Feminists were told to feminise their boys in the name of equality. Many failed. Yeap, boys are boys.
You pretty much know that if you have one. They are different from girls.

Funny that!

Here is a site I found where the real men are pushing back the gay men and girlie men. Boys raised by homosexuals will turn out gay in 70% of cases but boys raised by heterosexual families still have a good chance of growing up masculine.

Trying to raise a real man in today’s world may be harder than splitting an atom. Everyday our kids are bombarded with images and messages of the most unmanly things imaginable. Magazines are full of sexually ambiguous models dressed in feminine clothes in homo-erotic poses. There’s a new book out every month about how you don’t need a man in the house to raise a man. TV shows typically are full of metro-sexual, gay, and otherwise wimpy male characters, and nearly every Hollywood movie that comes out has at least one homosexual character. Almost every dad in the movies or on TV is either a miserable lout or a complete buffoon. At school your kids are subjected to all sorts of programs designed to promote unmanly lifestyles. Real men have disappeared from history books and have been replaced with politically correct figures. Any boy reading magazines, attending public school, and watching TV or movies would assume that half of the men in the world are gay, and the other half are metro-sexual or girlie men. That’s why your job as a father is as tough as it’s even been. It’s you against the world.

Let’s be clear about a dad’s role in raising a child. It takes a man and a woman to raise a real man. A boy needs a mother to nurture him, and take care of him. He also needs the influence of a strong, masculine male figure in his life. These influences balance each other out. If you’re missing either influence, you tend to get less than optimal results.

You will enjoy the rest of the article.

Real Men Mag

RAISING A REAL MAN IN A METRO-SEXUAL WORLD

“10,000 march against violent crime”. “Mayor wants gangs crushed by army”. “75 percent of children bullied at school”. “Toddler in Starship Hospital with critical head injuries”. These recent newspaper headlines highlight the deep-seated social crisis New Zealand is facing.

It is the ugly side of our country: children being brutilised and killed by adults who should be protecting them; escalating levels of bullying in schools; hordes of disorderly youths causing mayhem on the streets; gangs in control of a lucrative drug trade that has infiltrated deep into communities all around the country. These are problems that are now so serious they cannot be ignored.

The reality is that increasing violence is destroying lives on a daily basis. Hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money is being spent on mopping up the damage with massive human resources needed for front-line crisis work. Endless minds are engaged in devising strategies to deal with the problems, but while many well-meaning people come up with many well-meaning ‘solutions’, few – if any – are prepared to deal with the real root cause of this social crisis.

The fact is that endless studies show that virtually every major social pathology we face can be linked back to the breakdown of the family: violent crime, drugs and alcohol abuse, truancy, unwed pregnancy, suicide, psychological disorders – these all correlate more strongly to the absence of a biological married father in the home than with any other single factor.

The majority of prisoners, juvenile detention inmates, high school dropouts, pregnant teenagers, adolescent murderers, and rapists come from fatherless homes. The connection between single-parent households and crime is so strong that controlling for this factor erases the relationship between race and crime as well as between low income and crime.1

New Zealand’s Principal Youth Court Judge, Andrew Becroft, recently released figures from a study of youth crime that confirms that the majority of serious youth offenders – a staggering 82 percent - have lost contact with their father: only 12 percent of the offenders who came through the court were living with both parents, 28 percent were living with one parent (usually their mother) and 60 percent were not living with either their mother or their father.2

That is clearly not to say that every child being raised without a dad ends up in trouble, or that every child raised by a married couple does well, but on the balance of probability, children raised without their natural father, will face greater difficulties in life, than children brought up with their dad to love, guide and protect them.

Fathers play a vital role in bringing up their children. From the rough and tumble play with toddlers, to the crucial task of setting boundaries, enforcing discipline and challenging children to accept responsibilities and become more independent, a father’s influence is crucial. It is especially the case in the socialisation of teenagers, where a father will provide a role model of what men are supposed to be like on the job, in the home, with women, and with children.

Judge Becroft has described the deep-seated need that boys have for a father figure in this way: “14, 15, and 16 year-old boys seek out role models like ‘heat seeking missiles’. It’s either the leader of the Mongrel Mob or it’s a sports coach or it’s Dad. But an overwhelming majority of boys who I see in the Youth Court have lost contact with their father. …What I’m saying is that I’m dealing in the Youth Court with boys for whom their Dad is simply not there, never has been, gone, vanished and disappeared”.

It is this collapse of fatherhood that is at the heart of New Zealand’s social crisis. There are now hundreds of thousands of New Zealand children growing up in fatherless homes. Too many live in crime-ridden neighborhoods where violence is the norm, where alcohol and drug abuse are commonplace, and where disaffected dropouts roam the streets instead of being meaningfully engaged in school.

According to Judge Becroft an astonishing 80 percent of teenage offenders who go through the youth court have drug or alcohol problems and a staggering 70 percent aren’t enrolled in any form of education!3

This crisis is of the government’s own making. While the seeds of family disintegration were sown by the Labour Government in the seventies - with policies designed to progress the feminists’ agenda of independence for women - successive National governments allowed the situation to get worse.

At the core of the problem is the Domestic Purposes Benefit. Labour introduced the DPB in order to provide unhappy mothers with an alternative to a husband. The DPB gave an unconditional state guaranteed welfare benefit to any woman who wanted to raise a child on her own. Over the years the DPB has become a way of life for hundreds of thousands of women and their children. Many of these are now caught up in a cycle of intergenerational welfare dependency to become part of New Zealand’s growing dysfunctional underclass.

This week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator is renowned author and commentator Sir Bob Jones. In his opinion piece Homo Degeratus, Bob describes - in his forthright way - how a “welfare-sated under-class … is now thriving in New Zealand; slobbering, tattooed, illiterate, pig-ignorant, prolific breeding, drug-infested, alcoholic, welfare dependent, murdering and robbing, barbaric filth and it is all traceable solely to welfare excess and the DPB in particular. I for one have had enough. Disproportionately Maori, their existence is a disgrace, not to Maoridom but to the human race”.

Bob echoes the despair of many New Zealanders when he states: “I sense and personally feel, a widespread sense of hopelessness about the current state of affairs. The solution lies with our politicians but what odds on a set of political circumstances which would throw up another Douglas to embark on a radical social reform as Roger did on the economic front?

He explains, “Ironically, when I write that the solution lies with politicians I could just as easily say that the problem stems from them. Primarily motivated by the pursuit of power, once in office the record shows that politicians driving modus operandi is not to rock the boat”. To read Homo Degeratus, click the sidebar link>>>

Bob is right, of course. It is difficult to find any political will to reform the welfare system in general and the DPB in particular - even though the politicians are well aware that children are the major victims of a system that is supposed to protect them.

No other country has a benefit payment that is as unconstrained as New Zealand’s Domestic Purposes Benefit. As Bob Jones mentions in his article, when the US realised the damage to children – and society - that was being caused by their equivalent of the DPB, President Clinton abolished it. He replaced it with a system that prioritised getting mothers off benefits and back into the workforce. Independence from the state was seen as the key goal. And in spite of a plethora of dire predictions about the consequences, the results have been very positive for all concerned.

New Zealand desperately needs politicians with the courage to do what is right for the country and replace the DPB with a system of temporary support based on work - similar to that found in many other developed countries. Hardship payments should be available for deserted or mistreated spouses, and the parents of teenagers should realise that the responsibility for supporting their teenager to have children of their own, will largely fall on their shoulders.

Most importantly, it should be signalled loud and clear that it is simply no longer acceptable to bear children if they are not going to be properly raised and supported. Children need a mother and a father who will love, nurture and support them, if they are to have the best opportunity at leading a successful and fulfilling life. That means encouraging marriage, since, despite its intrinsic faults, marriage still remains the bedrock institution of civil society providing the glue that binds mothers and fathers together for the common purpose of raising their children well.

Of course, much more needs to be done to support those parents with children who are presently running amuck: special schools with live-in facilities to give these children the routines and boundaries that they will be missing in their home-life may have a place. More than anything, the priority must be to connect these children with the education system, because no matter how bad a child’s home-life may be, an education can provide a life-line to a better future.

There is also much that needs to be done to fight the growing crime and violence within our society – but that is another subject for another day.

While none of this is simple, what we categorically know is that if we carry on as we have in the past, we will end up with a future that is far more violent and problematic that the one we face today. Doing nothing is not an option.

New Zealand urgently needs political leadership in the area of welfare reform. The DPB needs to be replaced as a priority and fatherhood needs to be restored. It is time the political parties stepped up to this challenge.

Political research

Daily Telegraph (Australia) April 17, 2008
Teachers are being urged to stop using terms such as husband and wife when addressing students or families under a major anti-homophobia push in schools. The terms boyfriend, girlfriend and spouse are also on the banned list - to be replaced by the generic “partner” - in changes sought by the gay lobby aimed at reducing discrimination in classrooms. Schools are coming under pressure to provide lessons for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students and stack their libraries with books and videos covering their issues. Among the demands are the outlawing of homophobic comments by teachers or students in the playground and a requirement for teachers to receive “diversity training”.

Education Director-General Michael Coutts-Trotter emerged as a leader of the school anti-homophobia campaign, opening a Government-backed conference on sexual diversity - That’s So Gay. The Federation of Parents and Citizens’ Associations also weighed into the debate calling for “appropriate literacy materials promoting diversity in families”. The radical shake-up means that families with two mums or two dads are set to be accepted as a normal part of school communities.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23551033-5001021,00.html
Family First Comment : part of a disturbing international trend
California - Mom and Dad” as well as “husband and wife” have been banned from California schools READ MORE
Scotland - Use of ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ Too “Homophobic”, Scottish Nurses Told READ MORE
New Zealand - Human Rights Commission (supported by the teachers’ union PPTA!!) says schools should let children change gender, allow kids to choose which uniform they wish to wear (boys or girls), and decide which changing room they want to change in!!! READ MORE
UK - Government advisory group says don’t say mum and dad… teachers told not to assume pupils have heterosexual parents. At the same time, schools should encourage gay role models among staff, parents and governors. Homosexual staff should be able to discuss their private lives after the consultation with the head teacher. READ MORE

There’s perfectionist mothers, unpredictable mothers, “me first” mothers and “complete” mothers but family experts say the fastest growing group of mothers is the “best-friend mother” - and it can only end badly.

Clinical psychologist Stephan Poulter, who works with family relationships, has come up with five categories that he finds fit most mothers. He finds the group that is on the rise is mothers who want to be best friends with their children.

But he said going partying with your children, wearing the same clothes as them, trying to keep up with their youth with breast implants and surgery, erodes all boundaries - and leaves the children without a mother who can guide them.

“You see this all over the media with a lot of the actresses in Hollywood - their mothers are their friends,” said Los Angeles-based Poulter in a telephone interview.

“One tragic one is Lindsay Lohan. Her mother is out drinking with her. Now she’s been in and out of rehab and arrested twice. What kind of role model is she getting? Look at Paris Hilton too. Same story.”

He said Anna Nicole Smith, the former Playboy model, was another prime example. She died of an accidental prescription drug overdose in Florida in February 2007 - just five months after her 20-year-old son Daniel died of a drug overdose.

Poulter, who has just released a book called “The Mother Factor,” said this style of mothering had been on the rise for about 15 years but now accounted for 30-40 percent of mothers.

EPIDEMIC

“This really is an epidemic. Because of unresolved issues with their parents, some parents today don’t want to be so hard and just want their children to like them. At the end of a long working day they don’t want conflict,” he said.

“But kids need a parent, not another friend, and this leaves them motherless. This can create a lot of rage in boys, and daughters who are drug-orientated and out of control tend to be motherless daughters of this type.”

Rose Rock, the mother of U.S. comedian Chris Rock, who has raised 10 children of her own and looked after 17 foster children, has also warned about this shift in parenting.

She has laid down the 10 commandments of parenting in a new book, “Mama Rock’s Rules: Ten Lessons for Raising a Houseful of Successful Children,” and No. 1 is to be a child’s mama, not their friend — and to have rules in your house.

“At no time should you let your children think they can disrespect you or treat you like a buddy,” Rock told Reuters.

She attributed the rise in the number of mothers wanting to be their children’s best friend to a lack of time and to parents finding it is easier to let children lay down their own rules.

“It is a new thing that everyone wants their children to like them but parenting is not a popularity contest,” she said.

“I don’t need to be a 12-year-old’s friend but I do need to be their protector, guide and warden. This is just a cop out.”

Poulter says he tries to make families realize that they need to take back the traditional roles.

“I need the parents to recognize that they are not their child’s friend and get their kids’ respect and then the kids can separate from their mother and move forward in their life and not feel they are responsible for their mother,” he said.

“For the kids this can work. But I think it is very hard for the mother to shift and to become the parent.”

List member Heather Roy from the Act Party has written a nice piece on the plight of single parent fathers.

This week saw the issue of Child Support raised in Parliament, with National MP Judith Collins using the term ‘deadbeat dads’ to describe those fathers who fail - or refuse - to fulfil their obligation to contribute financially to the raising of their children.

On the whole, New Zealand is a ‘can do’ nation with ‘can do’ people: we can, and do, fulfil our responsibilities; we can, and do, pay our own way; we can, and do, stand up for fairness over discrimination. With such a pervading and upstanding social view, New Zealanders on the whole have no time for ‘deadbeat dads’.

So why, then, do we allow the odds to be stacked against fathers who are at the opposite end of the scale - who want nothing more than to play an equal or larger part in the lives of their children?

In 2006 the Care of Children Act came into effect, designed in part to shake up the Family Court and to dispel the ‘myth’ that the Court was biased against men and preferred sole maternal custody as the outcome of its hearings. Under the Act, ‘Custody and Access’ were replaced by ‘Shared Parenting’ - meaning that, ideally, both parents share equally the responsibility and joy of their child’s day-to-day care; neither parent has full control and neither parent can be left out of their child’s life. On paper, it seems wonderfully fair.

Changing legal terms, however, is a far cry from changing attitudes and it is the same judges making the final decision - often with the same gender bias they used before. An example of this lingering attitude can be seen in the case of one father who, having been left with sole care of his child for several months following the breakdown of his relationship with the mother, filed proceedings in the Family Court for an Interim Parenting Order.

Now, one might say that - as it were he who initiated proceedings - the father cannot complain about the treatment he received from the Family Court. However, this man went to the Court after indications that his former partner was about to take the child to live with her in an unstable environment. There were also indications that his former partner would not be keeping to the equal care arrangement they had previously agreed on as she required Majority Care of the child in order to qualify for the DPB. His fears were:

* That his child’s living arrangements while with her mother were far from settled - ie the child’s mother had no fixed abode and was relying on the generosity of friends to provide a roof over her head on a day-to-day basis.
* The mother would not make the effort to keep the child in Early Childhood Education
* With an informal agreement, the mother would use the child as a weapon or leverage whenever she wanted/needed something (as had happened on at least one occasion)

He also suspected that, once in receipt of the DPB for having Majority Care of their child, it would be HE who had the child for the bulk of the time - while having to pay Child Support to the mother.
Having remained in the family home, and having kept to the stable routine his child was used to, this father felt it best for his child’s wellbeing that the child remained with him in the interim until such time as his former partner was in a more suitable situation. He also assumed that the Family Court would feel the same way.

He was wrong. Within minutes of the preliminary hearing, this father realised he was quite possibly on a hiding to nothing. His former partner accused him of keeping their child from her for months, labelled him controlling and domineering, accused him of prolonged domestic abuse and insinuated that he put his career ahead of all else - all without a single shred of evidence.

The judge responded by suggesting to the mother that she had grounds to limit the father’s time with the child to Supervised Access, and accepted that the child had been withheld from her mother for months - despite the father providing written proof of dates and times that his former partner had refused to see the child due to social engagements.

Both parties were then given time to come to some kind of access agreement; once this was done and ratified the judge recommended that the father attend a parenting education course - a suggestion that was not made to the mother, whom he thanked for coming along.

And, so, the bias against fathers continues.

The fact is that politicians are right: ‘deadbeat dads’ DO need to lift their game and be more responsible for the welfare of their children. But at the same time there needs to be more equality for those fathers who truly want to be involved and are doing all they can - spending thousands upon thousands of dollars in lawyer fees - to do just that.

It is time for some real change. Politicians - indeed, New Zealand society as a whole - must take a closer look at the plight of these fathers. Perhaps if we improve the incentives for estranged fathers - and take away the unfair challenges that leave many left out of their children’s lives - we would see a drastic reduction in the number of fathers who are so beaten down by the system that they give up completely and play no part in their children’s lives.

There was a time when mothers would help with children’s education at schools. There was time when we were not so politically correct and mums and dads would take children on school excursions.

But all that has changed.

Now mothers and fathers cannot enter the school unless they have signed in and then often they need to be chaperoned around the school. And now with social workers in schools parents are considered the enemy. The one who is abusing their children and need to be caught out. The family unit is now the cause for all the woes of children’s behaviours.

Could it be the father? Then we need women’s refuge intervention. Could it be the mother? Then we need CYFS intervention. Either way parents are pretty much left in the cold.

And all the while the schools get worse. They ARE unsafe for children. They HAVE been for years but the majority of schools would not accept it. No matter how much the parents told them.

But now things are so out of control no-one can lie any more. They are violent and full of drugs. The teachers are unsafe to teach and cameras are in place to capture bad behaviour.

Fact is; the cameras are in plain sight and the kids know where they are safe from the cameras. Yeap, not much has changed from when I went to school. If you don’t want to get caught you just do it out of sight.

Now we have police entering the schools in South Auckland and the parents standing along the boarders of the school grounds in the centre North Island.

Parents have been forced to take their children’s education into their own hands at a North Island school plagued by drug use, violence and the abuse of teachers and students.

And despite the Ministry of Education sending in a commissioner - its highest level of intervention - to sort out problems at Rangitahi College in Murupara nearly two years ago, a damning Education Review Office report says there has been little progress.

Yesterday, parents at the school 45 minutes southeast of Rotorua, were patrolling the college gates ensuring pupils were wearing the correct uniform.

Other parents were doing their bit to combat the school’s high absenteeism rate by picking up children in vans and getting them to school on time.

“We can’t be doing all the teachers’ jobs but we are trying to get more involvement from parents - that’s what our school needs,” said Melody Delamere, who has two sons at the college and heads a group called Parent Force. “What happens inside the school gates is their responsibility but we try and do what we can on the outside.”

A recent ERO supplementary review report of Rangitahi College revealed staff were forced into a situation where they were managing student behaviour rather than promoting learning and achievement.

The report said the decile one school, with a roll of 47 boys and 46 girls, was “not always a safe environment for staff and students”.

“There is evidence of verbal abuse of staff, disobedience by students, instances of theft, vandalism, damage to school property, bullying, fighting and use of illegal drugs by students.”

Levels of student achievement at the school were low - just a handful of students managed NCEA Level 1 in 2006 and none passed levels 2 and 3.

Commissioner John Carlyon, whose role is to change the policies, procedures, culture and relationships covering virtually all areas within the school, said the report was devastating. “It was accurate and with no surprises but it’s still hard when you see it written like that.”

Mr Carlyon, who replaced the school’s Board of Trustees in 2005, said it was crucial the community had more involvement.

“I have no doubt at all that until the school is able to work with the community in a partnership the school is going to continue to face difficulties, so I’m thrilled these groups are on board.”

He expected to see positive changes at the school this year. “It’s not optional, things have to change.

“I’ve been disappointed that the expectations we agreed to in 2007 were not achieved. I know it’s been hard for the school and management but I expected things to have been better.”

Ministry of Education schools performance manager Marilyn Scott said lifting the school’s performance was not something that would happen immediately. “Nor can it be one person’s job to fix an entire school,” she said in reference to Mr Carlyon.

NZHerald

A Family Court judge is alarmed at drug P’s impact on families. Reference Sunday Star Times 24th February 2008.

Couples are increasingly citing use of the drug methamphetamine or “P” as a reason for seeking protection orders, divorce and sole custody of children.

Family Court judges have told the Sunday Star-Times that allegations of P use in such cases were prevalent and rising.

Two judges said that a quarter of current applications for protection orders under the Domestic Violence Act involved the perpetrator of violence using P.

Problem areas included New Plymouth, Wanganui, West Auckland, Hawke’s Bay, Palmerston North and Wellington.

Principal Family Court judge Peter Boshier said the trend was a “huge concern”. “[This] is particularly ominous because it’s such a hard drug to conquer in terms of rehabilitation… Where meth is involved it produces such volatility that [judges] don’t want to put children at risk, whereas some other forms of drugs and alcohol don’t necessarily have the same alarming consequences.”

Out of 66,500 cases dealt with by the 45 Family Court judges last year, 4351 involved protection orders and 21,391 were applications for care of children.

Several family lawyers said they had noticed an increase in the number of P-related family break-ups over the past five years, including affluent families who seemed to “have it all”. In most cases, both parents had tried P socially but one had become addicted.

In one case, an Auckland couple in their early 30s started using P recreationally at a cost of $500-$800 a week. He gave up but she got addicted, which caused arguments and led to their break-up. She took their four-year-old child and lived transiently with friends, and started a relationship with a P dealer, which became violent. The woman’s neighbours and family became concerned at her dishevelled appearance and and reported her to Child, Youth and Family.

In another case, an Auckland woman in her late 20s, who was separated and shared custody of her two-year-old, developed a P habit. Her ex-husband found out and sought sole custody. At the same time, staff at the child’s crèche notified CYF over the woman’s appearance. She failed a drug test and lost custody of her child.

Boshier said judges usually granted protection where P use was alleged or proven in many cases grandparents stepped in to care for children.

“I do not want to suggest there’s anything wrong with grandparents bringing up children, but as a society we have a norm of the parents…”

Many judges direct parents accused of having a P habit to take a hair follicle test, which detects the drug months after it is taken. ESR carries out an average of three hair tests a week for Child Youth and Family, most for custody cases.

Boshier said alcohol was still regarded as the number one drug in protection orders, and cannabis was also often present.

Every day children are torn as their parents split up. New initiatives to involve them in relationship counselling could begin to ease that pain.

Jill Goldson, an Auckland Family Court counsellor who was involving children in separation counselling for a research project funded by the NZ Families Commission, has spoken out about the problems children are facing through separation. Goldson’s research involved 26 children and 34 adults. It gave families opportunities to not just listen to each other but ‘hear’ each other and work toward their own solutions.

“Parents in conflict are in crisis; it’s difficult in that state to attend fully to the children they both love,” Goldson says. “And their children fear creating more distress, so they hold on to their worries and the trouble compounds. If children’s views are sought, they need to see them used, otherwise they can end up feeling betrayed. Mostly children want to be heard within their families.”

Lucy’s dilemma threatened her life.

She was 13 when she had to choose between living with dad in Auckland or with mum in Rotorua. For 12 years Lucy* had lived happily enough between their two homes.

But her life began to spiral out of control when her mother made plans to move cities to live with her new partner. Lucy also hated the arguments between her parents. “I thought I would be happier if I lost weight.” Eating was one thing she could control and pretty soon anorexia had mastery over her. “I would not eat all day and try not to eat dinner. Then I didn’t eat at all one day, and didn’t the next either, until I was really sick and had no energy. I couldn’t do anything.”

Desperate for help, Lucy’s parents approached Jill Goldson.

Goldson says that offering two counselling intervention sessions eased communication and reduced conflict in every case.

The government provides six hours of tax-funded counselling for couples considering separating, but there is no legal provision for children to be involved. This is an anomaly, given the requirement under the Care of Children Act to listen to children’s views.

The 6 hours of counselling has been a positive step to helping parents resolve immediate problems but as many of us know it can takes years to get it right. And by then most of our children are damaged in some way not just through Parental Alienation Syndrome but through having to keep the peace with both parents.

The truth is that many single parents who have been involved in the 6 hour free counselling are still failing to come to a decent compromise where both parents are happy and the share and care of the children works out for the best. There are still child support issues, there is still the bickering in how one parent does something that the other parent doesn’t like. The end result is that the children don’t know which way to turn because they love both their parents and they want to please both the parents. They are in many cases where disputes still occur whether small bickering over being late to pick a child up to financial problems both parents can face having to provide 2 families separately instead of one family together.

The research findings are being included in a submission to the Family Matters Bill. Chief Family Court judge Peter Boshier is advocating “therapeutic counselling to help children through the difficult time of separation”.

Following Goldson’s research and international evidence which says children adjust better to parents separating if they are involved in decisions about their future, Boshier says: “A child’s own views should be central to ensuring the result is workable and acceptable to the children themselves.”

Goldson says people used to think children didn’t need counselling because they benefited from the “trickle down” effect of parents attending counselling. In many cases this does not happen.

James, 48, father of two young boys, agrees. “The Family Court says they are there for the children - they are not. There was nothing there for the children.”

He says the focus was always on “patching up” his relationship with wife Millie, never on how they could both be part of the children’s lives, although separated.

“I have been to seven counsellors, I don’t know how many psychologists and even a psychiatrist. I’m not a rapist; I’m not a paedophile. I love my children and I have fought for five years to be with them. There was no reason for me to be alienated, apart from the bitterness between me and my wife.”

Distressed by the impact their conflict was having on the boys, James moved to Tauranga and had minimal contact with his children.

Today, between jobs, he is able to share in his sons’ care. He says Goldson was “strong-minded, always asking, `What about the children? How are Dylan and Ryan coping?”‘

In fact, Dylan, eight, (James’s son) was suffering serious anxiety. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t concentrate, and had difficulty stringing words together. When Goldson asked him what was one of his main worries he immediately said he didn’t know what colour to paint his bedroom. Blue was his mum’s colour, green his dad’s, how could he keep them both happy? For him the task was impossible.

“This `double bind’… is typical for children with parents in conflict. They are damned if they do, damned if they don’t,” says Goldson. “They want to love two people who seem to hate each other and it leaves children feeling disturbed.”

Dylan’s mother Millie says knowing how her children were feeling shifted her focus from the “hurt and fractiousness” of the past to “what is happening now and in the future.

“You can see where the children are struggling. It gives you a reason not to argue with each other because you can see the pain drops down into your kids’ lives.”

For the children, the success of this intervention is being heard by both parents, and hearing their mum and dad are committed to their well-being. This process also reduces parental conflict.

Millie and James’s point-scoring relationship had them at loggerheads all the time, but Millie says Dylan’s relief was palpable when, for the first time, his parents agreed: We said “Mummy and daddy both like blue and green.”‘

“Mummy and daddy have agreed that this is how we do things,” Dylan tells his little brother.

“Parents almost always try to protect children from adult problems,” says Goldson. “But at the same time, they are going through one of the biggest crises in their lives. It is very hard to know how to talk to children when you are in grief and confusion yourself. It can be difficult to realise children want to be involved in discussions with their parents, but including them can help so much.”

Eight-year-old Aria travelled the world with her dancing parents and the company was her extended family. When her parents separated, her world collapsed.

“I feel like I’m in a dark room in my head and I’m all alone,” she told her mother, Jasmine.

But Jasmine says she felt out of her depth and had no idea how to respond. Aria’s dad Dave also felt helpless: “I didn’t know how much she was holding in.”

Jasmine wanted Aria to talk to a counsellor but Dave did not.

“Kids need simple loving,” he said. “I don’t like people mucking around with them.”

But Goldson reassured them: “It’s not separation that traumatises children they can deal with their parents going in different directions but they cannot cope with animosity.”

For Aria, being able to tell someone how she was feeling made a big difference. She liked Goldson being “beside” her and not a member of the family.

“It wasn’t a secret. I was allowed to say what was happening for me and how awful it felt.”

It worked for teenage Lucy too.

“It was nerve-wracking spilling out my life story to someone I didn’t know. It was hard”, she saiys. She was scared about her parents hearing her whole truth. “I knew there were things they weren’t going to agree on and wondered how they were going to react”.

The eating disorder was a wake-up call for everybody, says her mother Liz. If we hadn’t listened to Lucy that last time, I don’t know where she would be today. For the first time Geoff and I were speaking with a united voice.

But the last word comes from Dylan. Excited to see Goldson when the Sunday Star-Times met him, he answered all the questions patiently before saying: “But Jill, now I have a new problem. Smoking. Cigarettes. Mummy and daddy are smoking and I don’t like it. Can you tell them that?”

I am a behind-the-scenes worker in the area of supporting Mums and Dads and the kids that face intervention from CYFS.
I feel I must explain where I sit, before I tell you what I know.
I was a member of the cyfswatch team, and although most there are anti-cyfs to the point they would like to see them shut down, there are many of us who see the absolute need for cyfs also, and the need for them to remain in control of the fostering situation.

We are talking about our mokopuna, be they yellow or green!! The Foster Assn in Ak has had a rift appear in it and one lot heading off to do things their way. There must be consistency with fostering! However, what has happened last month is a new company was registered called KEY ASSETS NZ LIMITED. I have hunted them down on the companies register ..
http://www.companies.govt.nz/cms/banner_template/CNAME

The bottom lot of names from the UK are, I understand squillionairres who are financing the situation. Their intent is to build many secure homes in the country to house in-care children!!! The Nats will love this!! Takes any responsibility from the govt at all!! There are meetings happening as I write, they are looking for high profile staff at the moment.

This is something I feel very strongly about. We cannot get CYFS to even open the book and take a look at some of the situations we hear of. If this moves into the private area, god knows what will happen next to the kids.

More is coming to hand daily, this is more a matter of a heads up, our kids suffer enough.

Toilet training is a milestone every child goes through. And every parent. lol
There are many sites on the net that will give you advice but i found this one to be the best I have seen so far. There is also lots of other good stuff for babies and young tots. This is just one part of interest for toilet training.

Signs Of Readiness
How to tell when your child is ready

It is impossible to set an exact age to start toilet training. Some children are ready at 18 months, some not until 2+ years or later. Whether early or late, you’ll notice that a number of trends begin to come together. Your child will be over the excitement of learning to walk and will be able to sit still for a while. “No” isn’t the answer to every question. They’re actually willing to co-operate now and then. That’s when to start looking for the signs of readiness.

Signs of Readiness
If three or more of the signs listed below are clearly present, it’s probably time to start toilet training.

• Your child can stay dry for two hours at a time during the day or is dry after a nap.
• Your child’s poos are regular and predictable.
• Your child can indicate by words, facial expressions or posture that he or she is about to wee or poo.
• Your child can follow simple verbal directions.
• Your child is uncomfortable with soiled nappies and wants them changed.
• Your child can be taught to pull pants on and off.
• Your child asks to use the toilet or the potty.
• Your child asks to wear Big Kid toilet training pants or underwear.

Huggies New Zealand

Where was the Interent when my children were little?