison and other justice system responses including the associated stigmatization will reduce the appeal of stealing, family bashing, drink driving and child molesting. Of course, the stigmatization I am supporting for sole mothers is nothing comparable to justice system punishment. Even though, really, women who deliberately bring children into the world without fathers involved, and women who unnecessarily deprive their children of (by far) the safest and most effective family upbringing with both parents, are committing child abuse as bad or worse than much of what we send men to jail for.
As well as a bit of stigmatizing, it’s time we ended the ridiculous situation in which sole parenthood provides an income much higher and more secure than any job most others could hope for.
Comment by Man X Norton — Tue 31st May 2016 @ 8:22 pm
Too true. How can so many people not see this?
I believe that Singapore provided a benefit proportional to the parent’s prior tax paying history. This maintains the incentive to get worthwhile training and also ensures that the parent has a practical pathway back off the benefit.
There are quite a few other advantages too, in terms of mental health selection, but I won’t open that hornet’s nest this late at night.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 31st May 2016 @ 10:25 pm
This STUFF article well portrays the link between Eric’s parenting and his later lack of emotional regulation, during which he killed his younger brother.
Murderer Eric McIsaac’s violent childhood at the hands of his father
CALEB HARRIS AND JONO GALUSZKA
Last updated 20:45, June 10 201
The article presents the beatings that Eric suffered as a child, for “causing” him to later murder his own brother.
I would suggest that the beatings were indicators of his father’s (and probably mother’s too) lack of communications skills, to relate to and respond appropriately to Eric’s needs as a small child.
It was the neglect of Eric’s physical and emotional needs, that led to him failing to develop emotional sensitivity to others eg beating his brother to death in a moment of anger.
The correlation between emotional neglect and beatings, does not prove that beating a child causes psychopathy. (It is surprising how much physical violence a child can take from a parent who cares for them and responds successfully to their emotional needs and developmental needs. I am not saying this makes beatings “good” in any way.)
Responding to a baby’s emotional needs does take sensitivity. This may be blocked by parental depression, substance abuse, psychosis, personality disorders, working too much and not spending time listening to the child and the like.
When parents are under severe stress, then it becomes difficult to impossible for them to care properly for a child, especially a baby who cannot talk. This is why we should be more proactive in helping parents, particularly those that are young.
Good article except for the detail about what causes psychopathy……
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 11th June 2016 @ 6:41 pm
In Brock Turner’s home town, we’re raising kids who are never told ‘no’
By Kate Geiselman
8:43 AM Thursday Jun 9, 2016
Petula Dvorak: The privileged face of the campus predator Brock Turner
By Petula Dvorak comment
7:51 AM Wednesday Jun 8, 2016
These articles are a pretty good summing up of the child who got everything they wanted – perhaps just not enough of his parents time and care!
Taking good care of children’s developmental needs should be given much higher priority, if we wanted to have fewer murders and rapists?
I do recommend to read the other NZ Herald’s articles about Brock Turner, especially the victim’s own impact statement.
Go to NZ Herald and use the search facility, to look up Brock Turner.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 11th June 2016 @ 7:57 pm
Murray (#119): Both of the articles you linked are unbalanced male bashing articles. The first ignores the possiblity that the victim of Turner’s offending did give consent at some stage in the process as he claims, and that she possibly went to sleep during the sexual activity. It ignores the fact that Turner was also quite drunk. Neither of those issues change the fact that, at some stage in the process at least, he become exploitative of a vulnerable person. The article ends with a reference to ‘rape culture’, a very misleading piece of propaganda.
The second article tells us that every well-groomed, friendly, caring man is probably a rapist. Great stuff. It also repeatedly refers to ‘rape culture’ including ‘campus rape culture’. It also misrepresented the crime by referring to it as a ‘violent, brutal attack’ when there was no evidence of significant injuries except where he put his fingers in her unaccomodating (because she had fallen asleep) vagina and some scrapes on the skin of her back from what she was lying on. That’s not to minimize the depravity and inherent violence of his actions.
This is a relevant piece I saw on a Facebook thread:
“It’s interesting that when a drunk male and female become involved in sexual behaviour it is the male who is seen to have been responsible and the woman incapable of consent. In fact, often both are equally incapable of rational, informed consent because that’s what alcohol does.
Brock Turner deserves punishment if he was relatively capable that evening and if he forced himself on someone so drunk she had little conscious awareness of the events. A jury believed this to have been the case. He is being punished, big time, by a very public trial, time in prison as a first offender and a lifetime on a sex offenders’ register. The damage to his life is certain while she is quite likely to get on with her life reasonably normally. The emotive hyperbole about ‘a totally ruined life’ and ‘a lifetime’s punishment’ may be commonly churned out but that doesn’t make it realistic for all or most victims of sexual crimes.
The victim’s letter was interesting. Her treatment at the hands of those wanting to obtain evidence was clearly one of the most traumatic aspects of her experience. Other traumatic aspects included her awareness of what happened through being informed, and seeing her story on television before anyone had talked it through with her. In our lynch-mob frenzy are we doing harm? Interestingly, if nobody had told her about what happened her trauma would likely have been much less if anything.
Her letter was also interesting in that it showed her taking no responsibility for getting so drunk. That doesn’t mean she deserved to be sexually violated, but let’s get real. Anyone who gets that drunk makes him/herself vulnerable to exploitation. How many of the self-righteous women calling for Turner’s life to be wrecked even more than it will be would pass up the opportunity to grab the wallet of a wealthy-looking man who appeared to be comatose in a public area where nobody else could see? Demanding that women should be able to be blind drunk and not exploited is wanting an ideal but it’s about as unrealistic as demanding that motorway traffic stop when a woman wants to walk across it.”
Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Sun 12th June 2016 @ 1:04 pm
Dear MOMA, I am certainly not arguing with you. I believe that both viewpoints are true and need to be considered.
That isn’t quite what you suggested: The second article tells us that every well-groomed, friendly, caring man is probably a rapist. Great stuff.
I certainly want my children to understand both sides of this debate.
A earlier poster on menz pointed out that his own sister plied a known catholic man with alcohol and got herself pregnant to him, as a form of rape to marriage (or even just child [and spousal] support).
Curiously, this not too uncommon phenomenon doesn’t seem to arouse much ire among feminists? or legal workers either? As a form of obtaining intercourse (and financial benefits) under false pretences, I cannot see how it doesn’t meet the definition of rape?
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sun 12th June 2016 @ 8:35 pm
Brutalisation in familycaught$
About 12 years ago I was sailing across Cook Straight. I was chatting to the lady next to me… Somehow in conversation it came up that she had been a social worker for CYFs.
She told me about how her work as liaison with familycaught$ led to hearing many stories of violence, some believable and some not. She enjoyed the work, trying to resolve family issues. But she found that after a few years she would slip into treating her husband harshly, competitively and at times even cruelly. She would vow to snap out of it. She felt that she could stop it and could, for a few months.
Wider topic – psychological trauma
What scared her was that when she noticed that she had started again, she would realise that she had actually been behaving like that for some time, days, a few weeks, perhaps even over a month. Her husband hadn’t complained as such, but he was responding by retreating into his shell, away from her. She did not want him to see her in that way and considered that her job was threatening her marriage.
She looked around for other jobs, but nothing she could find came near to matching her existing pay. After nearly two years of this and seeing the problem only getting slowly worse, she decided that her marriage was worth far more than the last few dollars of salary. She cut her pay expectations and soon had a different job.
Her other comment intrigued me. Along the way, she had noticed that in the informal times at familycaught$, the judges especially spoke of fathers mainly in deprecating terms, even nonhuman. She felt it was quite unbalanced and surprising in that many were men themselves. The sames was less true for lawyers, who in the main were younger.
On thinking back to what she said, I recalled one of the judges commenting in a newspaper article that hearing stories of violence didn’t affect judges’ judgement. He confidently asserted that they are “professionals” and are immune to being affected by what they hear.
I am not a counsellor. But I am aware that most counsellors have regular debriefing sessions, to help protect them from being damaged by vicarious trauma. Perhaps the judge felt that they had the sensitivity of a lump of concrete? I am guessing that a judge’s cortisol response to vicarious trauma is just as delicate as a counsellor’s. But the judges lacked the knowledge of how to protect themselves from vicarious traumatisation and the wisdom or self awareness. Macho gone far wrong, male or female.
This might go some way towards explaining how judges can make comments about fathers should be more involved in children’s lives, but in secret caughtroom$ be doing everything they can to be the barrier.
New Scientist – Is Evil a Disease?
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 15th June 2016 @ 11:46 am
Murray (#122): Interesting comment. It’s probably true that the lack of supportive debriefing for judges about nasty stuff results in pent-up emotions that become redirected towards others who don’t deserve this. Unfortunately for men this is compounded by natural and/or social bias towards protecting females, such that nasty stuff when done or said by men towards women elicits much stronger disgust than when done by women towards men, and men’s expressed suffering about their treatment at the hands of women does not elicit as much empathy as the vice-versa. This results in mental associations for judges (and lawyers, police etc) between their anger/disgust feelings and the male persona in proportions considerably greater than would reflect the reality of what they were exposed to.
Further compounding this is the fact that judges, lawyers, police, social workers etc are exposed heavily to feminist, male-bashing propaganda through training, seminars and organizational relationships. Family Court Principal Judge Boshier frequently swanned around feminist conferences and hosted feminist groups to address his judges but refused totally to allow men’s groups a voice. This form of indoctrination encourages and increases the tendency to transfer all disgust and anger on to men generally and to transfer all empathy and concern on to women generally.
A related issue is workers’ own ego defence. Men, due to ‘protector’ genetic inheritance and social role expectations, are more likely than women to express their anger and to direct aggressive counter-attacks towards others who threaten their family, interests and personal status. A man is more likely to tell the social worker to “fuck off and mind your own business”, more likely to tell the Lawyer for Child to “stop brainwashing and misrepresenting my children you asshole”, and more likely to show his disgust towards the judge who sanitizes everything the female litigant did wrong and exaggerates everything he did wrong. Few people, unless they specifically work on their reactions and develop necessary skills through competent guidance and support, are able to maintain objective consideration of the evidence, issues and children’s interests that is not distorted by their (counter-transference) reactions towards the male who threatens their status like that. Again, the tendency to be protective towards females means that such indignant, ego-defensive reactions are less strong when females speak or behave disrespectfully towards the officials. This phenomenon results commonly in sexist injustice, for example, in vendettas by CYF social workers against individual male ‘clients’ who offended them.
Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Thu 16th June 2016 @ 10:07 am
#123 Dear MoMA, well said. JP told me to remember that practically all familycaught$ legal workers started in the District Caught, where men were only perpetrators and women were only victims, with very few exceptions. This leads to the very things that you pointed out.
There is also a tendency to simplify by turning greys into black and white. This reduces any need to think. Of course, if this was acceptable, we wouldn’t need a caught system, a computer or clerk could just find people guilty or innocent based on birth sex! So I am really not sure what the legal workers are doing in caught?
Vulnerable people could only be protected by some exercise of weighing evidence and forming a sensible judgement.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 18th November 2016 @ 7:59 pm
The Fatherhood Institute – Research showing importance of both mothers and fathers in children’s lives. (Of course this is why the Care of Children Act 2004 purports to protect children’s right to a good quality relationship to both parents and their wider families too.)
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 18th November 2016 @ 8:02 pm
One unfortunate example of a parent neglected to spend time with their child, results from being left behind by child abduction by the other parent. Not deliberate neglect, but from the affected child’s perspective, that is what it is.
This is why the Care of Children Act, as printed on paper but not actually enforced in familycaught$, gives a high priority to protecting a child’s relationship to both parents. It would be good if these clauses were understood by our bedraggled judges.
One of my biggest worries about the apparently illegal behaviours of familycaught$ judges, setting up opportunities for child abduction, is that most, maybe all? familycaught$ judges consider that abduction by a mother is not abduction at all. Put another way, they expect that such an abduction would have no negative consequences for the children at all.
Such abductions generally do have serious consequences for the children, due to lies told about the left behind parent and the effects of suddenly disrupted access to the left behind parent. This usually impacts seriously on to attachment security, which affects all future relationships.
The documentary Victims of Another War uses the words of adults, who were abducted by a parent when they were children, to describe these consequences.
2006 Launch of Victims of Another War
Film Synopsis
DVD Purchase on Amazon
Victims of another war – Documentary
These consequences are described in more detail in the book Adult Children of PAS, by Dr. Amy J. Baker. Review
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 21st November 2016 @ 9:07 pm
Going Mental: Parental Alienation – Are your Kids Abusing You Like your Ex Did? by Dr. Tara J. Palmatier
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 21st November 2016 @ 9:10 pm
Sexual abuse of boys, by women is being acknowledged.
Considering that the hand that rocks the cradle has considerable influence, this dynamic appears to play a large part in the “development” of most male on female rapists.
Men who were sexually abused by women tell their stories By Debra Killalea NZ Herald
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 13th December 2016 @ 10:01 pm
Father involvement and acknowledgement……
Why Men Don’t Want to be Dads
The Effects of Father Involvement: An Updated Research Summary of the Evidence
What You Should Know About ‘Fatherhood Policy’
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 20th February 2017 @ 11:50 am
Early life deprivation: is the damage already done?
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 25th February 2017 @ 11:32 am
Murray Bacon @130: A fine reference there Murray. The principle has wider application though, like CYFS etc. In my view, families in general do have their problems {that is human after all} but whatever problems families have – over-all they are much preferable to taking the kids. If the state wants a role, it should be to educate, mentor and support struggling parents.
Comment by Jerry — Sun 26th February 2017 @ 9:27 am
Hi Jerry, I used to be a strong believer that families were safest for children, without outside interference from Government. Also, social workers should nowadays be more sensitive about how children are removed from families?
The Pernicious Effect of Emergency Removal in Child Protective Proceedings
Through the years I have met several parents who have had personal problems, that made it difficult (to almost impossible), for them to parent to properly meet the needs of their children. Sure, not the majority, but maybe 1% to 2%.
So now I believe that we should give much better social supports for young parents. Where parents show that they are not improving even with the supports, then some form of Government interference is necessary to protect the children.
We always see someone else with difficulties.
I recall watching a TV programme about alcoholism. Think of 10 of your friends and workmates. One of them is probably alcoholic.
What got me was the next line:
If one of them isn’t obviously alcoholic, then it is probably you!
But mostly we hide our problems (stigma) and this is then a huge barrier to getting help and sorting out problems.
I am transsexual and my efforts to hide that throughout my life, took away from the quality of my attention to my children, despite my best efforts. Similarly, my ex-wife was adopted and probably had poor care through that critical time. That too had impacts on what she could offer our children. It has given our older child some issues and the younger seems to have largely escaped adverse effect. But it is still not as good quality parenting as would be preferable.
Due to assortive mating in the human species (and most others too), if one mate has difficulties of some sort, then most likely the other has some too. Though likely different problems.
Although children are adept at taking the best from two parents (thus reducing the impacts of personality disorder, depression and the like) in a solo parent situation they are being largely denied the protection of the other parent.
The previous line, is the reason that this post is on MENZ. Both parents are necessary, to be confident that the children will have a safe and good quality upbringing.
Of course, if access between children and one parent is being frequently denied, then these children are effectively being dropped into a solo parent risk situation. This is why the failure of the familycaught$ to respond to protect the children, is such a socially serious situation.
More to the point, children should be given an accurate and reliable indication of the quality of their parenting skills and motivation, before puberty.
Knowing that caring for children is unrewarding to yourself, or that if you have children they are likely to be removed, has a powerful contraceptive effect, that we should take advantage of (as was the case say 200 years ago when families were larger).
Enjoy your children, while you have them!
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 10th April 2017 @ 10:43 am
MurrayBacon @132: Good point Murray about the value of contact with both parents to reduce deleterious impact from one of the parents due to mental health or other personal problems. The Family Court often does not acknowledge that principle in decisions about parenting orders, instead basing them on foolish principles such as ‘any hint of male violence in the past rules out the father from increased contact with the children’. Admittedly, femaleist law gives the Family Court little choice over this.
Comment by Man X Norton — Mon 10th April 2017 @ 11:47 pm
Much more about the Family Court being concerned about conflict leading to stress and violence in front of children. Often they are very supportive of the point Murray makes that both parents offer wider role models, activities, and support for children. That is my experience and the Court is these days more likely to go for shared care unless conflict is high.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Tue 11th April 2017 @ 9:26 am
Murray Bacon @132: I think you go too far. The state is not about children’s safety physical or mental, let alone ensuring they maintain a place in their extended families. You trust them way too much and afford them too much respect and credit.
I trust my own observations and opinions – but others trust statistics. Sure some surveys have rigor to them, but usually they are not mentioned in the media. Only propaganda lacking legitimacy and arising from political niche groups {I include Government, women’s affairs, womens refuge etc etc etc as “Niche groups”} are endlessly and loudly promoted. Rigorous surveys are up in some dark corner for a few minutes – after that you will have a job to track them down at all.
The statistical analysis of our case is exactly opposite to the truth, justice and reality. It is proven so – but would they bother to correct the records – and perhaps issue an apology? I have seen no trace of it.
So I say that for all its warts and imperfections – and yes the abuse, violence and whatever else nasty happens within the family – its still way better over all for everyone including the kids.
The state NGO’s and whatever else plave where social workers lurk has no better record that the families they break up. If they can’t do better, they should stay right out of it and get some occupation which produces rreal benefits to society.
Certainly the Tax-payer and society as a whole would be way better off.
These noxious policies could be motivated as “Divide and conqueur”. When concerned about your family and yourselves and in fear of going innocently into the cells, have you got any energy left to bother with the over arching issues of society nad humanity. Dividing family takes you right out of relevence, and the smear makes us nobody at all.
Comment by Jerry — Tue 11th April 2017 @ 10:27 am
Thanks very much commenters #133 to #135.
Jerry says:
I am not meaning to say that the familycaught$ and CYFs are successfully implementing these principles, based on child development and protection. Generally I trust and respect them very little, which is my motivation to help others survive dealing with these clowns and thieves. These people were given poor and irrelevant training. As better knowledge has come available, these people have mainly not stayed up to date, hence the problems.
In essence, these principles are clearly and competently laid out in Care of Children Act and CYFs Act.
Therefore, it would be reasonable to expect that these organisations would largely follow those legislations (as well as anybody follows laws without any penalties given or working complaints systems!)
Man X Norton says:
I know that judges claim this when the spotlight is shone on them. The legislation is conflicted, but doesn’t bind them in any way, when they don’t want to be bound. So I just don’t buy that as an excuse at any level.
Certainly, there are plenty of stupid things in the legislation, but that doesn’t actually force a judge to do anything stupid or child endangering. In addition to laziness, the familycaught$ swims in unreliable information and perjury so it is no wonder that their decisions are poor quality in many cases. The reason that this is encouraged by legal workers, is that it puts a lot of pressure onto parties to have more profitable and longer hearings. This strongly disserves the children, as well as the parties. So only one group of scoundrels does benefit from the poor enforcement of Family Court Rules.
The reason that this post is on menz.org.nz, is to help educate men and women and couples about:
(a) the developmental needs of their children (so that they can speak and negotiate competently with the other parent, CYFs and familycaught$)
(b) what these organisations should be doing to protect children’s development and happiness,
(c) a little idea of what is actually happening in these organisations.
A large part of my motivation flows on from hearing W.P. speak about the history of fathering. Boring topic I thought at the time. But it opened my eyes and as different information flowed past in newspapers and other sources, I became much more interested. This energised me to put a lot more time into learning about child development and also the history of fathering.
We take it for granted, at the peril of our children being vandalised by greedy, lazy fools given temporary power and expensive clothes and with no sense of responsibility. They are unable to weigh the importance of different principles in different situations, so apply them randomly…
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 11th April 2017 @ 12:50 pm
It would be poor judgement, to make judgements that are irrelevant to the circumstances the judgement relates to.
We don’t live in fairyland.
Comment by Downunder — Wed 12th April 2017 @ 11:47 am
Murray Bacon @136: I do not excuse the individuals who are trained and work as social workers. Yes I know two at least who know the truth but for the rest ignorance is no excuse. Lets say for example, their training tells them 99% of women and children are raped and abused by males – then they have thte freedom to look around them. If they cannot see that 99%; or 50%, or 25%, of the women and children are so abused – then their confidence in the data should be seriously undermined. Seems its not though. They just become the “Milgram” type torturer and will act on any corrupt dishonest instruction an authority figure tells them. They do so to the popint of causing pain, poverty, dislocation and even suicide – and seems they feel okay, because they are “Just following orders!” No, I won’t give them an inch. I will single Out Bruce Tichbon whom I have met and have remot info about – seems he tries to do good.
I say if the wacky stats are not proven by observation of the society around one, then the odds are the data id wrong and should be criminal.
Comment by Jerry — Wed 12th April 2017 @ 2:36 pm
Government has shied away from looking at historic (well inside our lifetimes) abuses of children.
TV3 has stepped into the void and run a Hui. Part of that is available on NewsHub:
Four former wards of the state share their horrific stories of abuse
This is a beautifully communicated example of the value and power of recording stories.
Sure it is limited in what was achieved. Many important facets remain not yet communicated.
But, I want to applaud and appreciate what TV3 have put together and encourage other people to work in the same directions, record stories, gather evidence and make sure they are available and not lost.
Following links lets you see PM Bill English’s denials about facing the past constructively.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 3rd July 2017 @ 11:10 am
Attachment Theory – good introduction
Executive Function
These two issues are critical to the successful social development of children.
Too often parents are not able to argue on these bases. They may lose custody, when that is actually damaging to the children’s interests and development…..
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 10th July 2017 @ 12:43 pm
Positive oriented article What we can do to help after the damage has been done.
Of course, it is far better not to do the damage in the first place, but most voters are unwilling to face the realities of what is required to actually protect children, mainly from their own parents….
What severe stress can do to a young brain
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 14th July 2017 @ 9:18 pm
Great article Murray.
Issues are endless with this subject.
Does taking the child off the parents putting them in CYFS care work better for the child.
It might be a better home but where is the brain healing work for the child?
It doesn’t directly provide those brain healing strategies.
Would intense monitoring and support of the parents along with a child brain healing programme work better?
Comment by DJ Ward — Fri 14th July 2017 @ 11:57 pm
Dear DJ Ward,
your questions are the most critical that CYFs and familycaught$ face.
My limited observation suggests that their decisions are often clouded by their emotional reactions to parents, their egos, their financial interests and show little care for any of the parties welfare, especially the children’s welfare.
That is the option that I favour (emotionally), but being realistic about some parent’s skill limitations, removal is fairly often required.
But the most critical issue is that CYFs usually waits until serious emotional harm has been done to the baby or child(ren) and then removes them at an age where more often the parents could actually care safely for the child!
Children are most vulnerable to harm from day 0 to 1000 and the vulnerability slowly reduces after that.
The most important issue is that babies should not be left in the sole care of a depressed, bipolar, BPD or psychotic parent.
The fact that babies cannot verbally complain about their treatment, doesn’t prove that quality of care is unimportant for babies. On the contrary, this is when responsive and secure parenting is of critical importance for the baby’s mental health and neurological development.
More often, parents should be told, behave better together and stay together, then you can care for your baby.
Fight or separate and your baby will be quickly removed.
Why do CYFs and familycaught$ do the exact opposite?
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 11th May 2018 @ 1:49 pm
Dear Mr Bacon,
I don’t think it helps much that a certain number of our social workers are screw loose relics of the social worker’s course that was invented to get women off the DPB using CYF and other places as gateway employment services.
As you can imagine, they scare the crap out of ordinary people in difficult circumstances and this is not conducive to the sensible outcomes that many people imagine are delivered by social services.
What should be noted is that CYF has on its files some of its own social workers as clients.
This is unfortunately the reality of the department and thankfully the previous CEO was thrown under a bus as they say in Wellytown.
Heaven only knows what in hell might be going on in there now.
Comment by Downunder — Fri 11th May 2018 @ 3:05 pm
A new name is easy to do. Changing corporate kulture might be harder?
Maybe the men’s movement needs a new culture too?
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 11th May 2018 @ 6:37 pm
The new CEO Gráinne Moss has a strong pedigree for effecting business change. She is also in for the long haul as is her sporting pedigree. There is strong culture in CYFS and she is pretty determined to see change. Initial discussions with Men’s groups indicate positive vibes.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Fri 11th May 2018 @ 7:32 pm
Men’s Movement? [@145]
Comment by Evan Myers — Fri 11th May 2018 @ 7:46 pm
Maybe a tad off the thread – my apologies. But be aware that this weekend Bettina Arndt is trying to rally support for an Australian counselloe who was fired for speaking the truth about family violence. Take a look on her site – she is asking for help. Here is a clip she has posted on YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osgQiMBzaJk
Comment by Kiwi Kieth — Sat 12th May 2018 @ 6:08 am
Thanks, Kiwi Kieth. Off the narrow topic of protecting children’s development.
But my main purpose in this thread is the broader topic of encouraging parents to know enough about child protection, to be able to argue in familycaught$ or with CYFs, to succeed in actually protecting their children.
Bettina’s video is exactly on that topic – misinformation that undermines protecting men when they are vulnerable, protecting people’s ability to offer help and protection to men and children.
Thanks!
Allan, I hope you are right.
Some CYFs staff come in for strong criticism relating to their child protection knowledge (bad quality training given to them) and their values and communication skills. The whole area of child protection is bedevilled by lack of clear measures of child development, low quality data in files and poor CYFs management.
These make it very difficult for even knowledgeable staff to perform successfully. Time has allowed the development of improved support systems and also better measures of child development and damage. This post is intended to draw parents attention to these issues.
So there should be reason for hope!
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 12th May 2018 @ 11:12 am
Thanks for your effort Murray.
You may in yourself be a first, delving into areas I wouldn’t even pretend to understand.
That’s what men do.
It’s just not what I would do, for no other reason than, I have something else to do.
Comment by Downunder — Sat 12th May 2018 @ 2:42 pm
Thank you for your appreciative comment, Downunder.
I got interested in child development, from studying men’s suicide issues. That led strongly to child development and quality of parenting.
Then I was horrified at how the familycaught$ used buzzwords, but their actions were sometimes child-protecting, but far too often not. I realised that their actions corresponded to their own financial benefit, rather than child protection. In particular, women and men who allowed their wealth to be visible to legal workers, were viciously asset stripped until there was nothing left. Wolves look like sheep, compared to legal workers…..
Dear Evgeny Orlov managed to cross-examine a psychologist, using child development based questions and back her into a corner. She basicly withdrew her caught report. The father ended up with shared custody. (Not that custody is a legal issue, since Parliament thought it had passed the Care of Children Act!!!!????)
Custody is a good thing to sell to parents. You can sell it to one parent and a few months later threaten to sell it to the other parent. And selling what isn’t yours, is usually illegal – but not for child custody!!!!???? Just like developers sell a view once. A few months later they move a house around, or build a new house, blocking that view. Then they sell the same view to the next person!!!!
Al Capone thought he was on to a good thing, but he had nothing compared to the mafia in familycaught$.
So, I thought that if a sharp clown like Evgeny could do it, then any loving mother or father, with a bit of help, could do the same.
I would love to encourage all parents to take more interest in child development and their role in it, just for the love and enjoyment of their children.
Child development and helping traumatised or neglected children isn’t rocket science. There are surprising things, but they aren’t rocket science. Good parents have been doing it instinctively, while we were living in trees and eating bananas. (I still am.)
The painful reality, is that my motivation for this post, is more to protect children and their parents from the most malicious and greedy mafia on Earth. Their instincts are more for putting their hands into other people’s pockets and holding on too tight to other people’s property.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 12th May 2018 @ 10:06 pm
Interesting – isn’t a father’s interest in child development relative to the mother’s level of insanity.
Comment by Evan Myers — Sun 13th May 2018 @ 7:00 am
Dear Evan, too often you are right. (As I said above at #151.)
But I am trying to suggest that it is worthwhile for parents to have a better understanding of child development, for their own benefit and children’s too, but also so that they are able to follow the illustrious and defrocked Evgeny O. and are able to protect their parenting relationship by arguing in familycaught$.
Of course that wouldn’t be necessary if judge$ were willing to read the Care of Children Act.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 14th May 2018 @ 5:30 pm
And then you get Labour Party affiliated Family Court lawyers organising political favours in the court for CYF’s staff.
One big incestuous secret. It would be a courageous new CEO that actually cared about children.
Comment by Evan Myers — Tue 15th May 2018 @ 10:04 am
The more knowledgeable that parents are about child development and perhaps trauma impacts, the better they are placed to protect their children from the “challenges” that you mention.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 15th May 2018 @ 10:33 am
Murray, when you’re faced with unquestionable levels of corruption, and that’s legal, political, ethical, moral, and social with the possible inclusion of economic, that’s a heavy burden for parents to bear and consider the children’s needs as well.
Corruption is not simply an act of the guilty but the implications of their actions, and we are blinded by Feminism and Family Court secrecy in these cases.
If you look at your own journey here, you could say under those circumstances why wouldn’t the less secure consider suicide … and wouldn’t you then be back where you started?
Comment by Downunder — Tue 15th May 2018 @ 4:44 pm
How many thousands of years has it taken for us to be here?
How many years of child rearing?
How many parents have degrees in child rearing – child development – child psychology?
Why would a father need to argue his child has the right to a relationship with him?
Why must a father argue for both sides of the argument (father-child)?
For a right that is protected by the bill of rights?
Isn’t the ACT of arguing it itself invalidates any argument you may make and simply surrenders jurisdiction to the courts themselves.
Comment by JustCurious — Tue 15th May 2018 @ 5:17 pm
A right that is protected by the Bill of Rights.
I don’t think so.
But that’s another debate.
Comment by Downunder — Tue 15th May 2018 @ 5:39 pm
Existential Well-being Counseling: A Person-centered Experiential Approach
This is a free course aimed at trainee counsellors. Although aimed at counsellors, these are skills that ideally all parents should have. This course gives basic coverage of trauma counselling, which ideally your own children would never need. In reality though, the exigencies of daily life and the aspects that are outside of our control, ensure that 20% of our population of children would benefit from their parents having this counselling knowledge.
More to the point, if you have completed this course, you should have a much better knowledge of how to bring up children without traumatising them. Although this sounds easy, it sure is not so easy in the real world.
We are all human….. (I think I can remember when I was?)
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 23rd May 2018 @ 5:54 pm
#157 and 158 I see your points.
However, should is an innocent sounding word, that too often distracts us from what we must do.
I have tried to protect my children in the “what happens” world, not the delusionary “printed legislation and ethics” world.
Mostly, these worlds work together.
In the legal industry, I see more wisdom and guidance in Alice in Wonderland, than in the real world implications of our published judgements, hidden judgements and printed legislation.
Sure, there may be wisdom in legislation, but if it is ignored in caught$, then that wisdom is quickly never existed at all. What an achievement?
Comment by Murray Bacon — Sat 9th June 2018 @ 5:58 pm
@160
“Mostly these worlds work together” comment only seem to apply on the odd chance, someone does not wish to take either your right or property away.
Comment by JustCurious — Sun 10th June 2018 @ 2:15 pm
Taking away our property?????
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbDql_ygWi0
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 16th June 2018 @ 8:12 pm
Final Report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Australia
https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/
This has been quite a meticulous study and NZ is now about to carry out a similar exercise, we hope.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 17th November 2018 @ 10:31 am
Catholic church dismisses key recommendations from landmark inquiry into child abuse
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/15/royal-commission-final-report-australia-child-abuse
The commission urged the Australian Catholic bishops conference to ask the Vatican to reform canon law by removing provisions that “prevent, hinder or discourage compliance with mandatory reporting laws by bishops or religious superiors”.
“We recommend that canon law be amended so that the ‘pontifical secret’ does not apply to any aspect of allegations or canonical disciplinary processes relating to child sexual abuse,” the report said.
It also said the conference should urge the Vatican to rethink its celibacy rules. The commission found that while celibacy for clergy was not a direct cause of abuse, it elevated the risk when compulsorily celibate male clergy or religious figures had privileged access to children.
But the archbishop of the archdiocese of Melbourne, Denis Hart, responded by saying the seal of the confessional was “inviolable” and “can’t be broken”. He said if someone confessed to abusing children, he would encourage them to admit to their crimes outside the confessional so that it could be reported to police.
“I would feel terribly conflicted, and I would try even harder to get that person outside confessional, but I cannot break the seal,” he said. “The penalty for any priest breaking the seal is excommunication.”
Hart said the commission “hasn’t damaged the credibility of the church”.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
The archbishop of the archdiocese of Melbourne, Denis Hart, in essence was saying that he would obey catholic cannon law over Australian laws, if faced by the conflict.
This refusal to follow statute law means that the catholic church is not safe and should not be allowed into countries where protection of children is considered important.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 17th November 2018 @ 12:11 pm
Bullying may occur in playgrounds, in classroooms, in caughtroom$, in churches, anywhere that police choose to go….
Bullying may be based on age, economic class, race, by sex……
The following stories are fairly easily rewritten to cover any of these forms of abuse.
All of these abuses are a breach of trust.
https://www.vice.com/en_nz/article/wjx5x9/a-racist-system-maori-and-pacific-kiwis-talk-about-the-police?fbclid=IwAR2s-5zTE9dtq6kq0p5xnLgD4y8DL0HLlQZ7bSTgrF_ymAIzN2KcDbVBDK0
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 26th December 2018 @ 9:31 am
As has been pointed out by others, Maori over-representation in prisons and law enforcement attention must be due to racism, but the much greater over-representation of men must just be because men are bad and deserve it. Good research has shown men receive much harsher sentences and treatment than women for the same crimes, but that has not been so clearly shown for Maori vs non-Maori. There are no racially-specific laws that discriminate against Maori or other races, but there are seriously sexist gender-specific laws that discriminate against men. That contributes directly to the difference between male and female imprisonment.
Of course, there will be racial stereotyping by police and indeed by the public. That’s unfortunate for those members of the race who are law-abiding, but not entirely unjustified in the pursuit of law enforcement. _Police will tend to respond to a notification by the public about suspicious looking people doing suspicious looking things. Unfortunately, if people from your race commit crimes at a relatively high rate (for whatever reason) then you’re more likely to be suspected.
One thing that was predicted to increase the effects of police racism is the right of police to pull over any car for no particular reason. Previously, police were only allowed to pull over a driver if there was evidence of a possible crime, such as speeding or unsteady driving that may indicate drunkenness. I never approved of that change. I accept the wisdom of alcohol checkpoints but I believe the overall consequences of allowing agents of the state to interrupt people’s freedom of movement for no particular reason will be to reduce trust and sense of social responsibility.
It’s perhaps helpful for people to know their rights when they are stopped or questioned by police. The police can ask any question they wish but as far as I’m aware we have a legal obligation to provide only our name, date of birth, address, occupation, employer’s identity and who owns the car we are driving. The police will ask if it’s ok to come in or to look in your car; it’s important that people refuse such requests, assert their right to privacy unless police have a search warrant. I don’t like being asked “Have you had anything to drink tonight”, or “Where are you heading?” or “What are you doing here?”, and I feel like responding “My legal, private activities are none of your business; shall I ask you if your wife sucked you off this morning?”. But of course that would be foolish and may lead to a charge of offensive behaviour. I haven’t yet found a way of asserting my right to privacy that doesn’t result in some hostile response from the officer(s). But I’m working on it. Something like “I respect and appreciate the difficult job you’re doing helping to keep society safe, but my privacy is important to me and I would prefer you to limit your questions to those I’m legally obliged to answer.” We’ll see how that goes.
Here’s a fun You Tube video of Americans asserting their rights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_3dDNPwJTU
Comment by Man X Norton — Wed 26th December 2018 @ 11:20 am
@166 – these are immigration and border patrol officers. They are doing a vital job if it means keeping third world invaders out of the USA. If you like Mexico or Somalia etc, go and live there
Comment by Frank — Wed 26th December 2018 @ 2:42 pm
Here is the story of a man protesting against the lack of accountability of CYFs, regarding protecting children from abuse.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/110891315/godgiven-right-to-protest-megaphone-protester-wins-sevenyear-battle-against-ministry
Comment by Murray Bacon — Fri 1st March 2019 @ 4:12 pm
Parental alienation should be illegal. Emotional child abuse and developing negative perspective of targeted parent – psychological and emotional abuse. Effected child may develop parental alienation syndrome aka PAS – thus effecting the future relationship between alienated parent and child.
People just don’t seem to care or see anything wrong with it, in my case anyway. Struggled and still am struggling to find a family lawyer to assist and take over the
nonsense as i’ve had enough emotionally and mentally.
Funny thing is, all the people involved through the case have been females – 7 or 8 counting the judge, lawyer for child and her assistant, applicants lawyers x2 , mother in laws lawyer , mother in law and my child mother. – The outcome, the only two males involved in the case have been neglected and prevented from having the unique father / son relationship which only a father and son can relate.
Now imagine if the tables were flipped, 7 males involved in a mother and daughter family matter with the same outcome… I honestly think it would be in the world news headlines for a week.
I have self represented throughout my entire family court case. Dealing with psychologically abusive lawyers and toxic outlaws really just have no respect for a father son / child relationship which none have experienced the unique bond felt between us. Purposely using my son as a means to cause emotional pain by preventing our time together. Reason being is the pain creates reaction, the reaction then becomes ammunition in court which then takes one back to the start of the vicious cycle.
Concerns of the emotional well being of my son have no importance in the mind of alienating parent, their legal attorney’s and to put a cherry on top – the lawyer for “child” really was lawyer for the child’s malignant narcissistic grand mother, who has been the ring leader behind the abuse. Anyway, hopefully one day my concerns for emotional damage can be acknowledged and dealt with accordingly. I as a man, seems my rights don’t exist.
Excuse my rant, just want people to raise awareness of parental alienation and how it is a means of emotional child abuse and also emotional abuse on the alienated parent. Long term effects on child and father, how to to approach the situation legally and be heard?
Comment by Robin Rudolph — Thu 30th July 2020 @ 1:49 am
I have not seen my son for a quarter of a year now, i’m only limited to one 5 minute video call a week and prior to all this I was part of his everyday life.
Ministry of justice have set out guidelines for parenting through separation, however they don’t seem to follow the guidelines they produce. 3 months apart now and still no scheduled day for a visit with my son. This breaching the parenting order in more ways than 1. Yet, nothing seems to be a problem. I send my ex wife a civilised text message asking after my son and to see how he has been i get reported to police, arrested and charged in the district court… for a text message to my wife (legally still married). Nuts….
Comment by Robin — Thu 30th July 2020 @ 1:58 am