"It's the parents' fault". We rattle the line off like the refrain of a song.
Fingers point at parents when a child is violent in school. Surely it's more complex.
Yesterday morning, a 7-year-old boy with scissors in hand smashed windows at Mangakahia Area School. The school went into lock-downafter the boy smashed three windows. He had become upset during class. Who knows what triggered the outburst. What terror fell on teachers and pupils when the small child's emotions could no longer stay inside his head or body and he exploded into a violent fit of rage?
Tikipunga High School is working with a family to help a 13-year-old girl. Her mother told the Advocate that she had been the victim of a violent attack and had now become the bully. She has gone 10 months without school as her parents and school try to find a solution.
The co-ordinator of Alternative Education Whangarei, a school which caters for students who have been excluded from mainstream schools, says all 59 places at the school had been taken for term one this year.
According to Pat Newman, Tai Tokerau Principals' Association president and principal at Hora Hora Primary School, a 6-year-old recently lashed out at classmates.
The pupil was referred to the Gateway programme, which gels the services of Child Youth and Family, doctors and schools. His needs will be assessed - four months after his initial referral.
Northland lives under a dark cloud of child sex abuse, domestic abuse, alcoholism and drug abuse. The sunshine that breaks through that cloud is the work of community groups to promote healing in lives touched by abuse, violence and addiction.
The winterless north needs more sunshine. A little more hope for parents who feel helpless at the hands of distressed children. A little more funding for addiction education. More conversations about mental health and youth suicide. A little less finger-pointing when a child lashes out and tries to say with violence what he or she might not have the vocabulary or strength to utter.
