NAPCAN, Australia’s National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, launched a thought-provoking television/cinema campaign this year with “Children See, Children Do”. The 90 second spot features children following adults, mimicking their habits. At first the pattern appears to be innocuous, talking on a mobile phone while walking through a city square, making a call on a public telephone, waiting behind the yellow line in a railway station. The behaviour becomes more insidious with a girl copying a woman’s smoking habits on an escalator. A boy follows as a grown man carelessly knocks a struggling mother’s bag off her shoulder. We see examples of litter, drunken behaviour, road rage, racism and cruelty to animals. A woman yells at her baby, accompanied by her older daughter. A man is joined by his son as he verbally and physically abuses his wife.
