I know that parents in Aotearoa New Zealand want the best for their children. We want children to be happy, healthy, make good friends and do well at school. We want our children to grow up to be caring people who have safe, warm relationships with their partners and children. Confident, happy children trust, rather than fear, the adults in their lives.
The key to helping us achieve these results for our children lies in our relationship with them. We want to have positive and trusting relationships with our children. One of our most important tasks as parents is to guide our children’s behaviour, to help them learn how to behave in an acceptable way in society.
But guiding our children’s behaviour, and helping them learn now to behave acceptably is sometimes hard work. It takes time and patience and makes many demands on our energy. This small book provides some tools and suggestions for dealing with the kind of demanding everyday behaviours all children exhibit as they learn about becoming social human beings.
Aotearoa New Zealand is a place where it is no longer legal to hit children. There has been some confusion about the law. A section at the end of this book explains the law.
This book is intended to help parents guide children without using smacking or hitting.
This book is a revised edition of a previous book Choose To Hug; Not To Smack; Awhitia, Kaua e Papakitia.
It is dedicated to our children and their future.
Dr Cindy Kiro
Children’s Commissioner
Office of the Children’s Commissioner
(in conjunction with EPOCH NZ – www.epochnz.org.nz)
