Homeschooling and Child Training - My Take on the Controversy
BevK April 20th, 2006
This is ghastly.
Dead child’s mom sought discipline tips
The woman beat her children with pvc pipe in accordance with the Pearl’s advice to use plumbing supply lines. Google Images gives an idea on what people consider to be plumbing supply lines.
This child actually died from suffocation after being wrapped too tightly in a blanket and not from being hit with pipe. The pipe beating was just part and parcel of this child’s regular abuse.
The Pearl’s believe that children will be trained to stop doing disobedient acts by learning to associate pain with those acts. They set up training sessions when children are very young to teach them that when you say no and they disobey they will feel physical pain.
On their website they state this about how to discipline:
As a rule, do not use your hand. Hands are for loving and helping. If an adult swings his or her hand fast enough to cause pain to the surface of the skin, there is a danger of damaging bones and joints. The most painful nerves are just under the surface of the skin. A swift swat with a light, flexible instrument will sting without bruising or causing internal damage. Many people are using a section of ¼ inch plumber’s supply line as a spanking instrument. It will fit in your purse or hang around you neck. You can buy them for under $1.00 at Home Depot or any hardware store. They come cheaper by the dozen and can be widely distributed in every room and vehicle. Just the high profile of their accessibility keeps the kids in line.
I don’t have time to express my opinions on the matter. We’re still in the business of sorting and boxing all our worldly goods. But I found something that comes really close. Please read this, because it says so much of what I would want to say.
Gentle Discipline: Grace and Righteousness Together
To be fair, many good things have come from the Pearls influence in my life (mainly through their NGJ newsletters). They have encouraged me as a mother to be “all there,” to relax and enjoy my children, to be best friends with them. But when I hear stories about people spanking their little babies (for doing things like crying) because they think the Pearls have told them too, a person realizes that either the Pearls do support such things, or that gross miscommunication is taking place. I prefer to think it’s the latter, but regardless, attempting to correct the miscommunication is vital. I used to think it was only a few “nuts” who would take the Pearls out of context. Now I am hearing a lot of perfectly normal momma’s share how they followed the Pearls, or what they thought was the Pearls (and their writings are admittedly confusing, if you try to take them like a textbook), and how heartache was the result. Something, somewhere, is drastically wrong.
