Chile: Violent mother beats daughter to death for failing homework

One fatal case amongst hundreds of thousands of appalling cases of child abuse is that of a 26-year-old woman from Chile who beat and kicked her daughter to death because she had not finished her school homework.

Erna Rivera admitted losing her temper, punching and kicking her and throwing her against furniture, according to Mauricio Lara of the police homicide division. The girl died on the eve of her tenth birthday.

The woman’s partner had already been accused of family violence in the previous year, but it’s not known if the case was investigated by authorities.

As if it needed stating, it proves that some people just do not know how to bring up a child, nor handle their own emotions and actions. Of course, we don’t know anything about the mother’s situation, but if she already had an alleged history of violence towards family members, something should have been done sooner to protect the child. Of course, with hindsight it’s easy to say that, but it’s yet another case where tragedy has struck.

(Via Yahoo! News)

Violence on TV: Legislation or parental responsibility?

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the USA has concluded that Hollywood isn’t doing enough to protect children from viewing violent programming on cable and satellite TV, and that Congress should authorise government action.

Unsurprisingly, the TV networks aren’t keen to bend to this kind of pressure.

There’s plenty of talk on both sides about what the right thing to do is.

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Children growing up in “terrifying” world. Parents need support.

It sounds obvious, but children need good parents.

Mary Crowley, of Parenting UK, says that children are growing up in a “terrifying” world of pressures and dangers, and that good parenting advice is essential in a society where, generally, the extended family is fractured or in decline.

Her organisation has just won a £30m National Academy for Parenting Practitioners contract.

The BBC reports:

“Nobody sets out to be a bad parent,” said Crowley, “But it’s quite hard to get real advice. You get advice about what sort of buggy to buy.”

Ms Crowley also raised concerns over increasing violence and dangers in society, the need for children to be ’street-wise’, and the marketing pressures put upon them.

She also made a call for more men to come forward to train as parenting practitioners. I couldn’t agree more - men need to be involved so that they can stand alongside other fathers to provide help and support.

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More problem kids than 50 years ago, study suggests

The Vanier Institute for the Family has suggested that there are a lot more ‘problem children’ than there were 50 years ago, and the blame goes to… everyone.

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