Attitudes To Children - Children’s Commissioner – Dr John Angus
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The IHC Childrens Rights Seminar on 23 March in Wellington which focused on Early and Sustained Support for Children with a Disability was a resounding success! Government and non-Government agencies, parents, advocates, and professionals from all sectors came together to discuss a range of issues facing children with a disability and their families in early life. The three presentations from the seminar can be accessed here and a further document stating IHC’s round up of the issues and plan for action will be released shortly. IHC also announced the beginning of a new e-discussion group on this topic which received huge support, if you are interested in joining this group please email laura.o.donovan@ihc.org.nz indicating your interest and what you would like to get from this discussion group.
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Attitudes To Children - Children’s Commissioner – Dr John Angus
- 1. A presentation to StartStrong : a children’s rights seminar on early and sustained support for children with a disability Dr John Angus Children’s Commissioner Wellington, 22 March 2010 Attitudes to children, attitudes to disability and children’s rights
- 3. The social and economic position of children: some reflections
- 5. Childhood and poverty Proportion of all individuals in low-income households by age Household Incomes in NZ: Trends and indicators of inequality and hardship 1982-2008 (MSD 2009)
- 6. Childhood and access to parents
- 13. A way ahead: children as citizens
- 15. Children as citizens Photographs of school children used with permission of Kawerau South School. Photo of mother and child used with permission of the Families Commission.
- 19. The importance of attitudes
- 20. In conclusion…
Notes de l'éditeur
- Thank you for inviting me to speak at the start of this important series of seminars on support for children with a disability. I applaud this initiative by IHC Advocacy both for its focus on early and sustained support for children with a disability and for its rights based approach. I wish you well for a constructive discussion of the early supports that are currently available and the barriers to accessing quality integrated early support, which are I think considerable. I look forward to learning of the ideas for action that will come out of this seminar
- I thought it might be useful at the start of this seminar series to set the scene by looking at the position of children in contemporary New Zealand, and at our attitudes to children and childhood generally. Then I want to advocate for an approach to children that focuses on them as citizens in New Zealand in their own right - all children. Then I want to make some comment on how this approach reinforces and can draw on and reinforce strengths in the disabilty sector. What is in the interests of children with disabilities is in the interest of all children. And what is good for all children includes those with a disability - all of them. As Forest and Pearpoint have said “the criterion for inclusion is breathing”.
- First then, the social and economic position of children in contemporary New Zealand. There is a great deal of information on the social and economic position of children in New Zealand and I do not intend to present it all here. If any of you are interested in my understanding of it then there are speeches about it on the Office of the Children’s Commissioner’s website. I want to present instead what I see as some paradoxes about the position of children in New Zealand. Some contradictory positions in their circumstances that have come out of changes since the 1960s.
- I suggest there are three significant paradoxes : We know more and more about the benefits of a well resourced childhood - but children have been for 20 years the age cohort most likely to be in hardship and poverty We have smaller families - but children get less time from their parents Social services like health and education have improved and so have outcomes for many children - but wide disparities remain Let me unbundle these paradoxes a little.
- First the persistence of childhood poverty and hardship. This graph shows what has happened to levels of income over time for different age groups. The vertical axis is the percentage of a cohort in income poverty (10%, 20% and so on). The horizontal axis is years from 1982 to 2008. The blue line represents the proportion of children below the income poverty line as defined here. Let me make four points: First, children are in all data points but one the group worst off. They have consistently been over twice as likely to be in poverty as those over 65. Second, children bore the brunt of the impact on incomes of the 1990s recession and fiscal responses to it. Third government income support policy has a big impact and it is sustained over time. The benefit cuts in the early 1990s helped to double child poverty rates, and the rates do not start to come down again much until Working for Families kicks in in 2004. These changes are a result of decisions by our governments Fourth, other evidence shows that poverty is much more prevalent in benefit dependent households than in working households. This too is a result of decision made in the Working for Families policy to advantage children in working families. So there is a paradox. We know the deleterious effects of material hardship on children, in particular young children. And obviously they cannot improve their situation by saving for a rainy day or getting paid work. Yet we have policies that leave them the group most likely to be in poverty and in hardship.
- A second paradox is that although the number of children in a family has halved since the 1960s from 4 to 2 , the time each child gets from the most important adults in their lives, their parents, seems to have significantly reduced. This is a consequence primarily of the increased working hours of parents. Two things are now very common: Both parents working, often long hours Increased use of childcare - with its use growing fastest for children under 2 We cram more into our days. I understand that it is now common for many families not to sit down together most evenings for a meal. So we have fewer children per parent, but less time to invest in our children. We have changed our social and economic arrangements dramatically in the past 30 to 40 years. There have been many gains for women and for us all in our material circumstances. But one consequence is more stressful lives for children and more difficulty in fitting in time to meet their needs. These pressures, of course, can be exacerbated when children have particular needs.
- The third paradox is in the social circumstances of children - health and education For many children, health status and educational attainment have improved considerably over the past 20 years. There is plenty of evidence of this in Ministry of Social Development reports on the wellbeing of children, in health data and in education data - where New Zealand children do well internationally. But many New Zealand children, up to a fifth in some domains of wellbeing, do poorly. They are too ill too often and at risk of long term ill health too far behind their peers in educational achievement too often unsafe, insecure and poorly nurtured in their families These disparities are not new. They have existed for several decades through periods of economic growth as well as recession. For many, Maori in particular, they have not reduced. We have known about them. We have known much about how to solve them, sometimes through redistribution of resources. And we have failed to do so.
- Why is it that we see New Zealand as a great place to bring up children, and encourage our friends, sons, grandchildren to come back from overseas to have a family, yet for too many children New Zealand is not such a great place. Children are the age group most likely to be in poverty and economic hardship. Why when families are smaller and knowledge of the importance of parenting is growing, do our social and economic arrangements seem to limit parents time to do it well so much. Why are the disadvantages and disparities in health and education only priorities from time to time and not consistently addressed? For example, the government, to its credit, has made the failures of the education system for 1 in 5 pupils a priority – but we have known about it for 20 years and attention to it has been patchy. And in your field, the problem of providing a coordinated service to deal with disparities has been known about for at least three decades but seems intractable.
- I suggest there are three reasons why, or perhaps more accurately I have three hypotheses to put forward. It is because children are relatively invisible in contemporary New Zealand It is because children and their interests carry little weight in our political world It is because we have a complex set of attitudes to children not all of which value their contribution Let me look at these in turn.
- The first is children’s relative invisibility. Children’s actions and opinions are given little attention: In the media children and young people are generally presented as heroes or as villains – and almost always about what they do rather than what their ideas are. (National standards debate example) There is a tendency to subsume children into adult led groups as dependent children in families (GST and low income families example) or pupils in school (National standards) Children’s views are seldom sought. We went looking for children’s views on swimming pools. Almost all of the surveys were of those 16 years and older yet children are a significant user group.
- The second is that children carry little weight in politics. Children’s interests struggle to find a place in the formal mechanisms of government. No minister for children No office or department in the core sector of government No mechanisms to include children’s interests in policy development Children carry little weight in the political marketplace they do not vote – unlike older citizens whose interests are powerful - witness fiscal constraints but National Superannuation sacrosanct. the families of disadvantaged children are in are not in the middle income group whose votes are bid for with such policies as tax cuts rate charges and student loan arrangements.
- The third reason lies in our attitudes to children and childhood. Here I have drawn considerably on a stimulating book by Hugh Cunningham on children and childhood in western society since 1500 (Hugh Cunningham Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500, Harlow 2005). I will consider three common adult attitudes to children and perspectives on childhood: children as in development, children as innocents, and children as sinners. First, children as not yet fully developed into full citizens, as an uncompleted project. I once heard this perspective on children described as seeing them as “human becomings’, as being in development but still growing, as it were into their full ‘humanness’. This perspective is implicit in some developmental literature and in the policy discourse that focuses on good outcomes of childhood. It can sell children short as members of society now, due rights and respect as contemporary citizens, as entitled to the full set of human rights - certainly social, and economic and cultural rights. A second attitude, still very common, is children as innocents, pure and unready for adult life. This is sometimes referred to as the romantic view. Cunningham argues that the western view of children still carries many of the perspectives that formed in the transformations of the 18th century - the Enlightenment - during which childhood came to be seen as very distinct from adulthood. (In earlier times children had been seen as small versions of adults). Childhood is, it is argued, a time of innocence Children are to be protected to develop naturally. This thinking has informed much of the movement for the protection for children - from labour to sexual images. Perhaps it informed those who initiated this series of seminars? There is, however, a potential for notions of vulnerability and dependency to invalidate a child’s views and to discount or even oppose their exercise of power. Third, and having its origins back further in history than the romantic view, there continues to be a strand in our attitudes to children that reflects a view that children are, as Cunningham says ‘the embodiment of souls in need of salvation’. This belief of manifests itself in the view that children have to be firmly guided into what is right and proper. It is, I think, more pervasiv e than we think, as anyone entering into a discussion of children’s rights will quickly find. I think it is behind the rather punitive attitudes to children that are often expressed in New Zealand. So I argue that these attitudes to children are part of why we have not as a society striven to fully embrace children in our lives, to give their interest weight in politics and to deal to the difficulties some of them face.
- Let me turn to the second part of this presentation: a children as citizens approach. I have argued that children are Relatively invisible Without political power Devalued as full participants in our society by some of the longstanding beliefs and attitudes we have about them What is the way out of this state? A change is necessary if we are to get the best out of children, and children are to get the best out of childhood - all children including those with a disability. I suggest that what we need to do is to give emphasis to children as citizens in their own right, as agents in their own lives. We need, for example, to accept children and young people as citizens fully capable of having their say and engaging in the political world - as the ethnic youth council pictured in this image are doing so purposefully.
- Some of the most exciting thinking about children comes from a sociological perspective. It gives emphasis to children as a unique social group: one with its own culture, its own spaces (playgrounds and cyberspace) and some would say its own language (texting and new usage - random). Children are seen as agents in their own lives, not as passive recipients of services or as subservient dependents in families. And children are accepted as social actors capable of participating in much of wider community and political life. For me, much of this rings true. And some of it is starting. Cunningham argues that family life is much more now about negotiation between parents and children. Peter Moss and Pat Petrie, in a seminal book have argued for a reorientation of schools from services to children to spaces where children and teachers work on important business (Peter Moss and Pat Petrie, F rom Children’s Services to Children’s Spaces, New York 2002). So I think that if we are to fully embrace children in our lives and to work with them to get the best out of their childhoods, then we need to see them much more through this sort of lens - as agents, actors and citizens in their own right .
- So I believe that changing the adverse economic and social circumstances of too many children in New Zealand, and dealing with the paradoxes. I have described, will require a change in attitudes. It will require: children being more visible children and their interests carrying greater political weight and our attitudes and perspective on children and childhood changing
- I want to turn briefly to the position of children with a disability. I will cover three things: The rights basis of support for children with a disability A look at the education sector as an area of children’s lives in which a rights approach should predominate The importance of attitudes
- A rights based approach to support for children with a disability is written in to what might be seen as foundation documents for current policies and practises. UNCROC has a specific Article 23 on the rights of children with a disability to enjoy a full and decent life with dignity, self reliance and active participation in life. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities asserts rights to autonomy, non discrimination, inclusion and respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities New Zealand Disability Strategy sets out a vision for a “non-disabling” society that respects human rights diversity, inclusion and the treatment of disabled people equitably regardless of (inter alia) age This is a good platform to build on.
- Let me turn to education as a vital area of the lives of all children - and to education services as the setting for a big part of all children’s daily lives. My office has a children’s rights line that receives many calls, some 1000 a year - about circumstances in which children’s rights and interests are - in the view of the caller - not being taken well enough into account. Last year some 25% of those calls concerned education and by far the majority of them were about access - either as a result of disciplinary measures of the school or access to education by children with a disability. Our investigations of those calls suggests that we have a long way to go to fully implement a rights based approach to education of children with a disability. We find: Children denied access because they don’t fit Access being limited by assumptions about needs - e.g. that a teacher aide is necessary all of the time Access being overly limited by the quantum of resources available Clearly we have some way to go. I look forward to the discussion on the review of inclusive education being conducted by the Associate Minister and the Ministry of Education.
- The third point I want to make in this final part of the presentation is how important attitude is in particular our attitude to children with disabilities and their reaction to our attitudes. Many of you will know this much better than me. For inclusion to be successful, the teacher needs to believe that the child can succeed. In an early childhood or school setting teacher attitude is paramount and contributes more to a child’s success in education than funding or policies and legislation. Research has shown that a positive attitude combined with sound general teaching methods are the important variables in inclusion. Another often demonstrated fact is that the class teacher’s attitude is reflected in the students’. If the teacher has an approach that is welcoming and inclusive, this will be reflected in the class members. The same can be said for the wider society. Because positive attitudes towards children with diverse abilities are essential to the success of inclusive education, additional training for teachers in how to teach children with diverse abilities leads to improvements in individual attitudes and then improvements in the school ethos towards educating children with diverse learning needs. Russell Bishop has demonstrated this in attainment by Maori pupils. The same principles apply to success for children with disabilities. This takes the focus away from the commonly held belief that the child must change to meet the requirements of the school and places the onus back on the school to become more accepting of difference.
- I have sought to set out the wider context of children with disabilities, both interim of the social and economic positions of children in New Zealand, and our attitudes to children and to childhood. I have described three paradoxes in the position of children Hardships with wealth Poverty of time within families Disparities in education and health despite progress for most. I have argued that this is a consequence of: Children’s interests relatively invisible in public life Children carry little political clout Some common attitudes get in the road I contend that a focus on children as citizens will overcome some of these barriers to all children doing better. Turning to children with disabilities I see great advantage and some strength to build on, is a focus on children as citizens entitled to a full and decent life with dignity, self reliance and active participation. This will, I think, entail a change in the attitudes of many adults to accept all children, in particular, children with disabilities in their own right and to a considerable extent on their own terms. It will be challenging, exciting and rewarding for us all.