The Toronto Star, HAROLD LEVY, Staff Reporter, Nov. 18, 2003 page B5
A lawyers' group says a jail for youths in Toronto is a source of "great shock and alarm" and has called on
Correctional Services Minister Monte Kwinter to shut it down.
And Kwinter told the Star late yesterday he is "very troubled" by accounts he has heard about the
institution, and that he plans to visit it within the next 10 days.
"The reports received by our members from young persons held in TYAC (The Toronto Youth Assessment
Centre) have been a source of great shock and alarm in respect of the violence and atmosphere of fear that
exists in the facility," the Law Union, a 300-member Toronto organization, wrote to Kwinter on Friday.
The letter, written by Law Union members Bob Kellermann and Richard Neary, says the centre, a 138-bed
facility in Etobicoke, detains all 16- and 17-year-olds in the Greater Toronto Area who are either awaiting
bail hearings or have been denied bail.
Kellermann and Neary refer to a court hearing in August in which a senior official gave evidence "that
violence was a regular occurrence at TYAC, between two and 20 incidents a week, some involving gangs,
weapons, innocent victims and or serious injuries requiring hospitalization."
P Nieman, S Shea; Canadian Paediatric Society, Community
Paediatrics Committee
Paediatric Child Health 2004;9(1):37-41
The word discipline means to impart knowledge and skill - to teach.
However, it is often equated with punishment and control. There is a
great deal of controversy about the appropriate ways to discipline
children, and parents are often confused about effective ways to set
limits and instill self-control in their child.
In medical and secular literature, there is great diversity of opinion
about the short-term and long-term effects of various disciplinary
methods, especially the use of disciplinary spanking. This statement
reviews the issues concerning childhood discipline and offers practical
guidelines for physicians to use in counselling parents about effective
discipline.
The Canadian Paediatric Society recommends that physicians take an
anticipatory approach to discipline, including asking questions about
techniques used in the home. Physicians should actively counsel parents
about discipline and should strongly discourage the use of spanking.
Physical punishment of children, such as spanking, is increasingly
linked with long-term adverse consequences, researchers wrote.
An analysis of research conducted since the 1990 adoption of the UN's
Convention on the Rights of the Child suggests that no studies have
found positive consequences of physical punishment, according to Joan
Durrant of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, and Ron Ensom of the
Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa.
While some studies have found little effect either way, most research
has uncovered a range of negative outcomes, including increased
aggression and later delinquency, Durrant and Ensom wrote online in
CMAJ.
The clinical implication, they suggested, is that doctors who are
familiar with the research can help parents find more constructive ways
of providing discipline.
"In doing so, physicians strengthen child well-being and parent-child
relationships at the population level," they wrote.
They noted that as recently as 1992, physical punishment of children was
widely accepted, thought of as distinct from abuse, and considered
"appropriate" as a way of eliciting desired behavior.
But research under way at that time was beginning to draw links between
physical punishment and aggression in childhood, later delinquency, and
spousal assault.
Alyson Schafer is a psychotherapist and one of Canada's leading parenting
experts. She's the author of the best-selling "Breaking the Good
Mom Myth" (Wiley, 2006) and host of TV's The Parenting
Show a live call-in show in Toronto, Ontario.
The media relies on Alyson's comments and opinions. you can find her
interviewed and quoted extensively in such publications as Cosmopolitan,
Readers' Digest, Canadian Living, Today's Parents, and Canadian Families.
You can read Alyson's thoughts.
Laws on Corporal Punishment of Children from around the
World
Parents who are punitive tend to have aggressive children. But a
new survey suggests that when parenting practices change, a child's behaviour
also changes.
The results of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth
(NLSCY) suggests children show higher levels of aggression, are more anxious
and less altruistic when parents have a more punitive parenting style.
