Maori league looks to new ways of parenting

By ANGELA GREGORY

Eight years ago nearly 500 members of the Maori Women's Welfare League rose to their feet and clapped at the suggestion that naughty children deserved a hiding.

The 1992 annual conference at Kaitaia had just passed a remit that parents' rights over the care of their children be reviewed under the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act.

Not all the league members had been impressed with the rousing support for physical discipline. But there had been concern that parents could no longer discipline their children by hitting them without ending up in court.

At the weekend's 48th league conference at Mangere, in Manukau City, members looked slightly aghast when reminded of the Kaitaia applause over a junior delegate's call for parents to be able to strike disobedient children.

The league's president, Jacqui Te Kani, said the attitudes back then were a reflection that many of the members had themselves been smacked as children.

"We were brought up with love and were spoken to a lot, but a lot of us have been brought up with a smack.

"I suppose it was about discipline ... there is a smack and there is a bash."

Jacqui Te Kani said the climate had changed and she believed that even smacking children should be avoided.

Despite the recent concerns and media reports of sickening cases of Maori child abuse, the issue was not a major focus of the three-day conference, which had as its theme whakamana whanau (future flourishing families).

Jacqui Te Kani said that was because the league had been talking about child abuse for at least 10 years and bringing its increasing incidence to the Government's notice.

"We have been making inroads."

She had nonetheless set down "safety for women and our children" as a workshop topic and described the problem as a "crisis that is at a 'peak level'."

"If we do not find solutions for the protection and safety of our women and children, that situation will become unremovable."

Jacqui Te Kani said the league's parenting programme, launched last year, was a solution to the abuse by getting mentors involved with at-risk Maori families.

A past league president, Areta Koopu, doubted the league had ever condoned smacking children.

But she acknowledged that there was a period when "everyone was giving their children a smack."

She was sure that there had been a change in attitude since 1992 and said that the conference had stressed Maori were to stop harming their children.

League member Moana Herewini agreed that views had changed.

Maori women were learning to look after their children in ways other than through smacking.

"They would not get a hurrah here like they did at Kaitaia."