NEW ZEALAND

'Bubble-wrapped' kids denied vital development

Middle-class parents can be so paranoid about the safety of their children that may be stunting the risk-taker's advantage, says visiting Canadian Professor Michael Ungar.

"Kids need to be exposed to some challenges," he says.

Being overly protective denies children identity-boosting rites of passage.

"Bubble-wrapping" children by driving them to school, for example, may deny them opportunities to show how grown up and responsible they are, he says.

Prof Ungar, from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and author of Too Safe For Their Own Good, is helping design the New Zealand component of an international study aiming to pinpoint effective ways to help the most troubled youth.

Massey University researchers Robyn Munford and Jackie Sanders are also involved.

Prof Ungar notes that some children are raised in extremely adverse circumstances, but come out of it all right. He is leading international research into what makes them resilient.

Prof Ungar says young people cope better if they have relationships with other people, a sense of themselves as powerful, a culture to identify with and if they feel part of the community. However, many of them think they find what they're looking for in gangs.

"Our job as a society is to offer good substitutes," says Prof Ungar.

He says troubled young people are able to articulate why they make harmful choices.

Prof Munford says young people often take risks, but it becomes a significant problem when those risks define who they are.

Dr Sanders says young people want to know who will back them.

Prof Munford expects young people themselves will provide pointers to solutions and identify which services and interventions are the most useful.

The Manawatu Standard put it to Prof Munford that Child Youth and Family is intervening more than ever in families, and questioned whether the nation could see improvement as a result. She declined to single out individual agencies.

However, according to a Massey University press release in which she is quoted, the number of children and youth referred by police to CYF is expected to reach 10,500 this year, resulting in about 7600 family group conferences and 180 detentions in youth justice facilities.

Prof Munford says too many young people are marginalised and New Zealand needs to work more effectively with the "hard core" of its troubled young people.

Dr Sanders says intervening reduces both costs and the damage troubled young people inflict upon themselves and others.

All three steer away from "bad parenting" and linking anti-social behaviour with lack of discipline. Dr Sanders suggests parents who quickly resort to physical punishment may later regret their failure to build real communication.

Grant Millar
21 June 2007

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4103322a10.html

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