The Best Research?

The families Commissioner has twice today in interviews I’ve seen told us that the Commissions position on smacking was based on research.

That’s interesting, because the Children’s Commissioner’s might have been, but not anything that might be regarded as good research – in fact, the best research supports the opposite conclusion that both the Children’s and Families commissions have been pushing.

Michael Drake was the subject of an attack by the CC a few years ago, and decided in response to use his rights as a citizen to do some digging. He describes this in his booklet “By Fear and Fallacy” which is sadly currently offline, but I’ve got a copy which I’ve uploaded here – By Fear & Fallacy

The following quote is from pages 10 & 11.

She told Radio New Zealand the school was “irresponsible” and “I don’t think the school should be doing that.” The same criticism was reported in newspapers throughout New Zealand. On national television she described me as “seriously misguided”. All that despite not knowing what I had done. All that despite the law under which she works requiring her not to “make any comment that is adverse to a person if the Commissioner has not given the person an opportunity to be heard.” When I asked her about the illegality of her comments she would not reply. It was just one of many things she won’t include in the “discussion” she initiated.

The Commissioner also failed to comply with the law in releasing information. She said she supported debate on the issue of smacking, but when I responded with willingness to discuss it with her she refused. She wrote two letters in which she made assertions about children’s moral development and renewed criticism of me, but has refused to engage in discussion, respond to my questions or explain her moralistic judgements. So I asked her to supply relevant information under the Official Information Act (which requires her to release information within 20 working days of receiving the request4). When the information didn’t arrive on time I phoned her office repeatedly, leaving messages but getting no response. It was only when I complained to the Ombudsman that I got the information requested.

Her letter and the documents she was forced to release reveal not only the shallow rationale behind her intense smacking-phobia, but an extraordinarily informal system of policy development and implementation in the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. In fact, it seems there is no system at all. This key advocate for national policy and safety appears to make it up as she goes, with no structures in her office for policy development or review. Asked to supply documents recording the development of policy on smacking she had nothing to give me. There is no development of policy, no review of policy, and apparently no constraint on or supervision of her spending of public monies. There is a growing list of anti-smacking publications in the name of the Children’s Commissioner, but she has either not got any documents relating to this or is refusing to release them despite the Ombudsman’s reminder to release all relevant documents. The fact is, she came into office publicly opposed to smacking and has used her position of public trust and influence to promote an agenda that will outlaw smacking and outlaw all rebuking of children.

One of the most important revelations in the documents she has released is confirmation that the aim of smacking-phobes is not just to end smacking, it is to end all forms of reprimand and punishment. In a speech that appears to have been delivered on 18 June 2004 (most of the papers released to me are undated), the Commissioner refers to research advocating a preference for “warm conversation … as opposed to being rebuked” as justification for a ban on smacking. Her literature constantly refers to “positive correction” which must always be a comment or action of approval for “appropriate” behaviour as opposed to “negative correction” which involves any form of comment or action is approving of “inappropriate” behaviour. In Choose to Hug, Not to Smack the Commissioner claims that “punishment is about payback,” and “punishment is not important when it comes to raising children.” Her agenda is clear: parents must be stopped from saying or doing anything that indicts wrong behaviour or involves punishment, and should only be permitted to recognise good behaviour.

But then, the research that is available would appear to support the “no” vote.

Groundbreaking New Zealand research has refuted thousands of international studies which claim that smacking children makes them more likely to become aggressive and antisocial.

Children who are smacked lightly with an open hand on the bottom, hand or leg do much the same in later life as those who are not smacked, found the Dunedin multidisciplinary health and development study, which has tracked 1000 children since they were born in the city in 1972-73.

The finding, based on interviews in the past two years when the children were 32-year-olds, will be published this year.

An earlier part of the study published in the NZ Medical Journal in January, found that 80 per cent of the sample had been physically punished at home during childhood.

Twenty-nine per cent of the whole sample had only ever been smacked. A further 45 per cent had been hit with an object such as a strap or wooden spoon, and 6 per cent had suffered “extreme physical punishment” that left cuts, lasting bruises or welts or involved out-of-control hitting, choking, being thrown or sexually violated.

Numerous overseas studies have shown that children who are physically punished are more likely to be aggressive and antisocial, have poor parent-child relationships and develop mental illnesses.

But the lead author of the physical punishment part of the Dunedin study, psychologist Jane Millichamp, said the project appeared to be the first long-term study in the world to separate out those who had merely been smacked with an open hand.

So one is left wondering what research the Families commissioner used? Or perhaps she used some of the less rigorous (i.e. worthless) studies that have been produced, and reviewed by Mr Drake. Page 34…

It would be difficult to find a more complete display of invalid science and inconsistent advocacy research than Insights: Children & Young People Speak Out About Family Discipline.71 This book, written by university student Terry Dobbs, is based on her post-graduate research. Published by Save the Children New Zealand, with an endorsement from the Children’s Commissioner who helped pay for the
“research”, it is fallaciously acclaimed as convincing evidence that smacking is harmful. Yet its reported methodology is so unscientific as to invalidate the data reported, and its anti-smacking conclusions are not even supported by those invalid data….

The book repeatedly claims that Dobbs’ research found physical punishment could lead to harm or abuse, yet all her data established that not one of the 80 children interviewed had reported such harm or abuse. Rather than suggesting smacking leads to abuse, the data suggest exactly the opposite: most of the children she interviewed had been smacked, none of them had been abused. Clearly, if Dobbs’ data indicates anything, it is that smacking does not lead to abuse.

Dobbs argues that “children are, in many senses, the experts on family discipline.” At first this appears just loopy, but examined in the context of the book it becomes apparent Dobbs is not simply saying that because children are disciplined they are experts, but that they have the moral maturity to make judgements about the discipline given them, whereas the adults giving the discipline don’t have that moral maturity. The whole reason children need special care and moral training is that they are not experts, they are not mature, and they are not morally astute. If they are such experts they don’t need “reward” either to establish the pattern of behaviour that indicates maturity and expertise.

Those are far from his only criticisms of that particular study. He explains that he is not attacknig her motives in his footnote:

Her conclusions support the position she advocates, but the data published in the book do not. And the methodology explained in the book is appallingly inadequate. One of the constraints of good scientific research is ensuring that data is collected and interpreted at arm’s length from any possible personal influence, and that it is subject to rigorous auditing. Dobbs clearly explains her intimate involvement in the data collection and makes no reference to auditing, measuring validity, randomisation, cross-checking reported events, replication of key findings in parallel research, or running controls. Elementary concepts for research are overwhelming in their absence. In such a context criticism of her methodology, findings and commentary may validly be made without in any way implying moral turpitude.

Oh, a quick search reveals that the Families Commission is in fact using research from these people – Anne Smith supervised the research shown above. Clearly she did a very, very poor job.

Drake also outlines other oft-sourced research in page 22 onwards.

Next Pritchard refers to a 2001 Canadian study, Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect.41 She claims this study of 130,000 reports of child maltreatment showed “that 69% of child physical abuse ‘occurred as a result of child physical punishment … that led to physical harm or put a child at substantial risk of harm.’” This would be significant, if it were true.

However, you can search through the report from top to bottom and you won’t find what she quotes: the quotation she gives doesn’t come from the report as she claims. No, it too comes from the notorious Joan Durrant’s writings. What might be regarded as a technical slip by Pritchard however, becomes outright misinformation when the quotation is examined. What the report actually says is that 31% of cases of abuse they studied involved physical abuse, and it was 69% of the 31% that involved smacking. In other words they were talking about only 21% of the 130,000, not 69%.

The misinformation gets worse: buried in the report is the advice that these figures are actually based on close study of only 3,786 cases where they were able to substantiate maltreatment. So it’s not looking at 130,000 cases at all, and incidence of cases possibly leading to harm is a mere 0.6% of the total, not 69%.
It gets still worse: the authors point out they could not confirm any of their data, and that they were collecting data from sources who used different criteria and different reporting standards. They wisely point out that their report has “limitations”. In fact, it has no real validity at all as presented.

It gets even worse: the authors claim that any smack is abuse. By their own definition therefore, the 69% who smacked did not go on to abuse, they were “abusing” by way of smacking. Apart from their own prejudice, they do not establish a link between smacking and abuse. So they are not saying as Pritchard (following Durrant) claims, that 69% of parents who smacked went on to abuse their children, but that parents who smack their children, smack their children! It certainly does not prove there is a link between smacking and abuse.

It gets yet still worse: the 2001 report has been superseded by a 2003 report. In the 2003 report only 10% of all abuse is regarded as physical abuse. So why would Pritchard use the 2001 figures? Is it because they are more dramatic than the more recent and more accurate ones?

It seems to me that the idea that research supports the illegality of smacking is looking pretty shaky – misinterpreting data, injecting opnion over fact, ignoring scientific rigour.

But the studies that actually do have scientific rigour support parents smacking their children as something that leads to the best possible outcomes.