Ten going on sixteen

Ten Going On Sixteen is a profile of young New Zealanders in the transition years put out by the Ministry of Youth Development.   The data was collected by Victoria University’s Youth Connectedness Project from 2006 to 2008.

"The research was designed to test the hypothesis that “connectedness” – to family, peers, school and community – is predictive of subsequent health and wellbeing of young people. The hypothesis was confirmed, with “connectedness to family and school” most strongly predictive of subsequent happiness, self sense of identity. "

While the report online is not particularly detailed (the spirituality section is very skimpy) is does highlight some interesting factors about young people, things that it might be useful for youth group leaders to know about. 

It shows that in general most children are happy with their parents and friends - boys in particular say they get on well with their families.   Girls tend to be happier when they're in the younger age range and grow less happy from the time they're 12.  Boys for the most part stay happy.  

In regard to the girls' decrease in happiness, this is mostly put down to the onset of puberty.  "Given that the average age that girls have their first period is 12-13, the explanation is likely to lie in the interaction between pubertal stage and social and cultural expectations.  The onset of puberty has already been linked to increase in depression and increased rates of self harm among adolescent girls.  In societies where expectations of girls are high, the levels of stress and anxiety among young women seem also to be higher."

There are a small group in both sexes who say they are sad most of the time around the time they're ten years old.   However, the report doesn't show whether these particular children had specific reasons to be sad.   Broken family relationships barely come into the report. 

It was a slight surprise to me to see how early many of the children are starting to drink alcohol. 

• Drinking becomes a normal behaviour for young people between the ages of 10 and 16.
• Between the ages of 12 and 14, the percentage of boys who say they drink alcohol on one or two days a month or more doubles - from 16 percent at age 12 to 35 per cent at age 14. 
• For girls the increase is even higher, from 13 per cent at age 12 to 44 per cent at age 14.
• At age 14, more girls than boys report drinking, but by age 16, the boys have caught up.
• At age 15, over half of the young people in the survey say that they drink alcohol on one or two days a month or more.
• At age 16, 71 per cent of boys and 66 per cent of girls say they drink alcohol one or two days a month or more.
• Around three per cent of the young people in this survey are ‘serious’drinkers, drinking on ten days a month or more.

The question has to be asked: where do they get the alcohol from?   

The survey was taken from around 50% European children, 30% Maori, and 20% of other ethnicities. 

The Way Forward

Aaron Thompson, who works with Student Life at Otago University, has just published an eight-page essay on alcohol and the Gen Y students who are now attending the University. The essay, called The Way Forward, is full of commonsense (something Aaron says most students lack, and which is part of the problem) and offers some well-thought out solutions. Here's a sample from early in the essay.

The day and age has come where old‐fashioned common sense just does not exist en masse, in a self‐evident fashion. Whilst our little country has been buying and trading, sunbathing and fishing, boy racing or tending roses... a gradual but certain paradigm shift has occurred in our youth. The excess of a decade of wealth production combined with the political correctness of our time have resulted in a crop of spoilt brats, who are entitled to what was promised them: whatever they want!

And now who are we to deny them such rights: to dance in the streets, to drink irresponsibly, to throw bottles, to destroy property? After all, it’s everyone’s right‐ the greatest value of Generation Y‐ to have fun. It is hardly surprising that a university that has promoted itself as the place to “get over it” should now find itself in such a predicament.

“Get over it” is the perfect slogan for today’s youth. It meets them where they’re at. Whatever marketing company harnessed the phrase is nothing short of brilliant, because this slogan met a generational desire with 100% accuracy. But there are always two edges to every sword, and in earlier years the slogan earned us student numbers. The now emerging downside is that for such students and such a culture, the same phrase is has conveniently become the stock excuse of a culture out of control. “You don’t like my behaviour – get over it!”

Read the complete essay here. By the way, this essay doesn't just apply to youth drinking in Dunedin; it's relevant way beyond our borders.

The Risk for Children

In the latest Maxim Institute newsletter, the following comments are made in regard to the Death and serious injury from assault of children aged under 5 years in Aotearoa New Zealand report...

According to the review, risk factors which increase the likelihood of a child suffering "fatal assault or serious injury" before their fifth birthday, include children living with "non-biological" fathers, a background of domestic violence, "mental illness," "alcohol and drug abuse," poverty and the ethnicity of the child. It confronts us with an uncomfortable statistic: "In New Zealand, Maori ethnicity is a static risk factor" associated with a six-fold greater risk for male children and a three-fold greater risk for female children. Higher risks are also associated with mothers who are young and have a low level of education. The review notes that "identified risk factors seldom occur in isolation," with the families at greatest risk ticking more than one of these boxes.

Let's be honest, none of this is news. And it has little to do with the anti-smacking 'law' that came into force last year.

Being honest about the risk factors will only go so far if we are not also willing to examine, evaluate and critique the efficacy of interventions, as the second half of the review begins to do. It identifies home visitation and parent training programmes as helpful responses to the issue of abuse. These programmes involve professionals working with families to connect them with vital services and improve their parenting. The report notes that these programmes are effective for some families, particularly when relationships with workers are strong and persistent, and when a "broad range of needs" is addressed. "Case co-ordination" between agencies is also vital—the same families continually pop up in a variety of contexts, but the co-ordination and communication between agencies is often lacking. While the Commissioner's chief response to the report was to call for funding for a "shaken baby prevention programme," our response needs to be broader than that. It needs to address all the causes of death and the range of effective interventions that the report outlines.

All this is good stuff....and knowing about this, how can the Church be involved and help? No doubt, parts of the church are already working in these areas, but if it's something that we can help further with, let's do it.

Drinking in NZ

The Maxim Institute notes:
The Law Commission has released further detail of its review of alcohol laws and the associated controls. Looking at issues like "the minimum drinking and purchase ages," "drinking hours," "advertising" and "the number and/or type of liquor outlets," the review plans to report by 2010. "The central issue for the ... project is whether the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of liberality and the availability of alcoholic drinks, and if so, what measures can be adopted to ... limit the harm that it causes." A process of public consultation is also planned, aimed at involving the public and community groups in a sensible and prudent approach to the alcohol law.

See more on this from the NZ Herald.

The abuse has to stop

Muriel Newman writes in her weekly NZ Centre for Political Research newsletter:
For years, governments have shied away from getting to the heart of the child abuse crisis because that means tackling the incentives in legislation that is leading to increasingly higher rates of family breakdown - especially amongst Maori families which feature disproportionately in the child abuse statistics. If marriage leads to a safer family environment for children, then the census data on the rates of marriage amongst Maori and non-Maori shows a very worrying trend: in 2001, while 79.5 percent of partnered non-Maori couples were married only 58.8 percent of Maori couples were married. And by 2006 the rates of marriage had fallen to 78.6 percent for non-Maori and 54 percent for Maori.

Unless the incentives in the domestic purposes benefit are changed to stop encouraging single parenting, all the good intentions in the world will not halt the rise in child abuse. And with the problem being an intergenerational one, whereby children raised in fragmented families and abusive homes will tend to repeat that behaviour on their own children, addressing this problem must surely rank at the highest end of the new government’s priority list.

And John Sax adds, in an article called, Redefining Compassion:

Drugs, alcohol and poverty are generally purported to be the breeding ground for child abuse but the statistics also hold another common element. Global social scientists tell us that on average there is a 1400 percent increase in child abuse and a 1600 percent increase in child murder when children are brought up in a relationship other than marriage – live-in boyfriends, stepdads, de facto relationships and so on.
Unfortunately we find ourselves now in a society where social policy - as compassionate and heartfelt as it is - not only discourages the very unions that could provide the safest environment for children, but, by its very nature, encourages a cycle of generational poverty, and drug and alcohol abuse.

How NZ fell prey to the demon P

In just five years, the drug P has made big inroads into New Zealand society. In an article that originally appeared in the Christchurch Press, on 12th April, 2008, John McCrone investigates the power of methamphetamine; sums up the issues relating to the use of P in NZ (and Australia); compares with other drugs, alcohol; shows its effects on NZ society – not just youth, but some older people. Shows how wide-spread its use is, and looks at whether it has plateaued as a drug of choice.

This is an article that all youth group leaders (as well as ministers) should read.