Myth 13: The Convention on the Rights of a Child (CRC) interferes with parental responsibility to discipline and raise one’s children. Reality: The CRC affirms the right and responsibility of the parent to raise their children in their best interests. The CRC contains a series of rights for children to ensure their development and freedom from actions that are not in their best interests, such as ensuring they are raised in an environment that is free from violence or other inhuman or degrading punishments. No other limitations are put upon a parent’s right and responsibility to raise and discipline their child. Since it can be established that human rights and the Fa’asamoa are both seeking to protect the best interest of the child, the first step of the process in deciding what constitutes violence rather than discipline is to come to an understanding of what is in a child’s best interest. In section 9.1 the potential negative impacts of violence were detailed, summed up well by the finding that ‘exposure to violence at an early age can impair brain development and damage other parts of the nervous system and other bodily systems, with lifelong consequences.’ This is obviously not in the best interests of the child. Discipline is intended for the well-being and development of the child and these impacts of violence are certainly not in the best interests of the child and cannot be justified. Therefore a logical conclusion is to say: If any action, verbal or physical, towards a child is shown to potentially cause the negative impacts commonly accepted to be caused by violence, then those actions constitute violence and not discipline. Armed with this conclusion we can remove the layer of subjectivity, which is the cause of the confusion and ambiguity and allows one person’s reasonable punishment to be different to that of another’s. This will provide the definition that many have called for throughout the Inquiry, a question which currently does not even have legal clarity, and allow parents to know what physical and verbal punishments stray from discipline into violence. Once we can agree that all actions which potentially cause any of the range of negative impacts associated with violence are in themselves violent actions, then the final step is to assess which actions toward children have these consequences. The answer, however, is one which many will find difficult to accept. All evidence points towards all forms of physical and harsh verbal reproaches (for definition of ‘verbal abuse’ see Inquiry Info Point 5 above) as potentially causing the negative consequences that are associated with violence towards children. Therefore the final conclusion is that all physical and verbal discipline potentially causes the negative impacts associated with violence, and therefore constitutes violence. For young children, the net effect of physical or verbal punishment is not only detrimental but there is not even any positive effect, which could be argued to justify the harm that is caused (although this argument would also be invalid given the potential harm is not in the best interests of the child’s development).