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What is the typical 8-year-old child in New Zealand like?
They live in an urban area in a two-parent household. Their parents own the home and are both working full-time. They've moved house at least once.
They speak one language, but they'll have a friend at school who can speak two or more.
They go to bed between 8pm and 8.30pm and get just under 10 hours' sleep a night. They don't eat enough fruit and veges and get takeaways once a week. They spend around three hours a day in front of a TV or tablet.
They're probably not allowed to leave the house alone or cross the road without a caregiver at their side.
They enjoy school, though they're likely to have witnessed or experienced bullying firsthand. There will be one or two kids at their school who no longer identify as the gender on their birth certificate.
That's according to the Growing Up in New Zealand study, which has closely tracked more than 6000 children born in 2009 and 2010.
In broad terms, the University of Auckland longitudinal study reaffirmed that a large proportion of New Zealand children were thriving at 8 years old.
"In general it's fair to say that most of our children are doing well," said the study's director, Professor Susan Morton.
Most children had busy, healthy, happy lives and a growing sense of who they were, and were well supported by their parents.
But on the margins, the most disadvantaged 8 year olds remained in hardship and if anything, their situation was getting worse. Poverty was persistent, they were likely to be moving from house to house, their home was likely to be cold and damp, and their mental wellbeing was suffering.
"Inequalities are emerging in those early years, particularly for Māori and Pacific children," Morton said.
Professor Susan Morton said the gap between thriving and disadvantaged New Zealand children had not closed between ages 6 and 8, and could be growing. Photo / Supplied
"The gap is not closing. That is the worry - that we'd like to see more of our children thriving and doing well."
And there are also emerging issues for those in what is known as "middle childhood", including bullying, obesity and mental wellbeing.
BULLYING
Throughout the study, mothers had reported relatively high rates of bullying - around one in three kids faced bullying behaviour.
"We were really shocked by that, firstly," Morton said. "But also we were asking ourselves 'Is this just the mums reporting that?'"
Researchers were interested to hear from the children themselves for the first time.
"We asked in a number of ways. It's not just 'Are you bullied?' It's getting at what bullying is in many ways.
"And still, shockingly, we are seeing 35 per cent of the children themselves reporting regular bullying at 8. So that figure we are seeing from their mums is probably not an anomaly.
"And it does suggest that bullying is much more prevalent in early childhood and middle childhood than we would ideally want it to be."
Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft said Unicef's most recent report into bullying ranked New Zealand as among the worst in the world. The Growing Up in NZ study was even worse, he said.
"That is both perplexing and shameful. And we need to redouble our efforts, both to work with people who bully and those who are bullied.
"There are complex forces at play, that are often to do with intergenerational violence, of family modelling, and in New Zealand, I think, of a rather too lax view about the insidious nature of bullying and what it does to children and young people."
Becroft and Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon last year called for mandatory reporting of bullying in schools. He is now working with the Ministry of Education to analyse schools with low bullying rates to see if there are commonalities which could be applied across the country.
HOUSING
Another finding which continues to surprise researchers is the number of times New Zealand kids move home.
The study showed 37 per cent of children had shifted at least onc...