Judith Ann
The media in New Zealand mainly publishes news that has an emotional impact and causes bad reactions, such as racial prejudice: Lauren Anne Dickason, who murdered her three children, the disgusting abuse and murder of Nia Glassie, and Hakyung Lee, the mother of the children whose bodies were found in suitcases in a storage unit.
However these are just the tip of the iceberg of child abuse and neglect. I know of children who have emotional problems because struggling families have nowhere to go for help. Child Welfare seems to have only one response which is to punish the family and traumatise the children by putting them with people who do not care about them.
All political parties have failed to fix the many systemic problems that cause this situation. I have spoken to representatives from every political party and they all agree this is a national disgrace but none of them are willing to take any action. This is not a political issue: it is something that all parties should work on together and put proper protective structures in place to support families who need help and not destroy the family.
New Zealand ranks 32nd out of 36 developed countries for child wellbeing outcomes (mental health, physical health, and skills for children).
UNICEF Innocenti Report 2024
But by 2026 we are now 36th out of 36 for mental health.
These systemic problems mean that:
1. A woman with post-natal depression or some other emotional dysfunction is still expected to cope with a newborn baby and perhaps other preschool children. Taking her children off her into state care and breaking up the family is not the answer. What is the answer? Supporting the family by providing a well-trained older woman to assist her with the childcare and allow her to have a break while a responsible person takes care of the children until bed time. This won’t cost any more that paying someone with no interest in the children’s welfare to ‘look after them’.
- Girls reaching puberty too early causing mental health problems. These poor girls need proper treatment by an endocrine specialist, not given anti-depressants or antipsychotic medication. See the reference at the end of this article.
- Mother and baby are not introduced immediately after birth. Research shows that this early bonding is vital.
4. Kids miss their dads. The family courts still favour mothers, failing to see the harm that results from children missing out on having a protective father figure in their lives. Unless the father is a dangerous person, or has a criminal record, he should be a part of the children’s lives. Have we forgotten Celia Lashlie’s book about the factors that are needed for boys to grow up healthy and happy?
5. Early warning signs missed. Why is child welfare not willing to look at better ways to help families who are struggling rather than having a punitive approach? Families need to be built up and helped in the areas where they are struggling, not broken up and more trauma added to the children. For example, a child is not attending school regularly. Why? Perhaps getting them to school is a financial problem, or perhaps the child is being bullied and the school is not addressing this properly. So each family needs individual help. Throwing money at all families instead of targeted use of funds it illogical.
6. Parenting is a very difficult task and families need support not threats.
Why are those in authority unwilling to change and learn from the countries such as the Netherlands where children thrive?
I believe that prevention is better than cure, so why do the children growing up in countries at the top of the ranking of child wellbeing thrive while our children struggle to survive? With this in mind, I asked Karen Chhour the minister for Child Welfare if she would research the systems in place in these countries. Her reply was that she would ask the CEO for Child Welfare, Amanda Malu, to do this research. So after a while I asked Amanda Malu what systems, if any, she thought we should adopt. She sidestepped my question and sent me a large number of reports on internal reviews, in the hope, I presume, that I would give up asking questions.
Wasting money: Throwing money at this problem is not an answer.
Examples abound. I know of a school in South Auckland with a low-decile ranking and where a generous quantity of in-season fruit is delivered every morning. The teachers are instructed to chop it up and make it attractive to the children and encourage them to eat it. For most of them, it is not food they are accustomed to eating. However the school undermines this by allowing the children to bring ‘play lunch’, which, as you can imagine, consists of packets of sugar-laden artificially coloured junk food. The children prefer their sugar fix and so they refuse to eat the fruit and eat what is in their play lunch bags.
School lunches should only be provided to children who need them and a couple of simple sandwiches and a piece of fruit is all that is needed. The amount of food waste from this failed scheme is another disgrace.
As a retired teacher I dare to suggest that the best place to start improving the health and wellbeing of this nation is to teach children the benefits of good food and good oral hygiene.
Teachers have a very large influence on pupils and a well-motivated teacher can have a positive influence on the pupils in their care.
And teachers are usually aware of which children in their class are unhappy at home and where some proper support is needed for the family.
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