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What can be done to stem the rise of child abuse in Japanese society?

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What can be done to stem the rise of child abuse in Japanese society?

Education in the difference between punishment and discipline.

What is being done to stem the rise of child abuse in Japanese society?

Bugger all!

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Planned Parenthood. Younger people are having babies, with no means to support a family, and the lack of maturity to sacrafice their own selfish desires to raise a child.

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Stop handing out probation and suspended sentences. Educate the kids in school about what is not acceptable behavior from adults in the home and school. Give the kids a way to get help that doesn't require the parents to get involved firsthand. And get rid of that damned "sho ga noi". it CAN be helped!

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sho ga aru? I think damning the attitude towards youchiens is the first step. As a new parent those youchien fees just drop in when you should be focusing on more of your family. Its too much pressure and confuses values-well I think.

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Lots of things you can do. Stiffer penalties, publicly shaming the parents, lots of planned parenthood education in school.

All, of course, would collectively require Japan as a nation to look itself in the mirror and admit that it isn't a special unique safety country. It's got it's fair share of evil that it has to deal with. No more playing Edo period Samurai where human life is expendable.

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gaijiinfo-im interested in your suggestion for how you would plan planned parenthood? So you would have a 3rd party participating in an act of love?

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Stop those ridiculous tarento shows on TV and bring educative programs

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While Im interested in seeing a better image of women, I think there is a lot of educational TV programs; change the channel. Lifestyle is the culprit of child abuse.

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This question seems meaningless to me. Like so many other social and economic problems in Japan, Japanese politicians already know what needs to be done to stem the rise of child abuse. It's simply a matter of making hard, unpopular decisions to change things. Unfortunately for Japanse society, the politicians do not want to make those decisions mostly out of fear of not being reelected.

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Is it rising? Reference?

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Is it rising? Reference?

The statistics were released last week.

I don't think more severe penalties and/or public shaming will have any effect on child abuse. Most Japanese have no idea what actually constitutes child abuse. The old locking kids on the balcony and/or in the wardrobe, a good smack in the head are all accepted parenting methods in Japan. You could even include the school disciplinary measure of shaving a kid's head as child abuse. There needs to be an educational program explaining why punishment is not discipline. Discipline is education in correct behavior, whereas, punishment is a result of a lack of self-discipline on the parent's behalf. Discipline is not beating, starving, segregating or neglecting kids. That is abuse! Unfortunately, to make a change to the child abuse statistics they would have to re-educate the whole society, which in a nation of self-centered 12y/o's is IMPOSSIBLE!
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Child abuse is a worldwide phenomenon - stiffer sentences, child abuser registers and all the rest are still not working there, so not sure how they will work here.

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I think there needs to be a broader discussion about various ages of what child is. While I agree with Disillusioned, the terms for child abuse are also broad. For eg. a child that you might allow to walk down the street counters the term segregation. But for a different aged child, it could be neglect. Children have various stages of growth, and by clumping it all together, and creating generalizations will only influence more abuse,imo.

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Education about discipline versus punishment, a good one too.

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Ban the sale of sexualized depictions of children, real and virtual. What's on sale at your local convenience store could land you in jail for years back where I'm from.

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Better sex ed and better options for birth control.

As I understand it, women are not empowered enough to demand condom use, are scared of the pill, and require the father's permission (and a hefty fee) for an abortion. The morning after pill exists, but it's not something you'd want to take a million times. Reducing the cost (and ridiculous restrictions) on abortion, promoting the pill, and helping women to make their wishes known will go a long way in preventing unwanted children. Unwanted children are far more likely to be abused and neglected.

Next, better mental health care and welfare services for poor and single parents. Women suffering from post partum depression can lash out with fatal results, and frustrated, poor parents can take out those frustrations on their kids. This is an important second step.

After that, teaching young people that just because their parents did it doesn't mean it's good. In my parents' generation, I know the belt was a popular form of discipline. It was far less popular in my generation and now would be considered abuse. The things that were okay 50 years ago are not acceptable now, and young parents need to be taught that. Perhaps when a newly pregnant mother starts going in for prenatal exams, she and hub should have to take a mandatory sort of take-home test, to at least put the ideas in their heads of how to react when a kid cries or how to react when they aren't getting enough sleep and so on.

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It is easy. Just take the child away from the parents and fine them 1 million yen and have them go through a parent training program where they can learn how to be real parents and not immature parents with a mind of a spoiled child.

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For once I agree with you alladin.

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Most Japanese parents cannot define child abuse or neglect. They just do not know what it is, period! Today's news of the two toddlers dieing in a house fire after being left alone in the house for five hours. It is standard practice for Japanese people to leave their toddlers home alone. There have been three or four other deaths this year from kids being left at home alone and climbing over balcony railings. Then there was the kid that was locked on the balcony as punishment and climbed over the railing. Let's not forget my personal favorites, kids being left in cars while the parents play pachinko or go shopping. There was a young couple a few years ago that put their baby under the seat of their scooter that died while they went to pachinko. My wife has done it with our kids and when I chastised her about being such an irresponsible twit her answer was, "This is Japan. It's normal." It is not (swearing) normal at all!!! I know it happens all over the world, but in Japan it just seems to be from two main reasons, selfishness and plain stupidity!

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@Monkeyz : "promoting the pill"

Do not promote the pill for women. It's a highly carcinogenic drug directly linked to the rise of death by breast and womb cancers among women in Westerner countries.

Developp birth control for men since their pill (which was invented before the women's pill) is effective and safe for their health.

Moderator: Back on topic please.

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more arrests. longer prison sentences. placing the children in the custody of their extended families and not government facilities.

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One thing would be to change the child custody laws to keep the father in the child's life.

Japan already HAS laws on its books but you get this whole "what can we do" attitude towards actual enforcement. Everything from family relations to traffic law is basically letting people do whatever they want until it's too late. Then you get these "tragedy" stories in the newspaper, people sigh and do nothing, and then it just keeps on happening. Look at all of the stories in the last six months about kids falling off of balconies - it's not kids somehow finding their way onto the balconies, it's the parents and grandparents putting them there.

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To comment on the release of statistics that show that Child Abuse is rising in Japan - what worth are these statistics when police refuse to deal with "family matters", leaving (until recently) a child abuse massively under-reported?

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Of course, society just doesn't treasure life like it used to. Perhaps the Chinese cane penalty may help. There is no excuse for the violence, and probably no solution.

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What I have seen over the years is that it appears people who are well enough off put off starting families & find out later its harder to start them, then there are the borderline types those that choose to have kids can usually pull it off reasonably well.

Its what I call the 3rd class that appears to be the major problem they are the immature/young/ignorant/stupid, or some combination of those traits. They simple just dont know what they are doing & certainly dont know how to use calculators because if they did they wud have some idea of the costs involved in raising kids, point blank many dont have the $$$ for the tasks, throw those other traits & thats when you get the stories we read/see in the news

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Not sure what can be done to stem child abuse in japan or anywhere else.

When I grew up it was common to get a "healthy smack" from parents and even strangers when you stepped out of line.

Now we can't even touch our kids in certain ways without abusing them.

Now having been wee one myself and seen many "little" terrorists we knew and know where the limits are and how to push them, part of growing up.

But kids don't react well to reason and sermons(same as animals). So we get a Lot of spoiled kids who get away with lots of things.

Like I said "ONE healthy smack" designed to shock not injure or hurt is ok in my book.

Seen many parents that keep saying can't hit kid till they truly flip out and smack a kid brutally. Now the kid is confused on top of hurt, been told we can't smack the kid but in the end it gets a hurtful one.

Better let the kids know there is a limit and you cross it at your own peril.

My son gets out of hand I ask him "Shall I start counting", he knows if I get to 3(deliberate slow count) he gets a slight smack and punishment. Very few times I get to 2.

Said that after every fight/altercation there is a talk when tempers(his) are cooled.

Just my view.

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Every first time parents must be educated. A licence must be required to have a baby. Why not? What's more impartant than raising healthy child? There are so many moms that have no clue how to rare a child. All the world's problems comes from bad parents.

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Damien15.

Good idea. Lets enforce the licence worldwide, will also solve the over-population problem in a short time.

And I guess many of us wouldn't be here if such a licence existed half a century ago.

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Zenny, good post about thd counting and smacking. I totally agree kids need to learn which lines not to cross. Being too tolerant doesn't help parent or child in the long run.

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Sushi.

Thx, that procedures also forces me not to loose my temper. :P

And I know people will decry it, I use it when I can't control him any other way or he gets in a pure stubborn mood.

Kind of a blowout valve for both of us, he knows "Oops, things are serious now" and I get to say to myself "Chill, take a breath".

We are all humans and sometimes our fuses are shorter than normal.

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discipline the child right and from early on. Trying to play catch up with a kid 3 and over aint gonna work out well for anyone.

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When people get angry from constant stress ... job, school, financial or simmering relationship issues ... they often strike out at whomever is near. Face it, children CAN be annoying - so if a child annoys someone who is already at the breaking point the child will likely be the target of an angry, perhaps dangerous, outburst. They are 'safe' targets too, can't hit back.

The greatest stress on people in Japan seems to be their jobs. As the world economy slipped into recession ('depression' really) people came under a lot more job stress. Longer hours and higher productivity is demanded plus the threat of termination or serious cuts in pay/perks always looms.

Is it suprising that this sharp increase in child abuse coincided with the rising stress of a falling economy ? I don't think so. Many are pressed to the limit already, on the verge of emotional explosion. It probably won't come out on the job, but at home instead.

So, it's a systemic problem. Threats and penalties against offending individuals will only help a little bit because we're talking "emotional" issues - not anything people sit around and carefully reason. Only the random monster actually plots "Now how can I hurt my children today ? Let me think of something creative."

99.9% of abusers didn't think, didn't plot, they are just angry, beyond reason. Yes, they should be able to excercise self-control even then, but "ideals" and realities are often very different things. Talk of imposing draconian penalties on even borderline abusers has emotional appeal, but it's not a real fix, doesn't get to the core issues.

The real cure is to address the systemic issues. Make the working environment more civilized and especially more secure. Workers should not be in terror of their employers all of the time, should not be grossly exploited by their employers just to make the company an extra yen or two and company discipline and firings need to more "for cause" rather than because a tyrannical boss is angry you wouldn't work three 24 hour shifts that week or because he didn't like your necktie.

These systemic fixes are HARDER than just hitting individual abusers over the head with a bigger hammer ... and that's why people and governments don't want to try them, or even think about them. "Bigger hammer" is EASY, but "smarter world" is not.

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Licensing parents would be useless. How many licensed drivers are on the road, yet give no indication they are aware of even ONE rule of the road? The same would be true for these "licensed" parents. Attend the classes, take the test, get your license, then immediately forget everything that was taught and raise your kid like you were raised.

Stiffer penalties are needed and Child Welfare needs to be able to act sooner in the interests of the child's safety. Todays article about the 5-year-old punched in the face by the father, and the revelation that child welfare has been getting reports about this family for two years, tells me that Child Welfare must be hobbled by too many restrictions on its options.

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Japan should make a video game of suducing a mate, conception, giving birth. Then have the baby in the game cry, throw tantrums, you know make the baby annoying as possible. The object of the game is to calm the baby down over a hundred times and they can win the latest video game hardware released for doing such a brillant job.

Maybe then, maybe the abusive Japanese person can learn to tolerate being a parent.

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What ever happens, please DO NOT adopt the American model! It is an umittigated failure! The so-called "youth" today of America are spoiled rotten! They have not been taught the issue of respect and what it means (especially towards anyone older than themselves). It has become a "hate" generation, just 180 degrees diametrically in opposition to the mentality of the 1960's!

All they know is corporate greed, that it is not only okay and acceptable, but encouraged as THE most important issue to strive for in life -- and that is a bloody shame!

Japan in my opinion has one of the most advanced civil attitudes on this planet, I really do not wish to see that diminishet whatsoever! America today on the otherhand has probably the WORST civil attitudes for mankind! America of this day and age is the absolute WORST model to emulate -- especially in regard to the present day youth.

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