Transcript Cos if a child was fairly strong on not seeing a parent

“Cos if a child was fairly strong on
not seeing a parent, there’d have to
be something really wrong”
CHILDREN’S UNDERSTANDINGS OF THEIR
RIGHTS IN DECISIONS ABOUT THEM
DR ALAN CAMPBELL, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
The research
 Campbell, A. (2004). The voice of the child in family
law: Whose right; who’s right? Unpublished
doctoral thesis, University of South Australia,
Adelaide.
The children
 From 11 different families
 4 girls, 4 boys aged 7-10; 1 girl, 4 boys aged 11-14; 2
young women, 1 young man aged 15-17
 time since the parents separated varied from
between 1 and 10 years; mean time just over five
years
The children (2)
 Amy (9), Brenda (7), Kane (13) and Olivia (9) were
very young when the separation occurred. Daniel
(10), Ellen (9) and Laurence (16) were much older.
 Daniel lived for equal time with both parents; Petra
(13) with relatives; and the others with their mums.
 Iain (7), Jonathan (7) and Kane (13) never saw their
fathers; Laurence (16), Matthew (11), Nick (13 and
Olivia (9) saw them during holidays; the other saw
them regularly.
The discussion
 concepts of children’s rights and ‘best interests’
 exploration of children’s perceptions of their place in
decision-making processes
 children’s views of living arrangements
 final comments
Children’s rights
 Ellen (9): Rights and wrongs?
 Q: Yeah, kind of like that.
 Ellen (9): That, mm, if you get something right it's a
tick or if you get something wrong you get a cross.
 Daniel (10): Well, they should, you should have
reasonable rights to do, sometimes do what, what
you think you should. And sometimes rights which
you think you shouldn't. …yeah, don't just go along
with what people say, like, learn to say no. And, like
if someone says, 'Hey, check this out, here, try this’,
a drug or something, I'd just say, 'Nup’.
 Callum (10): Like, you should have the right to go to
the tap and get a drink, and stuff like that. Mm. Like
if you want to go outside you should have the right
to do that. It's not like your parents can go, ‘I don't
want you to go outside you can stay in here’.
Should have a bit of a say.
 Petra (13): Rights. Um, I don't really, but I know,
I've never really been taught about them that much,
but I just, I've picked up along the line that, you
know, we have got a say, and it's not right if we
don't. Um, if we, we have the right to learn, so no
one can stop us from learning.
 Laurence (16): Just, I don't know, like rights to an
education, rights to having um, food and a place to
live and I don't know what, just like (7 sec) yeah,
and rights for them to choose what they want to do,
live their own life, kind of thing, is what, is a fairly
important one.
 Nick (13): Um, I know the ones that, the right to feel
safe, I think is one, but the right to be clothed, to
have shelter, to be cared for and not to be abused.
The right to, I think to be educated, is that one of the
rights? … Um, yeah, that, I think those kind of rights
are very important, um, the right to, I think the right
to have friends would be a very important thing. The
right to be heard and not, yes, um, yeah, definitely to
be heard.
 Daniel (10): it's your decision to have rights that
you actually want.
 Amy (9): It's mainly not really rights. He [her
father] mainly doesn't really tell me off or anything,
so I mainly just ride my horse, that's all I really do.
 Q: You make decisions about where you’re going to meet
and who’s, who’s gonna be there?
 Daniel (10): Yeah, we get to choose who, who we want
to be there; but it’s our parents who give us the A-OK for
us to be able to go…
 Q: How does that feel, Daniel?
 Daniel (10): Well, it's OK. Cos we can, I can tell that
obviously our parents care for us. Cos, like, if we just
ran off then we might get in trouble and they won't
know.

 Q: What happens about parties and things like
that?
 Petra (13): Parties. Um, if I get an invitation to a
party, I'm allowed to go, cos it's usually a birthday,
unless I've been you know, like, really bad, … And
that's fair because that would be a punishment, cos
I love going to parties.
 Q: Who should make those kinds of decisions about




when you do your homework?
Gemma (15): I think I should, cos I’m the one doing
it.
Harry (13): You’d be doing Internet all day,
Gemma.
Fran (17): I think the parents should have a fairly
big say in that, because …
Gemma (15): Yeah, but they shouldn’t, like, push,
cos then they, I, I’m, I hate it when people do that,
it’s annoying.
Children and ‘best interests’
 Nick (13): Oh, yeah. Yes, I've heard of that. Um,
children's best interests, what really are they, it's
kind of so unbelievably general. …I think that in
best interests is not really the children's opinion at
all, it's what other people think is best for them. So
it's kind of making the decision for them and not
listening to what they have to say, by um,
stereotyping their best interests. That is what they
think would be best for them, but not necessarily is.

 Nick (13): Yeah. Cos you can't really say that every
single child is going to have a best interest and this
is it. That it's in their best interest to do this and we
say that's so, so the people are just deciding what
other people's best interests are for them. And
what's good. Like saying, This is what's good for
you when it might necessarily not be.
 Fran (17): The sort of things that are overlooked or
not known without good investigation on both
parties and you know, personally trying to get to
know the parents a little more, and the child.
 Nick (13): Yeah. If there, there definitely should be
some times when other people, um, it's possible that
they do know best for you and that you don't know
everything, and that you don't know that what
you're doing is the right thing. And that …maybe
you should listen to them instead of thinking that
you can make every decision. But there are so many
times when you should be able to make decisions
and people don't know what's best for you.

 Olivia (9): Well, I don't think that parents should
say that they don't know what they want because,
well, they do. Um, but some kids don't know what's
best for them, so, just say they were on, they
couldn't eat lots and lots of junk food …and then
they got their way and they got really fat, that's not
good for them.
 Petra (13): What's best for me? Um, I don't always
know what's best for me, I, like I know what I want,
but it's not always the best for me, and my auntie
and uncle and my mum and dad …tell me, if they
think something's not right for me, and I'll listen if
I'm smart enough, …
 Petra (13): I think that's crap. Because um, I
always, like, and it's not just me, everyone I know
always knows what they want. … so I think that
just, that adults that say that are wrong because, …I
think everyone knows what they want.
Decision-making
 Laurence (16): Um, Mum and Dad went to the Family
Court, but not so much about um, custody of the kids. It
was pretty much always, I don't know, sort of known
that, I don't know why, like it was just kind of seemed, I
don't know, normal that …we would live with Mum, so
that wasn't fought over too much

 Nick (13): I can't exactly remember, I think that was a
decision cos we were so young, it was better that we
lived with Mum or something, I can't remember, but …
 Nick (13): Oh, I remember another reason was um,
cos Dad, he works in, he's wool classing, and cos
that involves like staying at a shed for seven days at
a time and he would, that'd mean he wouldn't be
able to look after us, so it was more sense as well, to
stay with Mum. Yeah.
 Callum (10): I don't know. My friend lives with his
dad and I find that a bit weird somehow. With his
two brothers. It's just all boys.
 Q: Yeah. Weird?
 Callum (10): Yeah. You see...I don't know why, but
you should live with your mum, or and your dad,
but you should live with your mum, mostly. I don't
know why, but...
 Q: Tell me a bit more about children’s rights to have
a voice.
 Nick (13): I think if people, if like children aren't
allowed to speak out and be heard by people they
kind of think that they never will, and if they do
speak out their opinions can be heard, and
sometimes a lot of children's opinions are more
logical or sometimes sensible than a lot of ones that
adults might have.
 Q: I’ve been reading about, if you want young
people and children to be involved more, you have
to involve them right from the start. …What do you
think about those kinds of comments?
 Kane (13): Yeah, I think they're good, kids should be
involved from the start. If you're gonna do
something that affects them, and yeah, they should
have some say of how it's, how it looks and stuff.
 Q: One of the other rights was to do with children’s
rights to have an opinion and be heard. What do
you think about that?
 Laurence (16): I think that's probably important,
cos you, pretty, if you have, a, if you don't have any
say in your own life it would be a pretty bad life, I
reckon, …the whole thing about making choices is
that you kind of enjoy life, kind of thing cos you
have to.
 Callum (10): Ah, ...Um...Hmm. I'm not sure, um,
how much they see their dad, or whoever they're
with, mum or dad , um how much they see their
friends, um, oh, if they need to get out more, or do
some more stuff cos they're too bored. Stuff like
that.
 Fran (17): Well we should have been allowed to
make our decision because we obviously knew that
we did not want to stay with Dad, and we were just
basically forced by him to live there and I don't
think that's very fair.
 Um, well, I think everything, but they don't
necessarily have to … do what they say, they just
have to listen to what they say and comprehend it
and take everything they say into account as an
opinion. Um, like everyone else. So that everyone's
equal, and like we don't have everyone older telling
everyone younger what to do
 Daniel (10): So, the person who we went to, the,
they decided to do the switching over weeks
one...cos it's fairer.
Ellen (9): It's not very fair, because, um, if [I] don't
get to see him in the week, like, it's not really fair,
cos you only get to see him twice every week, or
every second week.
 Laurence (16): I don't think that there's really a way
that you could solve it completely. Like,
satisfactorily, …cos there's always going to have to
be a time when you're not with like, one or the other
parent, so there's no way that you could make it
completely ah, to work, …and there's no real way
that you could um, make, that I could think of
anyway, that you could make it totally fair, like.