Never a day goes by when I am not struck by some bizarre piece of news. This time it is about a pastor and his wife who promote corporal punishment in disciplining children.  They have self-published a book, To Train Up a Child, which has 670,000 copies in circulation (nope, I did not make a typo – sixhundredseventythousand books in print being circulated!!!).

Now here is the punchline: Guess with which group of people this book is popular? Christian home-schoolers!!!

Here is the irony of the system in this country. The teachers at schools are under EXTREME pressure from the parents. They are being watched like a hawk and God help them if they so as much as lay a finger on a kid. They will probably lose their job… [I met a male kindergarten teacher once, who said he had to quit, because it was not appropriate for him to even touch the kids in his class—let alone give a hug—even though it was considered normal for female kindergarten teachers to be affectionate with their students.]

Okay, I admit, maybe some teachers are out of line and we have to protect our kids, but come on, we will never ever hear of a teacher using corporal punishment. Not in the United States of America. There would be a big upheaval and the teacher in question would be sued big time.

And then there is the occasional kid who is abused at home and the teacher can step in and call the authorities, then the parents can be sued of child abuse/neglect.

But how do we protect the home-schooled kids who have to live under the tyranny of parents who believe in corporal punishment and who actually carry it out??? Does it make corporal punishment okay when it is done in the name of God Almighty and Jesus Christ?

The Pearls, along with many conservative Christians, say the Bible calls for corporal punishment. “To give up the use of the rod is to give up our views of human nature, God, eternity,” they write in the book.

Three kids have already died, but the Pearls (the authors of the book) are not being charged. Fine, there is freedom of speech and you can write anything you want. But, how come they can ban Harry Potter in some states and not this book? Something just does not add up.

 

Links:

• Pastor’s corporal punishment advice scrutinized after child deaths

 

Disclosure: I am a strong advocate of attachment parenting and do not believe and have never exercised any form of physical punishment with my children. I believe there are a myriad of ways to get through to a child instead of reverting to aggressive behavior. 

 

Tags: corporal punishment, disciplining children, freedom of speech

This entry was posted on Monday, November 7th, 2011 at 7:43 pm and is filed under daily life, parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.