Our perceptions of children tend to vacillate between a romanticised view of them as young innocents whose unacceptable behaviour should be excused because of their youth, immaturity and impressionability and the contrasting view that they are uncivilised barbarians who, for their own good, must be treated firmly, even severely, so they may leam to distinguish right from wrong and to behave properly.

The ‘child correction’ approach was favoured by the early British settlers in Aotearoa New Zealand. Soon after colonisation there were moves to establish child reformatories on the English model and children were often more harshly treated than adults. It was accepted that the most effective way of correcting children was to hit them with a cane or a whip. Some early observers noted the warmth and affection with which the indigenous Maori people treated their children and contrasted this with the stern and strict attitudes of the Anglo-Saxon colonisers.