Children
are Unbeatable! is an alliance of organisations and individuals seeking
legal reform to give children the same protection under the law on
assault as adults and promote positive, non-violent discipline.
As an
individual and through Caring for Children I have had a long term
association with Children are Unbeatable! (Cau!), but in both roles
it has been as a passive supporter. However when I had the invitation
to attend this Day Conference on 15th January it seemed like a good
time to think about becoming a bit more active.
For some
time the Chair of Caring for Children has been suggesting that CfC
should initiate a debate about re-framing of the way in which children
are regarded in our society. I thought this day might help to find
some ways of taking forward his intention. We have had a roll-call
of dishonour as child after child has been killed by close family
members, who under the present law can physically assault their children
legally. We have to stop these tragedies being a three-day media wonder,
until some pop stars’ doings offer the promise of upping newspaper
circulation figures more, after which we wait to be harrowed all over
again the next time.
The event
was held at the Abbey Community Centre, 34 Great Smith Street, in
London. I have to confess that I had not previously got past Church
House and the DfES, so I was curious about where and what this venue
might be, always being on the look-out for suitable gathering places.
In fact it is an old Public Baths building and still has entry doors
marked ‘Men’ and ‘Women’. I wondered if I
would find myself on the set for ‘Steaming’, but in fact
the interior has been well converted and offered a range of facilities
for such events.
The Chair
for the morning was Baroness Walmsley, whose task was to steer us
through presentations from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, an
in-put on young people’s views and an up-date on international
developments.
In her
opening remarks she indicated that Cau! wants to aim to reduce violence
to children and plan how to get the law changed, both for the children
of today and those of tomorrow. A sea-change needs to be instigated
in the ways in which our society respects and treats children.
During
the presentations issues of our poor record on implementing the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child and Westminster’s ability
to ignore research evidence with which it did not agree were raised.
One example was research findings clearly linking physical abuse with
the production of chemicals in the brain which can affect socialisation.
It was
stressed throughout that parents must be helped and supported to find
alternative strategies to manage their children, but that this needs
to come through changes in attitude. A good starting point would be
to stop referring to hitting or smacking children and instead to recognise
that physical attacks on them are assault, just the same as they are
on adults, sometimes resulting in Grievous or Actual Bodily Harm,
not to be sanitised as over-zealous chastisement.
One problem
is that making physical abuse of children illegal is mistakenly associated
with a call for a complete lack of discipline. Nothing could be further
from the reality. What Cau! is actually working for is better parent
education and wanting to support them in the harder task of consciously
thinking what they are doing, rather than lashing out.
A lot
of concern is also prevalent about bullying child-on-child. Perhaps
it is time to think where young bullies learn that if you are bigger
and stronger you can impose your will on someone smaller and weaker
by use of violence.
Keep
checking to see how CfC Council decides to follow up this challenging
day.
