Talking Smack With Bob

Talking Smack With Bob

Jackson Wood

Salient Editor Jackson James Wood talks to Family First National Director Bob McCoskrie about smacking, smacking children, and smacking the anti-smacking law.

JW: What is a smack?

BM: Basically a smack on the bottom with an open hand or on the top of the hand. Basically some application of force that doesn’t involve bruising or welts or injury. A short sharp shock I guess is the way some people would describe it.

JW: How hard is that, in force—newtons perhaps?

BM: Once again, you’re giving it back to parents making the judgment that there is no long-term or short-term damage. But it is enough to stop the kind of behavior that is unacceptable. It can vary because of the age of the child.

JW: The older they are the harder you can smack them?
BM: A little tap, a two fingered tap on the top of a hand of a three year old can be sufficient. Whereas it wouldn’t be for a 7 year old. Once again, parents understand what works and that’s what the research has shown. Generally it is used as a follow up when other forms of correction haven’t worked. It is when there is some defiance and it is follow up action.

JW: The amendment you support says open hand smacking—so you can’t use implements?
BM: It takes away any use of implements. We think that is a win–win middle ground. There was concern around a couple of cases that used implements, so let’s end any doubt and make it clear, it is simply just an open hand smack on the bottom or hand.

JW: The case where a father was prosecuted for pushing his child over, you said this guy was a “great dad”. Is pushing a child over analogous to a smack?

BM: That case was misreported. The reason we can say that is because we were actually in the courtroom at the time of the processing of that. In fact, what he was doing was he had his hand on the back of the child and was trying to get him out on the sports field. The kid was wearing sprigs. There was resistance from the child and he was tripping over.

JW: Three times?

BM:Yeah. The father simply wasn’t throwing him to the ground, or pushing him to the ground as made out. He was trying to get him out on the field.

JW: Three times? He didn’t stop to help him up?

BM:The child was trying to resist getting out on the field. Once again, one of the problems with this case is that the whole charge has been laid on the evidence of one person driving past. When there was no concern shown by other parents who were present at the time. It is their interpretation of what happened. So there has been one witness. There is no veracity to that claim.

JW: Assault: What is the difference between me correcting one of my staff members, my partner or even you? Why is there a difference? Why can I, as a human being, hurt another human being? What makes that okay?

BM:There is a huge difference, and that is in the nature of the relationship. The difference with a child is that there is a parent/child relationship. In the same way I can’t tell you to eat your peas or when to go to bed. Or the same way I can’t put you into time out when I’m sick of your bad attitude. That is because it is an adult/adult relationship. A parent child relationship is very different. A parent is responsible for the actions, behaviour and development of that child and sometimes there is an element of force that is necessary—whether that is removing them to time out, or yanking away that plate of food because of withdrawal of privileges. That is what the original Section 59 took into account and what we’re failing to recognise at the moment.

JW: What if it is one of my employees? I have responsibility for them under law and they’re doing something that puts Salient in jeopardy. What is the difference there, why can’t I smack them?

BM:Because they’re an adult. It is a totally different relationship. At the end of the day you can actually use force. It is called policing. Tasering. Batons. It is called putting them in a prison cell. So force can be used. Once again it is in the context of what is happening. Every Saturday there are hundreds of people assaulted on a rugby field. The reason it isn’t taken to the police is because it is in the context of a game—a very physical game, and it is not an issue. We’re saying that it is in the context of a parent child relationship and it is not abusive then. It is just part of parents raising good kids. It has been done for generations and it hasn’t been a problem.

JW: What exactly is your problem with the legislation as it stands?

BM:The benchmark is so low that it criminalising parents who use a light smack. We’ve put examples of these cases to the Prime Minister. It has simply gone too far and that is why we support an amendment, which doesn’t go back to the original Section 59. We believe that it is a middle ground and a win-win situation in that it more clearly defines what is reasonable. It takes away the use of implements to avoid any doubt. It says there can be no evidence of bruising or welts—that’s an immediate indicator of whether it has gone too far and also says that it can’t be degrading or humiliating. If that father had repeatedly thrown his boy to the ground because he didn’t like the fact he wasn’t going on the rugby field, that would be degrading an humiliating. The problem is that is not what happened.

JW: Can you identify a single case in the last two years where the amended section 59 has been applied injudiciously?

BM:Yes. We have six cases in front of the Prime Minister at the moment that involve a simple open-handed slap on the leg, a couple on the bottom, a smack on the arm, pulling the blankets off a kid who won’t get up in the morning. Throwing a pair of jeans at a child to get them to hurry up in the morning.

We believe the law is being applied wrongly. One of the interesting issues about all this is that people have questioned the referendum question and said, “What is good parental correction?”

If you look at the new Section 59 you’ll actually see that one of the categories for when you can use reasonable force is “good care and parenting”. Okay. Now, they say, how do you define “good parental correction”, and yet within the law that they’ve passed they say you can use reasonable force when it is part of good care and parenting. Well, they need to define that. There is a red herring about the referendum question because they don’t like the answer it is coming to. But at the same time they’re willing to use the same type of wording within the law and say it is working.

JW: What was the thought pattern behind the question?

BM: I can’t answer that question. We came into the process after the referendum had been launched by Larry Baldock and simply supported it because we knew that the majority of parents didn’t like it.

JW: Have you talked to Larry about it?

BM: I haven’t really. I know he went through a process. I’ve looked at the act—I know you have to get it formulated by the Clerk of the House. It was publicly notified for a month. Groups like Plunket and Banardos could’ve objected to the question when it was publicly notified. But they didn’t because they never believed the petition would be successful.

JW: Would you could you smack John Key? / Could you would you then smack me?

BM:Up a tree?

JW: Key’s comments about the question being written by Dr Seuss…

BM:It smacks of desperation to me.

JW: Both John Key and Phil Goff have said they’re not going to vote. Why do you think that is and how do you feel about his comments?

BM: John Key says that he is not going to vote because it is a chance for the people to speak. There may be some validity in that, but I am pretty sure I saw him voting in the recent general election.

The second point is that when Phil Goff and John Key say they’re not going to vote, they simply don’t like the answer they’re coming to. Phil Goff has been asked the referendum question and he said “No”.

JW: There has been a certain amount of misunderstanding about the question, I’m sure you would agree…

BM:What is the misunderstanding?

JW: John Boscawen said he would be voting yes in an interview.

BM: He wasn’t asked the referendum question. He just said “Yes, I don’t support the anti-smacking law”. That was a big beat up by Sue Bradford. He said yes, but he didn’t say yes to the referendum question.

JW: Most of the other candidates who answered the question managed to align their views with the question. Many of them also said yes. When the question was the referendum question.

BM:Good. Melissa Lee made a few faux pas as well. I would encourage you to give John Boscawen a call and put the referendum question to him and see what he says.

JW: Hindsight is great.

If the upcoming review showed that it wasn’t working, then you could have seized upon that and used it to your advantage. Whereas now the review, which comes out at the end of this month will likely show it seems to working. People might have run out of steam by then…

BM:There are two aspects to that question. Firstly, people simply oppose the law. End of story. They just don’t agree with the law even being in existence. That’s the first part. The second part is the review. We’ve already had a couple of reviews. It’s already been established that despite the myth going around, nine people have been prosecuted in the first 15 months. There will be more in the review coming up. Kids are ringing CYFS [Child Youth and Family Services] and saying they’ve had a smack. We’ve got a documented case of an 11-year-old who didn’t like being grounded from going to a friend’s party so rung up CYFS and said “I’ve been smacked”.

CYFS come around to investigate. Remove the child while they do the investigation. It’s not only prosecutions we’re concerned about. It is the persecutions. And it is highly traumatic for these families to go through that type of investigation and suspicion. It is simply because we’ve put the benchmark so low.

JW: What do you think of the idea that parents who smack their children cannot control their own anger?

BM: That is the biggest load of bollocks I’ve ever heard. It makes out as though anyone who uses a smack is completely out of control. There are some rotten parents, I’m the first to admit that, what we want to do is target those rotten parents and but not implicate good parents in the process.

JW: How do you define a rotten parent?

BM: A parent who doesn’t look after their children, don’t send them to school. Don’t send them with food. Don’t feed their kids. The Families Commissioner’s report two weeks ago said neglect is five times more common as a form of abuse than violent or sexual abuse. So we’ve got to get realistic about this. All those reports that’ve come out of CYFS and UNICEF, out of Families Commission, have said kids are at risk when there is drug and alcohol abuse. When there is non-biological adults living in the house—when mum’s got the live-in boyfriend—when there is family breakdown and dysfunction and the poverty and stress associated with that—that’s when families are at risk.

There are plenty of parents who just tell off their kids, who completely lose control, and say things they should never say to their kids. There are also people who put them in time out for periods far longer than what is appropriate.

The argument is a smack is on the continuum to child abuse—physical abuse. Time out is on a continuum to neglect. Withdrawal of privileges is on a continuum to bribery and bullying. A telling off by a parent is on the continuum to verbal and emotional abuse. All of those things are an extreme. All we’ve done is look at the technique rather than the person or the parent that is administering it. It’s a bit like saying that everyone who has a glass of wine is going to become an alcoholic, or everyone who buys a raffle ticket becomes addicted to gambling.

JW: Supporters of the repeal of Section 59 weren’t quite eloquent enough to say that the repeal was about making the law fair to everyone. Anyone can be assaulted.

BM: It was already fair because it said force had to be reasonable and you use the word assault, you immediately bring in a terminology that just doesn’t apply to a parent that is correcting a child with a smack on the bottom.

The reason the law never won any success, people simply don’t see it as assault. The question that groups like Barnardos, Plunket and the government need to be asking themselves is if the country is so desperate to deal with the problem of child abuse—which we have—why have they been unable to sell the anti-smacking law. Simply because it’s been misdirected and it’s tried to equate a good parent, who might use a smack on the bottom to raise a good kid, with a rotten parent like the caregivers of Nia Glassie or the Kahui twins who are abusers. Some people simply don’t accept that equation.

JW: It removed the defence of being able to use discipline to get off…

BM:It basically said that a smack was illegal.

JW: Before the law was passed, parents were using S59 to get away with abusing their children.

BM: No. That is your interpretation. All those cases were going before juries. If the law was allowing that, then you simply get the police to administer the law better, you don’t do away.

Let’s disperse the myth here. This wasn’t about an anti-smacking bill, that’s just the media’s fault. When Sue Bradford launched this bill she called it the anti-smacking bill. Groups like Barnados and Plunket and other government groups—they’ve all wanted smacking banned. They just need to be honest about what their intention was. They don’t like smacking. They think it’s assault. They think it is violence and the majority of New Zealanders simply disagree with them.

JW: Do you think children, at some level, if you believe they’ll understand what you’re saying to them as we’re all humans, that if you can explain to them that what they’re doing is wrong and there is a consequence to it, and you don’t have to reinforce that with pain?

BM: That’s why, as the kids get older you’re probably not going to be smacking. As the research shows, the meta analysis is that the most effective time you will probably have to use it, and it’s at its most effective, is between two and six. After that kids can reason. You can explain to a child. But I tell you what, when you see that kid doing an upside down ant impersonation on the floor of the super market that is not a time to sit down and have a reasoned debate. Kids just don’t want to reason. If you’ve dealt with a tired child at about 5:30 at night, and most parents will know what I’m talking about when I talk about the ‘witching hour’—around tea time, late in the day, kids are scratchy. Sometimes reasoning just doesn’t work. This is the reality of parenting.

JW: What if you’re wrong? Family First points out there are a whole lot of social problems in New Zealand—what if you’re wrong and those social problems are a direct result of using physical force against children and it’s a cyclical problem?

BM: If I see evidence of that, then I’ll be the first to accept it. But there is not a single bit of reputable research that smacking done by a non-abusive parent is harmful. Not a single shred of evidence.

JW: Were you smacked as a child?

BM:Yes.

JW: Regularly?

BM:When I deserved it is all I remember.

JW: You don’t have bad feeling about that towards your parents?

BM:No. In fact I even got the strap at primary school.

JW: You didn’t think that when the teacher applied the strap or when your parents applied the wooden spoon they were doing wrong by you?

BM: No. No. That’s just it. I think some people would say I got it and it was highly traumatic. My argument would be it wasn’t the technique that was the problem; it was the way it was applied. I’ve been a social worker in South Auckland for 12 years and I spent far more time dealing with kids who had been told by their parents they were absolute nothings and they were going to amount to nothing and just were useless. The harm the spoken word can do is just as damaging. It goes back to not necessarily the technique, but the way it is used. I think parents are rotten when they leave their kids in the car on time out when they’re up in the casino gambling away all the money.

JW: What is your vision for an ideal New Zealand?

BM: Where families grow up in safe communities. Where kids are in safe environments and strong families. There are a whole lot of areas. It’s like the name, it’s where we start putting our families first in terms of social policy and some of the standards we have in the community.

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