Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

Gross. I can't finish it either. I tried.

Following along here tho. :popcorn

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

Me too. Please let us see it! I just got home to my computer. For some reason all day yesterday, my phone had a problem and didn't show me any posts at all. I was super surprised to see all the comments. I had posted a couple times thinking no one else had commented yet. :giggle
It is a sad topic, but super encouraging to see all the responses from some very wise ladies. :yes I feel much better because the article had me rather down and disgusted.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

I read it and can sum it up by saying the man is off his rocker.

---------- Post added at 09:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:00 PM ----------

The biggest problem with this article is that there is just enough truth to it to throw you. If you do not know the truth but are searching for it, then you can easily get sucked into NGJ and it's teachings. Every word they write has scripture to back it so it looks like it is Godly. It is not until you start reading the entire verse for context that you see where you are being deceived. And let's be honest here, most people are not going to do that. Yes we are supposed to test the spirits, but if you have several little kids you don't have time to read each and every verse they quote. You see this happy couple that seems to have raised five happy children who have lives and families of their own and are still close each other. If you lean to the crunchy end of things and found a crunchier family that seems to be like minded, I doubt you are going to do a lot of looking since they look like you.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

I found the study quoted. It does not say what he thinks it says.
http://www. berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2001/08/24_spank.html
Take the spaces out.
It's from 2001. 100 families who spank moderately. Specifically excludes frequent spanking. Does not include spanking with any objects. Only followed the families unto the children were 14 years old which in my opinion is the weakest point of all.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

OK, interesting! Thanks!
I took a look. The web page is the official Press Release about the study. It gives the main points of the study in order to inform the public about it. The study itself may also be somewhere on-line, but it is probably very dry stuff, difficult to read, with lot of numbers and other difficult stuff. A press release tells the main points in a condensed way and in a language that opens up for everyone.

The study was a longitudinal study on about 100 families during 10 years. The families were tested and interviewed three times; the first time when the children were preschoolers (about 4yo, a long time after the Pearlian Proper Glue-Stick Age) and the last time when they were about 14yo.

This passage here was a very revealing point about the selection of the families and the researcher's definition on moderate or "normative" spanking, I will quote it directly and outline some things in boldface:

Begin quote:
"A small minority of parents - - - used physical punishment often and with some intensity. - - - Hitting occurred frequently, but it was the intensity that really identified this group, said Baumrind.
She said intensity was rated high if the parent said he or she used a paddle or other instrument to strike the child, or hit on the face or torso, or lifted to throw or shake the child.
This group of parents, identified in the "red zone" for "stop" was removed from the sample at the first stage of analysis.”
End quote.

So...all parents that implemented spanking according to Suzannah Wessley-style, Larry Christenson -style, Dobson-style, Fugate-stlye, Tedd Tripp -style, Pearl style...were considered "red zone" and were excluded from the final sample. It was already considered obvious and proven that "red zone style" was harmful, and the study did not focus on it's effects. The researchers were more interested in how an occasional, non-frequent and non-intense slap with an open hand on the buttocks or something like that affected the children. Why even to call it spanking at all?


So...even the study claims to be on the effect of spanking, it is actually about something else. It is about some type of corporal punishment, yes. But when we hear the word "spanking", most of us associate it with belts, paddles, the ridiculous proverbial "board of education", tree twigs, wooden spoons and other implements. And the study was not about them.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

Oh, that is huge!

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Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

Between the age of the study and the study it's self, I am not sure how he thought he could pull of citing it. I don't think he is a dishonest man, just delusional. But this is a bit of a stretch even for him.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

I'm about halfway through it and he's just so delusional. (like how he puts himself in the moderate spanker category :hunh )

It's enough of a crazy rant that I'm hoping it turns away more people than it attracts.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

I just read the link. The research was definitely not in tune with the Pearlian philosophy at all. Even the red zone was completely done with children above 4 years of age. The Pearl's have stated that they spanked their children between 2-300 times BEFORE the age of 2 year old. Their daughter stated that she remembers only one spanking in her entire life at the age of 14. That means hundreds of spankings were administered before she was old enough to remember them. Not only can I not imagine spanking my child that young, I think it would be hard to do a study on children with Pearlian style of spanking because there would be a serious amount of abuse issues with the age the spanking was taking place. I would like to see the Pearl's followers all sign up for their babies to be monitored though. I can't see how that much spanking as a baby couldn't show some sort of result and I am confident it wouldn't be good.

Furthermore, I am more interested in a person's life and state of health in their 20s instead of in their teens. I think a research would be much more thorough and realistic. I was spanked and raised in a very strict Tripp, VF home and my "issues" didn't "show up" or rather I was VERY good at covering them until my 20s.

Those who support spanking might like his article, but any person who has a hope of a grace filled life will be turned off by the comments thrown in that are totally off topic and distasteful.

I can see the reason some like him and find the teaching even refreshing at first. :jawdrop I came from a home which ran high on guilt trips and emotional/spiritual manipulation in the spiritual and disciplinary tool box. When I first got pregnant, I read a few of his articles and he talked about spanking calmly and all the small taps helping an infant never reach that stage of rebellion and needing to be punished older. He had a very "detached" and non-emotional way of describing discipline. While I didn't like most of his ministry, I felt relieved there was a WAY to train a child without the horrible methods I grew up with. Spanking was something I had never even realized didn't have to happen.I was dreaded parenting to be honest because I didn't know how outside of the horrible experience I had had. So, at first, I was super excited about a child approach without the manipulation I had felt growing up. After reading Pearl, I had concluded I was damaged not because of the frequent spanking but because of the emotional manipulation that went with it. After all, Pearl is very specific about being non-emotional when spanking. Then, my baby was born and at 4 or 5 months I gave him a little swat and the most horrible feeling in the world came over me. I was horrified. I felt like I had just abused my child! I thought I had found the perfect solution to keep my children from being the battered soul I was and I hadn't. I was still breaking free from the abusive past I had and by the time my child was born I was in a different place and ready for more grace than I had ever known. I went searching for something more gracious. I found a couple articles online and then I found gcm. I am so glad I did! From there for almost three years, I have found more grace and hope than ever.

Maybe that's why I worry so much about his ministry. I realize just how a desperate mom might cling to it as a "better" choice than what she knows already.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

NGJ worries me, too. I freely admit that if I had not found GCM first, I would have most likely gotten caught in their net. They sound so loving and kind at first. They are so into natural/crunchy things and explain why it is best for your baby. They are close to their grown children (I always look at the relationship gurus have with their children before taking advice). They even make spanking sound gentle and loving. Not like it is the best bad option, but the kindest and gentlest. That is no small feat. It is actually very impressive if you think about it.
Like you, I was new mother searching for something better than what I had. I had no idea what I wanted to do, only what I wanted to avoid. I knew that I did not want to spank or cio, but would do whatever had to be done. TTUAC would have been dangerous for me. I am the product of abuse and wanted better for my baby. So I would have done whatever they said because I did not have a good model.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

I've always thought he was delusional. Just spend a few min watching him on YouTube. ...

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

So...Pearl identifies himself as a "moderate spanker". I have a weird sense of humor. I would enjoy this as a kind of a grim, black, macabre joke if I would not know and understand the serious suffering, pain and damage behind it.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

It's sematics. He he defines spanking as punishment and what they do before the age of 4 as "training". As he explains it, the better you train them, the less you will need to spank them. So it makes sense that he sees himself that way. :think

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Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

It was also being debated fifty years ago. (Sometimes it is good to have a very long memory......).
:shifty
:shifty

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

True. If you divide spanking and training into different camps according to their testimony they would have been extremely moderate spankers because their children past 2 years old received extremely few spankings, in fact according to one of their children they would have been the same as some of us including me who have :blush spanked a couple times. The hundreds of "spankings" before the age of around 2 were merely training. :think:scratch

The good old-fashioned spanking is so engrained in our culture that somehow I'm afraid that people hear Pearl and so many never really understand exactly how much spanking is going on. Most people hear him and think, "well, I did spank dd/ds for running away that time when they were 18 months, hmm, maybe I wasn't so bad for it".

He also attracts those who are looking for a place to feel comfortable with their attachment parenting which seems strange, but its true. His daughters frequently write articles about baby wearing, including your kids in everything. And they are as has been noted above, rather crunchy. Gardening, herbs, homeopathic, essential oils, herbal teas, and self sufficiency. They are proponents of EC and cloth diapers, and have numerous articles about spending time with your children that never even mention spanking. I loved an article I read once about dealing with anger in young children. Their daughter talked about playing games with her daughter to help her chase her anger away and talked about hugging the anger out and even talked about how she as the mom needed to be more aware of her daughter's needs so she could prevent the anger. All of that, makes for a very misleading understanding of the Pearl's and their idea of discipline. :yes Furthermore, as bad as the book is, it really depends on the perspective you have when you come to it as to how you take it. The real eye-opener to how the Pearl's actually think their book should be implemented is in the numerous letters to the Pearl's that they answer concerning children. I was horrified when I read a letter where a mother wrote saying her 3 month old would cry when laid down and her DH wanted her to spank but she wouldn't. Mr. Pearl replied that though it was a little young in his opinion, she should go ahead and spank the baby! Another one is where he recommended to a mother than her daughter who wouldn't put on her shoes should be spanked on the ankles repeatedly until the shoes were in place even if that meant hundred of lashes until she did it. He described something that sounded more like a beating that what I would call a spanking. :cry

What's become clear to me is that the Pearl's are filling a gap in the need's of families. Families want a place to be safe in their attachments parenting and crunchiness along with real answers to discipline. Very few places give that to the WHOLE family. The Pearl's are filling a needed gap but they are filling it with poison. I am currently unaware of any ministry which addresses the WHOLE family and is similar to the Pearl's in all their good areas. I hope soon another grace-based ministry grows to fill that need. :pray4