The reason we have chosen today’s topic is due to our passion about children’s healthy development into adults. We are concerned about the harm that is being done by the exploitative ways in which most facets of society set us up to be slaves to a false illusion of wellbeing. Safety and security is being sold to us externally by way of media, advertising, marketing and mass grooming.

As we proceed through our presentation today, we invite you to create your own meanings from the words we offer. We aren’t providing many specific examples because we want this presentation to resonate with as many people as possible. It’s important that you find your own individual way to relate this to your personal or professional lives.

SAFETY

Family, relationships, passion, nurturing and caring form the basis of healthy human interaction. In fact, studies have shown that it is a matter of life or death for babies. Human interaction is the foundation upon which our sense of safety and security is built.

Our survival depends on this sense of safety and wellbeing. And because of this dependence, we are vulnerable to the things we think are providing it to us.

Some human interactions are healthy and genuine, and we are correct to integrate them into our sense of being. They offer the nurturing and emotional nourishment required for growth. However, other times we may accept what is offered to us even though it is only a pretension of care.

When care is not forthcoming in a healthy way, we are still compelled to accept it. Sometimes we cannot distinguish between genuine and artificial intentions – regardless of whether we are children or adults.

When we speak of the difference between genuine and artificial, we mean that genuine actions are truly in the best interests of the receiver. Artificial actions, when looked at honestly, only serve the needs of the giver, while under the pretext that it is beneficial for the receiver.

When someone is the recipient of artificial actions, external safety is implied in the transaction, but the inner safety is not felt, and a confusion occurs. This causes a hypocrisy that a child is not able to make sense of, and a split develops in the psyche, directly related to feelings of safety and security. The child thinks that they should feel safe, but they don’t experience it. How this split manifests varies depending on the individual and other contributing factors that create our identities, yet the common factor about how this split manifests in a personality is this: a person’s locus of power becomes external, and therefore dependent, rather than internal and autonomous. An example of someone with an external locus of power might be a woman who only feels attractive when men tell her she is pretty. The woman is giving others the power to determine how she feels about herself.

Now we’ll do a little experiment: Put yourselves in the mind’s eye of a child and assume that we have your best interests at heart. You feel safe and cocooned, and your learning brain is open and receptive. Keep imagining you are an innocent and curious child as you read the next slide.

SEX

The same way that some of you may have experienced an incongruence when the slides switched from ‘Safety’ to ‘Sex’ is the incongruence that is experienced when a child is exposed to adult messages too early in their development. It is the compound effect of the exposure to such adult messages, with only a child’s cognition available to work the messages out, that creates an unconscious confusion. This subtle type of inner confusion, between what a child intuitively knows doesn’t feel quite right, yet the external environment insists is normal, potentially creates a sense of unsafety. Natural, healthy childhood development and open learning capacity is thwarted; replaced instead by a child prematurely adapting themselves to a false adulthood.

When there is adult hypocrisy, or confusion between a child’s feelings and the environment, the child struggles with the enormous conflicts between autonomy and dependency; authenticity and falsehood; love and abuse; and so on. They feel a need to reconcile them in order to return to their experience of safety, to be okay again. However, because these experiences are impossible to reconcile, the only way a functioning human child can make sense of the felt hypocrisy is to pretend that their conflicting experiences are in fact one and the same. Abuse becomes seen as love, falsehood becomes seen as authenticity. Children internalise these new false realities and develop patterns where they continue to do so in the future because it’s the only way that they can deal with the confusion. It becomes more and more natural to accept the false realities as who we are, because to name the hypocrisy threatens one’s survival.

POWER

A child’s development depends on the adult, just as your present experience here today is dependent on our output. Look at the way in which we summoned you to adopt a child’s state of mind during our slide switch from ‘Safety’ to ‘Sex’. You could say that when we did this, we asserted our power over you. This may be likened to the power that the environment of adulthood has over the growing, fresh innocence of a child’s developing mind. Explicit or implied positions of authority dictate how people should be and feel, and just because of someone’s position of power, there is an automatic obligation, almost, to simply do what they say. Some examples:

• Advertising, in many different ways, gives the message that ‘If you only have these clothes, car or makeup, you will find true love, happiness and even freedom’.
• As an example of teacher/student power: Earlier this month a news report described a situation in America where a teacher auctioned off the worst performing students to other students, sold as slaves for a day in order to reenact Roman slavery. The practice went unquestioned by students until a mother chose to complain. Even though badly performing students were being actively targeted and discriminated against, and students felt uncomfortable about it, they still complied with the teacher.
• To show the power that adults hold in parental relationships: There is currently a trial in Australia being undertaken against a mother who forced her 13 year old daughter to engage in sex acts with a truck driver in exchange for petrol. Despite repeated incidents of abuse at her mother’s facilitation, the daughter still wants her mother’s unconditional love, and can’t accept her mother’s role in the abuse that happened to her.

For us, it was this type of manipulative power over innocent child development that inspired the creation of the Choices for Children Committee at the start of 2009. The committee is made up of community members and workers who are jointly acting against the sexualisation and exploitation of children. We are a small group and we don’t engage in large scale political or legal action; rather, our purpose is to empower individuals to make differences in their lives through small, local actions. These may be carried out in the community, in someone’s social circle, or in one’s own family. The committee’s philosophy is underpinned by the ‘ripple effect’ – in that we believe that small personal changes can have a positive follow-on effect and inspire others to make similar changes in their lives. Thus, wider change is created not only through mass action but through the impacts of personal change.

As you may have noticed from our earlier examples, power can be used in many ways. Power can be used unthinkingly by adults in their privileged positions, with negative consequences.

But alternatively, power can be used consciously by responsible adults to create opportunities and good options for children to choose from, and thus it helps them learn to trust their own decisions. It is important to realise that we cannot escape our power positions as adults, yet what we can do is make a choice about how we use them.

CHOICES

Adults need to show children that in many situations, they always have a choice to think, feel and respond in ways that are true to themselves. We’re not advocating that children set their own rules, disobey curfews or take on the responsibility of keeping themselves safe. What we are encouraging is that adults give children permission to question.

Children benefit from learning that they can question other people’s behaviours, their own behaviours, and any constraints that are being imposed upon them. In many cases these constraints will be motivated by a genuine concern for a child’s wellbeing, however in some cases a child would do well to question an adult’s actions, because the actions might not necessarily be in the child’s best interests. Developing a sense of critical thinking and questioning will help build children’s autonomy, identity, independence and self esteem. Showing children that they have a choice to question and think for themselves will help them to shift from having an external locus of control, which is often unavoidable when they are still little, to an internal one, which is a preferable state for both young people and adults to be in.

This issue does not stop at childhood. We all have choices, all the time, and we all deserve to feel as if we do. This is something that’s easy to forget when we are caught up the rat race, stuck on the treadmill of life, inundated with stress or pressure.

That’s not living, it’s just survival. Life doesn’t have to be this hard, if only we stop to realise there is another way: CHOICE.

But at the same time that we realise we have the potential for choice and change, we must also accept that we are good enough exactly as we are. This might feel like a paradox, but as adults we can actually reconcile these two ideas and hold them at the same time.

Once we know this, it can change us in an instant.

When the feeling of being good enough has been accepted internally, we stop having the need for an agenda or a point to prove, and we stop using our power over others to try and reassure ourselves that we are good enough.  In terms of how this relates to children, we want to highlight especially that adults’ feelings of being good enough can have a ripple effect and help to create this same feeling in the children who they interact with. Adults who feel good enough about themselves during their interactions with children are truly acting in the best interests of the child. This is because an adult who feels that they are good enough will not be acting to get only their own needs met. If you recall our earlier discussion regarding the genuine and artificial, what we’re talking about now is genuine love – love without strings attached.

LOVE

Love speaks for itself, and today we are ending our offering on this high vibration. Love gives children a ‘fair go’, a chance to get on with healthy development without interference or distraction.

If we are conscious about every choice we make, every word we say to children, every word we say to each other, we are capable of feeling an absolute freedom to choose every response in any situation. Instead of being REACTIVE (coming from a place of fear) we become RESPONSIVE (which comes from a true space inside, one of love).

What do we mean by LOVE? We mean making courageous decisions, despite the knowledge that sometimes, the recipient of your response will be unappreciative; the result may be loss of some sort; or you will look like the ‘baddie’. But these are all just internal ego fears, our personal triggers.

Making courageous decisions is love… because you are genuinely acting in the best interests of the child or situation, despite any primal, internal ego fears. When we feel the scare, and are still able to consciously CHOOSE the way in which we will respond, we are acting from an energy of love. We are RESPONDING, rather than REACTING, and in responding, we allow healthy room for learning, absorbing, and growing. Call it what you will: true, authentic, genuine, pure – when you respond to any situation from a conscious place, regardless of the impulses inside your body, you are allowing yourself the freedom to choose.

This speaks to the core of today’s presentation, and to the core of our chosen name for our committee: CHOICES for CHILDREN is not only about making choices for little people, it’s about modelling to future generations through our own actions that they have a capacity to choose their own responses in every situation, and thus choose how they live their own lives.

So for those of you that have interactions with children, we want to end by reminding you that you hold great power and potential in the actions you choose. Please choose responsibly. But even if you don’t have the opportunities in your environment to facilitate good choices for children, then we ask that you leave this presentation with newfound appreciation of how choices can be used in your personal lives as adults. The power of choice in human interaction and relationships can enrich all of our lives, offering great opportunities for freedom, authenticity and joy.

Themis, I know you are waiting and hoping for the next round of apologies to come out of the mouths of professionals, bureaucrats, adults. Heartfelt apologies and acknowledgements that the community did the wrong thing, keeps doing the wrong thing, by not listening to children.

But I think you are going to be waiting a while for that apology.

We live in a world where adult rights are paramount. Adults are bigger, stronger, craftier, have more possessions to lose, more responsibilities to shoulder, they know how to navigate the legal system. Adults must be protected, especially against the conniving claims of children.

That’s the conclusion I take from this most recent article about a child gang-rape case in the US.

‘Investigators said soon after arriving, the older girl took money to have sex with several men at a party, including Leary. The teen then gave some of the money she had collected to the younger girl to let the men start touching her. It soon escalated to rape, police said, and the men threatened to kill the child if she screamed or told anyone. The girl later put on her clothes and left the apartment; her older sister stayed, police say. Two women found the child crying outside the apartment and walked her home, where police were waiting because the girls’ parents had reported them missing. Leary’s lawyer suggested on Thursday in court that the child had been pressured to make up the story. “She was not raped, was not gang-raped,” [the lawyer] Robin Lord said. “I’m 100 per cent certain that the seven-year-old was not sexually assaulted”.’

Seven-year-olds are liars. Seven-year-olds don’t know what they are talking about. They make these elaborate stories up. Maybe even for fun. Cause, isn’t it fun for a child to joke about being gang raped? Or maybe the seven-year-old wasn’t raped, maybe the men just ‘had sex’ with her?

Obviously “sorry” isn’t going to come soon. We haven’t screwed things up enough yet. There’s still more damage we can possibly do, so let’s do that first. Don’t be silly, we can’t apologise yet, we need to rub salt in your wounds a little bit more instead.

Adults’ rights are paramount. It is important that this news story is splashed all over world media, because we must protect adults’ interests. Let us publicly, internationally, insinuate that a seven-year-old rape victim is a liar.

Oh oops, is that not a good strategy for protecting a traumatised child’s mental health?

Sorry will come, but later.

Sorry that this apology is coming 15 years too late.

Sorry that we broadcast to the world about everything that happened to you.

And then denied that it happened to you.

Sorry we took away your childhood.

Sorry we took away your faith in humanity.

Just for the record, if it’s of any worth, I would like to say that I am sorry. I am sorry that this keeps happening to little children everywhere. I am sorry we keep treating victims like this. I am sorry that this is the community we live in. I am sorry that we can’t seem to get our act together enough to prevent these occurrences. I am sorry that when a child rape case is broadcast all over the world – is that not humiliating enough? – it is still accompanied by adult denials that anything ever happened at all.

Sorry will come, eventually. But it will clearly not come today.

Picture this.

It’s May 2009. You are walking past the newsagent with your five year old child next to you. You’re oblivious to the posters lying against the wall at the front of the store, keen instead to just get on with whatever tasks you have to do for the day.

Your child stops and stares. They’ve just caught sight of their favourite television actress on one of the posters. It’s Kellie Crawford, ex-star of the children’s variety show Hi-5.

You might recognise her as the woman in blue, second from the right:

But those kinds of images aren’t really what the market for men’s magazine Ralph are looking for. Ralph prefers something more like this:

Just in case you weren’t 100% sure of her background in children’s entertainment, they’ve taken the liberty of reminding you.

It’s Hi5 hottie Kellie! Busting out some bedtime stories. Open to reveal cans!

“Mummy, can we buy it? It’s got Kellie!….What are cans?”

More headlines. THE 6^TH ANNUAL RALPH AWARDS. INCLUDING 100 MASSIVE WANKERS.

Ahhh, what? Oh, I see. This is the kind of thing we are supposed to want our kids to be strolling past at every newsagent.

Okay, well, maybe this isn’t as big a problem as some people might think. Parents should just get over it. Kids will get over it. Stop being so uptight. No big deal.

Next stop is the petrol station, a place far more fascinating than the newsagent in terms of the literary material available for consumption. People. Picture. Penthouse. Playboy. Sure, housed in plastic sleeves, but that’s not stopping anyone from seeing the front covers.

Do we really think a child needs to see this, these caricatures of women, reduced to inane sex objects?

There has been increasing pressure lately by child advocacy groups to place tougher restrictions on the sale and positioning of such magazines in stores in order to reduce the exposure of children to such material. http://bit.ly/d4AOeK

But a quick glance on social media site Twitter shows what some of the public think about this idea.

‘Australia is officially a nation of wowsers’.

A ‘nanny state’

‘WTF is wrong with this country? Children aren’t in them, children can’t buy them. JUST FUCK OFF YOU CONSERVATIVE FUCK’

‘I’m pretty sure it won’t diminish the demand for porn’

Hmmm, missing the point much? It’s not about diminishing the demand for porn. Not at all. Adults are entitled to purchase and view porn if they so choose. The issue is placing this material in an age-appropriate location. Front-row at a petrol station, nestled comfortably between Woman’s Day and K-Zone, right next to the lollies, is probably not the best place. One would think. Similarly, placing a much loved children’s TV presenter on an A3 poster out the front of a newsagent, undressed and offering to share her bedtime stories, is likely not the smartest way to deflect children’s eyes from such adult material.

Sure, children aren’t in these magazines. Children can’t buy these magazines. But what’s the difference between a child flicking through one of these magazines, or viewing the same thing on its front cover? If such material was screened on prime time television there would be outrage… imagine a 6pm network television show promoting “100 massive wankers”, or promising viewers that if they stayed tuned they would be able to check out some ‘cans’. Hmmm. So it’s not okay for prime time TV, but it’s okay for kids to walk past this on the street at any time of day?

We need to have a serious think about standards, double standards and hypocrisy in this country. It’s not about conservatism. It’s about common sense. I challenge you to find any self-respecting parent (mother, father, guardian) who can honestly tell you that they aren’t bothered by their innocent little 5 year old being exposed to pictures of barely-dressed sex sirens and crude written headlines when they walk into a petrol station.

It doesn’t matter what these adults do in their spare time, whether they personally view this material, whether they approve of other adults consuming it. That is 100% beside the point. The point is whether we should be exposing vulnerable children to these images and stereotypes, constantly, in public locations across our nation.

What’s the big deal about adults procuring such material from adult stores or the internet? Are we really so desperate for soft porn that we can’t bear to make the trip to an adult-friendly location to find it? Does it have to be on tap, available every which way you look, infiltrating public places and young minds?

Give me a break. It’s not about conservatism. It’s about adults taking responsibility for the methods and modes that they use in displaying (for businesses) and procuring (for consumers) this material. If you are a parent, you don’t leave your stash of porn magazines lying all over the house where your kids can find them. So why do you tolerate, accept, and indeed reward (through purchasing) similar behaviours from thoughtless businesses who choose to display their adult wares in public?

We have standards, and then we have double standards. Maybe it’s about time to reconcile them.

The above article isn’t listed here so that it may necessarily be read. I’m simply noting it here, archiving it, in this blog’s history, for when the next phase of ‘sorry’ comes out… the one that says ‘sorry to all the little children who we knowingly placed into the arms of known sex offenders and snuffed out your will to live…’

What a strange world this is. We are told that in any situation in this fair country of ours we are ‘innocent until proven guilty’ regardless of what the accusation against us is.

So imagine my surprise when a victim of child sexual abuse crosses their own fear boundary in order to tell the police, and the police say ‘That’s a dramatic story, we’re not quite sure you’re telling us the truth’.

Then they go about ‘corroborating’ the story. Bring us your childhood diaries. Out come the innocent and now shaming notations of a child in fear of being discovered then. Bring us your nearest and dearest. Out come the hostile and blindingly groomed family members being asked to finally support yet never having learnt how. Bring us your heart and soul. Out comes the pouring of secrets of trauma and terror held at bay for sometimes between 1 and 70 years, and a statement is taken.

Something always and continuously taken.

And that is only the beginning. Meanwhile…. the ’alleged perpetrator’  goes about their regular business… silent and deadly perpetration.

The grave irony of this situation is that any child or adult who discloses childhood sexual abuse is immediately labelled: guilty (lying) until proven innocent (rare) .

It’s a cruel and abusive re-perpetration of victims.

Simply the words ‘child sexual abuse’ manage to descend a veil of denial over people’s minds and hearts that is so thick it is itself often inpenetrable.

So much for innocent until proven guilty.

Granted, a childhood sexual abuse victim is raped of their innocence long before they find the strength and courage to tell anyone the Truth.

Perhaps society has this excuse to fall back on. If a person claims their innocence was stolen, then how can they be innocent?

Did you find yourself nodding, in the sheer hope that there is at least one feasible excuse for such re-victimisation of already ravaged souls? Shame on you!

Come on, world, open your eyes. Fathers are raping their daughters and sons. Family friends and uncles are abusing their positions of trust. Step fathers are pillaging their new families. And that’s not to ignore the confusion some mothers cause their children. Yes, I mean sexually. Yes, I mean women too, in growing numbers. People who are trusted by little dependent beings, are  instead getting their own egotistical, emotional and sexual needs met,  instead of tending to the feelings and futures of these little people.

And the veil of denial descends on even the authorities and they ask such ridiculous questions such as ‘Well are you sure you want to say that? How will the accused feel?’  Do you know who you are asking about the accused’s feelings? The victim, Sir. You’re asking the victim, whose feelings have never been regarded possibly their whole lives.

And then we have ANGER.

How may readers today raised their eyebrows and smugly thought about how angry I sound, and perhaps there’s ‘stuff’ I may not have ‘forgiven’ and that my spirituality is not grounded in peace and serenity?

Well that’s just another excuse as far as I’m concerned. Yes, little betrayed and confused children, and bigger betrayed and confused adults, are ANGRY. That’s because they’re hurt and bruised and feeling broken. So to every person who has accused someone of being angry without reason, I invite you to ask the ‘angry without reason’  person, “IS THERE SOMETHING YOU’RE TRYING TO SAY?” and you may be shocked to learn that there is.

Of course, we’ve learnt to say ‘They are so angry’ and leave it at that. Well there does go another angry person with no manners. Not only betrayed and confused at this point, but neglected to boot.

Anger is not a dirty word if you’re listening properly. Yes I’m angry. Wonderful, alivened, awakened anger, being channelled into CHANGE. I dare you to stand up and make a difference by not encouraging the silence any longer. You know what I’m talking about. Every time you stayed silent while a child’s sense of self was confused and betrayed by a bigger, powerful adult.

Scared of losing the family. Scared of losing your friend. Scared of the shame. Scared of losing your lover (who’s probably abusive to you too most of the time). Scared of growing up and standing up. Scared of your very self.

I’ve seen mums and so called care givers sacrifice children to sexual predators and monsters, scared of some or all of the above.

Shame on you, not the victims. Shame on us, society, not the children.

Footnote: and I’ve seen people honour, fight and heal themselves and children’s lives, be it their own children or not

What if reality and truth aren’t what you were tricked into believing them to be? Can you handle that? Yes?…  Well then… there is hope.

The latest news is the fact that Google has refused to voluntarily comply with the Australian government’s request to censor objectionable YouTube videos http://bit.ly/aqLa9x. Google already prohibits many objectionable themes from appearing in its YouTube videos, such as child pornography and bestiality. But the Government wants more than that. Apparently drug harm minimisation, euthanasia debates/information, and other politically controversial material is inappropriate too. Better the population not know about these issues, as opposed to be educated about them… right?

Of course, this censorship won’t be limited to YouTube. I wonder if they’ll ban access to the international database of pill reports that helps users around the world identify whether the ecstasy they’ve purchased may be from a bad batch or contain ‘PMA’, a toxic chemical that can easily cause death. Because, after all, such information would be providing way too many details about drug use. Even though it might, you know, actually save someone’s life.

Then again, maybe they won’t censor that website. Consider that there are now over one trillion URL’s, or unique webpages, on the Internet http://bit.ly/cAfADC. Now compare that quantity to the 1000-10,000 URL’s that the Australian Government plans to block http://bit.ly/do3vWH. That’s less than 0.000001% of the pages that exist on the Internet. So for every 100 million webpages, the government will block just one.

That doesn’t sound too bad now, does it?

Except, well, do you really think that out of every 100 million webpages, only one of them is going to contain content that children (and adults) should be protected from? Is Australia’s proposed blacklist of sites going to be comprehensive enough, at that size, to make a significant impact? When you think about it, a mere 10,000 banned URL’s doesn’t sound like nearly enough to cover all objectionable material on the Internet. Why, it’s just a flash in the pan. It’s a shame that the task of censoring all objectionable sites is impossible, with more than a trillion URL’s to contend with. Maybe it would be easier if we just censored the entire Internet?

I am curious as to how Internet censorship is going to affect parenting practices. I can see mums and dads around Australia breathing a sigh of relief as they feel assured that the Government is protecting the interests of their kids and their family. No need for child protection software. No need to check over your child’s shoulder every 10 minutes to see if they’re getting up to trouble. Right? Hah.

I don’t know how much say the Australian public has about the Internet censorship scheme. It seems at the moment like nobody in Government is actually listening. One thing I know, though, when the Government does put it into place, is that parents are going to have to be more vigilant than ever. Children (and adults), ever curious, will find ways around censorship barriers. These ways are likely going to involve methods and material that parents have no idea about.

Do you know how to download a file from BitTorrent? Are you aware what Flickr photos your teenager is posting onto Twitter? What’s happening on your child’s MSN, Second Life, Habbo, or Club Penguin account? What information are people sending to or gaining from your child? You’d better start learning if you want to know what the next generation of kids are doing. Because the Australian Government censoring the Internet isn’t going to offer you much protection at all.

UPDATE: Please see this excellent PDF from the Australian Library and Information Association for recommendations on Core Principles for Effective Action for a Safer Internet http://bit.ly/9xLhQR

So says the company’s website.

Fascinating then, that this allegedly family-friendly Australian company made the decision recently to start selling a product called the “Tween Age” push up bra bit.ly/9XTzpv Tweens, let’s remember, are prepubescent children who are too young to be considered teens, too old to be considered a child. The maximum age bracket for this group is generally accepted to be 12 years old, with minimum ages varying according to opinion and definition, but normally lying between 6 and 9 years old.

What use, pray tell, does a 9 year old girl have with a push up bra? Is it going to make life ‘better’ for her, as Best & Less promises in their quote? For what purpose must nonexistent breasts be increased? Let’s amend that – even if a girl was physically developing at that age, what benefits would a push up bra bring to her self esteem and body image? Well, I don’t know about benefits, but I’m sure it would help to instil in her some messages about her body not being good enough.

It is really the case that we cannot allow even a 9 year old girl to grow up in peace? That we are telling her the rate of her body’s development is inadequate and must be artificially simulated so that she looks like she is more physically mature than she really is?

For what purpose do marketers think that little girls will be wearing these bras? For fun? To attract ‘boyfriends’? Correct me if I am wrong, but I would assume that any boys of that age who would be interested in their schoolmates wearing a push up bra are probably too advanced to be the sort of boy you would want your little girl having a friendship with.

At best, this product carries the risk of encouraging little girls to grow up much faster than they ought to, well before they are emotionally ready to handle the issues that come with adult products and decisions. Adult women have enough insecurities and pressures to deal with in today’s consumer society. Feeling like we aren’t good enough. Being dissatisfied with our bodies. Thinking that products can make us better versions of ourselves. None of these beliefs are warranted. So who on earth decided that it would be okay to foist them upon kids now as well?

At worst, I would argue that the Tween-Age push-up bra places children at heightened risk of sexual abuse, either by instilling in them a belief that they need to be sexy and sexually available to men, or by sending the erroneous message to paedophiles that children possess these qualities and are willing and knowledgeable about sexual issues.

Would you want YOUR children experiencing any of this? I didn’t think so.

What can you do?

Take action: Tell Best and Less what you think of their ridiculous new product by emailing feedback@bestandless.com.au or phoning (02) 95613400. Boycott Best & Less. Keep your eyes open for other things you see in the community, and don’t be silent.

Educate yourself and others: Start by watching this amazing little video clip http://bit.ly/bb4DgD Adults and children alike need to see it. Its message extends far beyond weight issues and could apply equally to other body image issues or concerns relating to product marketing or the sexualisation of children. If you are keen to read more, check out this discussion paper from The Australia Institute on the sexualisation of children http://bit.ly/950k7K Tell others about the issue.

Refuse to let your children become the puppets of corporations and marketers.

UPDATE: Choices for Children received a (generic) email from Best & Less today in response to our complaint, which said that they have now pulled the product from their shelves and that the entire debacle had been a mere ‘branding’ and ‘labelling’ error.  Hmm.

The purpose of this initiative is to put a blanket restriction on access to extreme, offensive, and/or illegal material on the Internet that could potentially (and may currently) be accessed by Australians. Some of the major website categories that would be blocked under this proposed scheme include known websites that feature child pornorgaphy, or sites that offer instruction on committing suicide.

No doubt the proposed filter was designed with good intentions. It is supposed to assist in reducing the exposure of children to such objectionable material, as well as protecting other members of the public.

My question, however, is how this initiative is really going to impact children.

First, I would think that when children seek out or are exposed to objectionable material on the Internet, much of the traumatising material they will see does not even fall into the category which is going to be blocked by the proposed filter. Adult pornography. Videos on social media websites depicting murders or animal maulings.  Harassment and predators in chat rooms. At what point does something ‘cross the line’ and become too extreme for children? Far earlier than the point at which it would cross the line for adults.

Next. It is going to be impossible for the filter to block every objectionable site that even does fall into its categories. Though known websites will be blocked, how will this do anything about sites that are so discreet that they escape attention; new sites that will inevitably pop up; and sites which can potentially spread objectionable material (eg file-sharing sites) which dont fall on the filter’s blacklist?

I am worried that:

• This filter scheme won’t work
• It may even do more harm than good

Think about the issue of child pornography. If known sites are blocked which distribute child pornography, isn’t there a risk that it will drive users even further underground? Thus making it even more difficult to identify, apprehend and persecute paedophiles, as they learn to be even more secretive and clever, and find ways to evade the filter.

It’s not a pretty topic to discuss. There are no simple answers. Obviously it is unacceptable to leave child pornography available to the public, thus continuing the exploitation of the child victims in such a situation. But if the movement delves even further underground upon introduction of mandatory Internet filtering, won’t this child exploitation be increased and prolonged? Because if you block these sites, offenders who normally might view them – and get prosecuted for it – will no longer be able to do so. And therefore they can’t get caught either.

I don’t know if mandatory Internet filtering is going to achieve all of the things it proposes to do. I don’t think it’s going to protect children as much as one might hope. In fact, I am worried it may result in even further exploitation. I’m worried that it will drive the child pornography scene even further underground, where the chances of prosecution are even more remote.

The importance of this issue cannot be overstated. Here are some statistics from a study by McQuade (2008):

In a survey of 4743 children in Kindergarten and Year 1…

• 50% of these children surveyed reported that their parents didn’t supervise their use of the computer
• 56% have clicked on a website without knowing what was going to happen
• 48% have viewed online content that made them uncomfortable
• 28% didn’t tell an adult after they had seen something online that made them uncomfortable

In a survey of 5549 children in Years 2 and 3…

• 11% were asked private things about their body
• 30% didn’t tell an adult after they had seen something online that made them uncomfortable

In a survey of 9350 children in Years 4 to 6…

• 14% of children experienced someone using their passwords without permission, or have had someone who pretended to be them online

In a survey of 10204 children in Years 7 to 9…

• 7% have been asked for nude pictures while online

In a survey of 7184 children in Years 10 to 12…

• 24% have experienced their password being cracked by another person
• 23% have been asked about sexual activities
• 13% have accepted an invitation to meet an online stranger in person

The dangers are crystal clear, but so is the solution. We need to raise awareness of what children, teenagers and parents can do to protect young people from online abuse and harm.  And to do that we need as many organisations, individuals and community members as possible, working together to educate, inform, and support.

If you wish to register your own organisation as a supporter/participant in Safer Internet Day, or to find out more about the event, go here and click on the ‘Safer Internet Day’ link on the right hand side: www.saferinternet.org

Alternatively, if you would like links to free resources about what adults, children and teens can do to keep safe online, try these sites to begin with:

• http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/Libraries/Downloadable%20resources.aspx (Australian – for adults)
• http://www.soso.org.au/ (Australian – excellent website designed for children)
• http://enough.org/
• http://www.protectkids.com/parentsafety/

We will be posting up more links and references next year, closer to Safer Internet Day. We will also blog about how the Choices for Children Committee plans to be involved in the event.

If you have any great resources or weblinks yourself, please let us know and/or post your details in the ‘Comments’ section of this blog. Again, if you work in the community services sector or a related field I would also encourage you to sign up for Safer Internet Day yourself. Let’s work together to make technology safer for today’s children!

Reference

McQuade, S.C. (2008). Online abuse and crime by youth: results from the RIT survey of Internet and at-risk behaviors. Paper presented at the Internet Safety Technical Taskforce Meeting, Berkman Centre for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School. September 24 2008. <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/2008%20-%20ISTTF%20Meeting%20at%20Harvard.pdf> Access date 11 December 2009.

Let’s put aside the question of whether this outfit was appropriate for a kid at a Halloween party. You might argue that children wearing such clothes is unacceptable whatever the occasion, or you might be of the opinion that little girls should feel free to dress up in whatever costume they see fit on a fun and carefree occasion such as Halloween. No matter.

Let’s also put aside the question of parental responsibility for this little thought experiment. What I want to ask today – regardless of your opinion on whether Noah’s outfit was appropriate – is when it started becoming acceptable for adults to criticise, target, and blame children for their fashion faux pas. Case in point: check out the kind of feedback that online viewers have offered about Noah’s outfit at the end of these two articles: http://bit.ly/FEdv3 and http://bit.ly/mh3J0

“Trailer trash”.

“Prostitute”.

“Junior hooker”.

“She looks pregnant”.

“Poor girl is SO not good looking”.

“Get that kid to a dentist”.

“Street walker”.

Now think for a second that it was YOU who dressed up in that outfit when you were a child. Because you thought it looked cute. Or funky. Because you didn’t realise what connotations it might have to cynical, world-weary adults. Now imagine how you would feel if people started calling you those names. Imagine what kind of effect this would have on your confidence and sense of identity. Imagine that you unconsciously carried these barbs with you as a teenager and all the way up until adulthood, not realising that you had internalised them and that they were damaging your self esteem. You still think you’re ugly. You still think you’re trailer trash. No matter what you do, or what other people say to try to reassure you, you can’t shake these deep-seated beliefs.

Don’t believe it’s possible? Then try and remember back to the messages people gave YOU as a child. Perhaps: “You’ll never amount to anything”. “You’re too fat”. “Too skinny”. “You’re stupid/ messy/ unlikeable/ unpopular/ unattractive/ weak”.  Are there any that still strike a chord now? Are there any that still influence the way you think, behave, feel – even just occasionally?

Kids absorb information with incredible ease. These flyaway comments in childhood can have much greater impact than you think – or don’t think.

Let’s get back to Noah Cyrus and the name-calling. Let’s try another exercise. Imagine, instead of Noah, that it was YOUR daughter who dressed up in that outfit. Maybe you gave her permission, but maybe you didn’t (you can’t keep an eye on your kids every single second of the day, after all). Maybe she borrowed the outfit from a friend when she was having a sleepover, and you had absolutely no knowledge or control over the matter.

Now consider how you would feel as a parent if your daughter wore that outfit and then you found out that other parents, other adults, were calling YOUR daughter those horrible names. How would you feel? What would you think about those other adults? It’s pretty immature of them, don’t you think? It’s pretty unfair of them too. She’s just a kid. She doesn’t know the full impact of what she’s doing. She just wanted to have some fun. She didn’t go out expecting to be criticised, trashed and slandered by adults who should know better than that.

If we don’t like being called those names ourselves, and we wouldn’t like our children being attacked like that, then why do we think it is acceptable to do this to other people’s children?

If we have something CONSTRUCTIVE to say, wouldn’t it be better to have a gentle word to the child, or a serious talk to them, or a quiet word to their parents? Wouldn’t this have a less damaging impact on everyone involved?

If we have reasonable objections to a child’s dress sense or other behaviours/characteristics, we need to make them aware of this in appropriate ways – not by calling them obscene names. Let’s not subject children to the same petty scrutiny, gossip and slandering that we think is acceptable to dish out to other adults (particularly celebrities).

Maybe it’s time that WE, as adults, started growing up a little more ourselves.