Clearly Rainier meant ‘expendable’.

Exactly, thanks JR.

Well,if you meant "expendable", that's a pretty extreme thing to say Rainer, because I can't think of a time in history when children have been more protected, and when the definition of childhood has encompassed such a wide range of ages.

Here here Graham.

A study on allegations of clerical sexual abuse of children sent a survey to various religious places collecting data on priests accused of sexually abusing children.

A few hundred of the original priests nominated had to be removed from the data because the allegations they cited related to alleged victims who were over 18 at the time. The fact that many people would include over 18 year olds in a survey relating to children points to the broad concept people now have of children.

Ranier, RObert,
excuse my ignorance but I wonder how these foster families are being examined for suitability. Are foster families not probed in the same manner as families applying for adoption? Ranier I like the way you refer to these two groups (elders and children) as ‘book ends of life’.

StG,
I think that every couple expecting their first child could be presented information on positive parenting as part of the prenatal classes they attend (or supposed to attend) together anyway. Courses like this could be open to any parent who would be interested and hopefully the numbers of parents using positive parenting would vastly increase over the years. Neighbourhood centres, baby health centres and schools would be examples of venues where free courses could be held.

JHH,
yes good point, media reminders do eventually sink in- we have seen some results in other areas like anti- tobacco and anti-aids campaigns and ATM there is an ‘organ donation’ campaign running because organs are in very short supply in Australia.

So there is a good chance that an anti-smacking campaign will have an effect as well. It is also true that even though it is not genes that carry down child abuse, it is certainly a pattern passed on from one generation to the next and we know that cycles can be broken and information and education is the best way to do it.

continued

Johnny Rotten,
thank you for bringing up Religion as a form of abuse. I was keeping the subject till later :)

I agree that religion can be a form of or an excuse for child abuse depending how fanatically and fundamentally it is being conveyed to children. (Spare the rod and spoil the child!)

The Exclusive Brethren are my favourite sect to bash as they are deliberately misleading children. I have no respect for this sect (or cult).
Not only do they mislead children, they DENY them a tertiary education.

Their EB schools are even being rewarded for misleading children and withholding information by Government funding and tax cuts.

I don’t have high regards for the Private faith school system, but the EB school really tops them all!
EB children are not even allowed contact with children that are not EB members. They don’t read newspapers or listen to the news, in fact TV and radio and all media are forbidden (it's evil!)- something that our State schools encourage so I am not sure how the education department can justify funding them.
I'm not even talking about whathappens to children of EB parents who separate where one of the parents gets excommunicated! What a mess!

And what about Jehovah’s Witnesses who deny their children blood transfusion? I don’t mind if they use alternative treatments, but when these don’t proof effective I would say that letting a child die while there is a perfect and simple life-saving solution is unacceptable.

GY, its all reletive, must make the time one day to come get you and take you out to my little school in south briz,