Victoria Carter: Rebuilding parenting skills would help kids get a better start

The scene of a ram raid burglary at the Liquor Centre in Greenhithe, Auckland. Photo / Hayden Woodward.

Ram raids make grim reading and grim times for shopkeepers. If we agree “it takes a village” there are things we can all do. Maybe the first thing to understand is what’s driving it.

A Christmas Eve story in the Herald reported a police analysis of 63 young ram-raiders and found more than half had come to police attention through family violence callouts before they were 3 years old. More than half had been reported as a missing person - so they had chosen to leave their home - and more than half had been picked up as an unaccompanied minor in a risky situation. These kids must think they have no future and maybe no one who cares about them?

Further on in the newspaper was a letter to the editor that suggested education was the key to “fixing” them - which of course it can be - and that truancy should be a bigger priority.

Then I thought, hang on, if you’ve witnessed all this horror before you even start school what does it do to your brain, nervous system and neuro pathways? Have these children in the data ever had anyone read to them a bedtime story regularly to help their literacy? Has anyone counted the pegs with them as the washing was hung out, counted the cracks in the pavement as they’ve gone for walks?

My mother, Valerie Davies, used to remind me when my babies were crying or not sleeping that it was their only way to tell me what they needed. And babies need company and cuddles. Wriggling away from a nappy change or spitting out food wasn’t to annoy but to communicate their likes and dislikes before they could talk.

She had a simple rule: unco-operative or misbehaving children were usually either tired, thirsty, hungry or needed a cuddle and it’s amazing to this day how often it’s true! So I always carried a bottle of water and a few gingernuts (no crumbs) in the car for unexpected hold-ups.

Her other rule was to say yes as often as possible to requests, and no when it was only absolutely necessary.

Imagine not being able to say how you are feeling because no one in your family has helped you understand your feelings of sadness, anger, hurt or puzzlement. What would it be like to never hear regular encouragement or praise, just know a clip on the ear?

There’s no shortage of research, articles and material on domestic violence and its impact on child development. New Zealand is right up there on the family violence charts in OECD countries and 70 per cent of family violence occurs in households where there are children.

The police spend more time on family harm incidents than anything else. Every three minutes, on average, the police are called to one. And don’t forget it’s widely believed most of it is not reported.

The more reading I did the more I thought how bloody obvious it is: that if a small child is exposed to violence - either being hit themselves or seeing family members being hurt - moves house regularly, doesn’t get enough food, has no routine, their development is impacted. What was really disturbing was the new research on brain development or lack thereof from the home environment.

Keryn O’Neill, is knowledge manager at Brainwave, a charitable trust focused on research and programmes to support parents - encouraging consistent, loving care to grow great brains. She says children exposed to family violence often experience other forms of maltreatment as well.

There is more knowledge about how the impact of stress hormones on pregnant mothers, higher levels of cortisol, maternal stress affecting the development of babies’ nervous systems and altering genes involved in brain development can have lasting impacts on psychological wellbeing, behaviour and mental illness.

If you’ve grown up blocking sounds, experiences, tuning out noise to cope with your home environment imagine how that might get in the way of learning at school. If you’ve not had enough sleep the night before or, worse, had your sleep interrupted, not had enough food, moved from school to school - what might that disruption do to your learning?

Wringing hands and saying we need to insist children attend school seems to me to miss the point. So does sending them to a harsh boot camp – where is the nurturing, encouragement and support that many of these children haven’t ever experienced? It seems like some basic steps are missing.

Dame Lesley Max has always inspired me with her wonderful work strengthening the bond between parents and their children with the Hippy (Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters) programme provided by the Great Potentials Foundation and I knew she might have a suggestion.

Max suggests: “We need to restore the mana of parenting. We need a social movement for this purpose, it’s not a moral judgment but based purely on what we know from research and science. Emotionally responsive nurturing, especially from birth to around 3 is vital for the healthy development of the brain.”

She added: “Nearly 30 years ago the British Medical Journal identified parenting as the most important public health issue facing society … not much has changed in the intervening years.”

If we know this, when are government agencies going to develop strategies to better support good parenting? When are we as a community going to say stop the hitting, any kind of violence? When are we going to agree the most important job is bringing up healthy children and put in steps to make sure that the right support structures are there?

If it takes a village how are we going to get that social movement on the mana of parenting? It’s probably the most important job any of us will have.

I want to see political party manifestos that tackle this issue and offer genuine solutions for children and young people to thrive. Instead of the criminal focus this might do more to nurture good citizens. Which political party is going to focus on the beginning – the parenting - rather than focusing on the crime?

- Victoria Carter, ONZM, is a former city councillor and businesswoman.