The rack is often overlooked in child discipline

From The Washington Post:

Hot sauce adds a kick to salsa, barbeque, falafel and hundreds of other foods. But some parents use it in a different recipe, one they think will yield better-behaved children: They put a drop of the fiery liquid on a child’s tongue as punishment for lying, biting, hitting or other offenses.

“Hot saucing,” or “hot tongue,” has roots in Southern culture, according to some advocates of the controversial disciplinary method, but it has spread throughout the country. Nobody keeps track of how many parents do it, but most experts contacted for this story, including pediatricians, psychologists and child welfare professionals, were familiar with it.

The use of hot sauce has been advocated in a popular book, in a magazine for Christian women and on Internet sites. Web-based discussions on parenting carry intense, often emotional exchanges on the topic.

The book, Creative Correction: Extraordinary Ideas for Everyday Discipline, is by actress/mom/author/Christian Lisa Whelchel (Blair on Facts of Life).

uggabugga took a look at the Amazon.com reviews for the book (he includes no quotes from those who liked it).

We took a look at the Customer Reviews over at Amazon to get a sense of what Lisa Whelchel’s book, Creative Correction (pub. Oct 2000), advises. Here is what we found:

• … she mentions spraying water into the face of a toddler who has a temper tantrum. I’d feel like I was treating my child as a housepet if I did that.
• … she mentioned things like letting a child go without a meal for failing to do a chore. I do believe strongly that you should never threaten to withhold food from a child, for any reason.
• What kind of sadistic things is Lisa Welchel trying to communicate to parents? How could making a child run thru dog crap teach him to have a more spiritual walk.
• I would like to know how burning your childs favorite possesion will help them in any posative way at all.
• The example with toilet water is to put water from the faucet in one cup and water from the toilet in another. With the child watching, pour the water out and pour some koolaid or juice in each cup. Ask them which cup they want to drink out of. The lesson here is that talking “dirty” has lingering effects.
• [Whelchel uses] Bible verses to tell your children that if they look at bad things ravens will peck out their eyes.
• Lisa Welchel’s “correction” ideas are not only frightening, they’re mad!! I fail to see how pinching a child’s tongue with a clothespin will help that child learn about the love of God, the compassion of Jesus, or the Truth of His Spirit.
• Got a kid who yells in public? Make him hold his tongue–literally, with his fingers.
• At one point her son is honest enough to admit that he’s angry at her after she’s been away for a long time and plans to then go out again that evening. Does she tell him she can understand why he feels that way? Does she make arrangements to spend time with her kids after a long absence? No, she threatens to beat him if he can’t promise he’ll “be good” for the babysitter.
• … can you imagine … making a child stand still and not move until he’s ready for bed?!?
• Using schoolwork and the Bible as forms of punishments is a terrible idea.
• … absolutely frightening in every way. please spare your children the torture and emotional abuse that this woman’s children must suffer from these insane ideas. i can’t believe that any normal human could believe that these punishments could be anyway helpful to raising a healthy child. if you must read this book, do it only for the sheer humor of this woman’s ludicous ideas…no seriously it is hilarious.

And finally, this Word From The Author:

I have three children, ages 8,9 & 10, including a son diagnosed with ADHD. It was out of sheer desperation that I came up with many of the discipline ideas in this book.