To Train up a child

http://www.care2.com/causes/beating-children-in-the-name-of-god.html

Last week Care2′s Paul Canning wrote about a law passed by the Michigan Senate that would allow bullying if it were “religiously or morally motivated.”

In another indication of the rise of legitimized child abuse, last Monday the New York Times published a story about child deaths in homes that have embraced the teachings of To Train Up a Child, a book by Christian preacher Michael Pearl that advocates using a switch on children as young as six months old.

Raising Children Like Training Stubborn Mules?

The methods, seen as common sense by some grateful parents and as horrific by others, are modeled, Mr. Pearl is fond of saying, on “the same principles the Amish use to train their stubborn mules.”

From The New York Times:

Debate over the Pearls’ teachings, first seen on Christian Web sites, gained new intensity after the death of a third child, all allegedly at the hands of parents who kept the Pearls’ book, “To Train Up a Child,” in their homes. On Sept. 29, the parents were charged with homicide by abuse.

More than 670,000 copies of the Pearls’ self-published book are in circulation, and it is especially popular among Christian home-schoolers, who praise it in their magazines and on their Web sites.

Switch Use At 6 Months
The Pearls provide instructions on using a switch from as early as six months to discourage misbehavior and describe how to make use of implements for hitting on the arms, legs or back, including a quarter-inch flexible plumbing line that, Mr. Pearl notes, “can be rolled up and carried in your pocket.”

To Train Up a Child takes the “spanking vs. no spanking” debate to a whole new level as it advises parents to whip their unruly, rebellious, short-skirt-wearing six-month-old babies with a wooden spoon, spatula, or this flexible tubing, their favorite. The Pearls like the tubing because it doesn’t leave bruises.

If your child responds to your spanking/switching/hosing with anger rather than the appropriate fear and submission, the Pearls offer a simple solution to your problem: spank him again. If that makes him angrier, just keep spanking.

Spanking In The Name Of Jesus

All of this in the name of Jesus. And all of it eerily similar to the preachings of James Dobson, founder of the “Focus on the Family” religious empire and radio program.

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I then went to look up this book

http://www.achristianhome.com/to_train_up_a_child.htm


I find it unbelieveable that this book can be purchased from Amazon, it can be downloaded to Kindle and no doubt can be bought anywhere in the world. Evidently it is not the first book this "man of God" has written on how to beat your children. No wonder so many unpleasant people hide behind their so called religion!

Truly dreadful.

If I may digress a little, one of the most appalling programmes I have ever seen was called Baby Bible Bashers and fairly obviously featured brain washed children as preachers. Here's a link to the one who disturbed me most, a boy called Samuel Boutwell.

This isn't from the programme mentioned but there are clips of it on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2qM4h_JZE8

In my opinion, his parents should be prosecuted for the harm they're doing to him.

I couldn't agree with you more Not Born Yesterday. Children being brainwashed into religious fervour is so so wrong. Teach them, or try to, right from wrong, do your best to bring them up with a sense of morals, but to drill into their very young minds all this "stuff" is simply not right, they should be allowed to be children first, act like children, play like children and be treated like children, not turned into mini brainwashed preachers.

Last week Care2′s Paul Canning wrote about a law passed by the Michigan Senate that would allow bullying if it were “religiously or morally motivated.”

WTF!!! That is horrendous! In the UK that would excuse a particular school I know about, where the student population is mostly Muslim: Muslim girls are getting bullied for looking 'too Christian.'