| About this site |
| About us |
| Our beliefs |
| Your first visit? |
| Contact us |
| External links |
| Good books |
| Visitor essays |
| Our forum |
| New essays |
| Other site features |
| Buy a CD |
| Vital notes |
| Spiritual/ethics |
| Spirituality |
| Morality/ethics |
| Absolute truth |
| Peace/conflict |
| Attaining peace |
| Religious tolerance |
| Religious hatred |
| Religious conflict |
| Religious violence |
| Laws and news |
| Religious laws |
| Religious news |
|
|
 | Lisa Whelchel was a Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeer, played the role "Blair" in the television program "Facts of Life," is a home-school mom, is an Evangelical Christian, is a motivational speaker, and the author of the book: "Creative Correction: Extraordinary Ideas for Everyday Discipline." 2 She said that "For lying or other offenses of the tongue, I 'spank' my kids' tongues. I put a tiny drop of hot sauce on the end of my finger and dab it onto my child's tongue. It stings for a while, but it abates. It's the memory that lingers!" 1 She feels that the practice worked for her children when other disciplinary actions failed. Appearing on ABC News' Good Morning America, she said: "It does sting and the memory stays with them so that the next time they may actually have some self-control and stop before they lie or bite or something like that....I prefer my child receive a small amount of pain from my hand of love than to encounter a lot more pain in life....It's a logical consequence. If you cause somebody pain, either by the words you say by lying and not being a trustworthy person or by biting, this is a logical consequence. It's your mouth that's the offender." Whelchel restricted the punishment on her own children between the pre-school age to their 10th birthday. In an interview with the Washington Post, she said: "A correction has to hurt a little. An effective deterrent has to touch the child in some way. I don't think Tabasco is such a bad thing....[Discipline involves] drawing a line to protect the child and if they cross that line, there will be pain." Whelchel said she believes that disciplinary methods should be left up to parents. They know their child best, are devoted to the child's well-being, and can administer punishment with love. She mentions that hot saucing can be overdone. "If there's a mom who shakes the bottle on the kid's tongue, that mom probably does deserve to have someone poking into her business. But I think most moms are caring and intuitive. You can't throw out a bunch of good stuff because of the exceptions." 1 She quotes: Proverbs 10:31: "The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom: but the forward (perverse) tongue shall be cut out." 6 |
| Amanda DeLorme of American University Park made a posting to an E-mail bulletin board called DC Urban Moms. She wrote that hot saucing "...works like a charm." She uses it only as a last resort . "He is better behaved as a result. He'll say, 'Please don't give me hot tongue, Mommy,' and [the threat] interrupts his behavior. We'll talk about it, hug and make up. That's what usually happens." |
| Kim Crosen, a mother of three from Fairfax, VA, learned of "hot saucing" from a friend who carries packets of hot sauce in her purse in case she has to discipline one of her children. Crosen only uses the sauce in the home and "after many warnings, and for extreme circumstances." One case was when her son called his 3-year-old sister a "crybaby." She believes it is an appropriate punishment for "defiant talk....I use it when the mouth is the offending party. He needs to learn to control what's coming out of his mouth. If it's his tongue that gets him in trouble, it's his tongue that gets punished." As a Christian, she believes that "children need to respect and obey [parents] or they won't learn to respect and obey God. God won't hot sauce you, but you need to learn consequences....What I'm doing is minor compared to what kids used to get 40 or 50 years ago. One drop of hot sauce is not going to hurt him. Everyone has to do what works for them, within reason." |
| An mother from Chevy Chase, MD who wanted to remain anonymous, said that hot sauce punishment is widespread in Louisiana where she used to live. She recognizes that hot sauce has its drawbacks: it instills fear in the child and teaches them that might makes right. But, she commented, "I need some discipline for egregious acts." The use of sauce is last resort, a "worst-case scenario...As parents, we're all trying to do the best by our children. Hugs go a long way. Kids need lots of love and affection." Yet, she is opposed to spanking children. She said: "If I hit my child, how can I tell them not to hit someone else? It's the worst type of discipline." |
| Today's Christian Woman is a magazine directed at Fundamentalist and other Evangelical Christian women. In a 2001 article, they recommended inflicting pain on children's tongues through the use of hot sauce, "yucky-tasting" soap, or white vinegar. |
| John Rosemond, a parenting advice columnist, does not personally recommend this method of discipline. But he said: "I don't think it's abusive or inappropriate." He said that washing a child's mouth out with soap comes from a time 50 years in the past and that we might do well to copy those discipline methods, because it produced well-behaved children. 13 |
Hot saucing opponents:
| Tim Kimmel, an Evangelical Christian, is executive director of Christian Counseling Associates Inc., in Columbia, VA . He does not approve of hot saucing. His belief is that it is "biblically supportable in principle...[but] the inordinate pain and cruelty ...wipes out anything that makes sense." He is the author of "Grace-Based Parenting" 5 Publishers Weekly's review of his book indicates that: "He says Christians frequently believe that the battle for a child's heart and soul is fought on the outside-with rigid rules and boundaries-when in fact just the opposite is true. He underscores the importance of communicating the unconditional love that Christ offers and affirming this timeless message of grace to one's family.....Kimmel asserts that this 'radical' mode of parenting will meet the three essential needs in kids' lives: for security, significance and strength. He assures parents that these needs can be met with grace-laced love, purpose and hope." When interviewed by the Washington Post about hot saucing, he said: "Just because something works, that doesn't mean it's a good idea.....Fear can be very effective as a discipline technique, but it's overkill. You haven't corrected the problem, and it means nothing in terms of building character. Our job as parents is to build character, not to adjust behavior....The tongue doesn't do the lying, the heart does the lying. When you direct a form of discipline to a body part that created the problem, it's like in [other cultures] when they cut off your hand for stealing." 1 |
| Randell Alexander, a child abuse expert with the American Association of Pediatrics, said: "Somebody advocating hot sauce -- that's emotionally and possibly physically abusive." He said that compared to washing a child's mouth out with soap, using hot sauce "takes it up a notch." because it is an effort to intentionally inflict pain. 13 |
| Carleton Kendrick, a family therapist from Boston, MA, is vehemently against hot saucing or corporal punishment of any kind. He said: "There's no room for pain and humiliation and fear in disciplining healthy children. I think it's a rather barbaric practice to say the least." He suggests that the use of hot sauce could lead to charges of child abuse: "The state of Virginia, for instance, calls this practice bizarre and finds it an actionable offense." He regards hot saucing as: "at the very least....ill-informed." 4 |
| Dr. Bob Fathman, a clinical psychologist, wrote to ABC News: "I am extremely disappointed, outraged in fact, that you have a story presenting a person who favors putting hot sauce on the tongues of children. ...Hot sauce can cause gag reflexes and tears to the throat lining. Shame on all of you who ok'ed this story. ...You have undermined the work of child abuse professionals across the country." 4 |
| Mark J. Johns, a clinical professional counselor, and Madeleine Y. Gómez, a child psychologist, also wrote to ABC News. They stated: "Our concern is that ABC’s irresponsible reporting of the issue could be construed as advocating this abusive practice....Responsible investigations and reports have repeatedly demonstrated that inappropriate or violent discipline damages the emotional, intellectual, and growth processes of the child. Many studies have shown that violent punishments not only teach violence, but also can lead to other forms of violence....In our experience, parents who use hot-saucing with their children are likely to engage in other forms of abusive behavior. We recently dealt with a case in which it was reported that a small child, who was being professionally evaluated due to 'behavioral problems,' was being force fed hot-peppers when he spoke disrespectfully to his parents. The assessor dismissed this practice as 'idiosyncratic, non-abusive, and culturally appropriate.' Never mind that hot-saucing or force feeding of peppers to children can result in anaphylaxis or cause significant burns and damage to developing tissues in the mouth, esophagus, intestinal walls, stomach, and colon. Within a few short weeks of this assessment, the child was found dead after being severely beaten in the head by his parents. Need we say more?" 4 |
| Jordan Riak, Executive Director of "Parents and Teachers Against Violence in Education" wrote: "It's painful even to contemplate the amount of force or intimidation required to enable one person to introduce hot sauce into another person's mouth. There is an instinctive reflexive response that guards the buccal cavity against the intrusion of noxious or irritating substances, and any creature that lacked it wouldn't survive for long. Nevertheless, Lisa Whelchel, -- a mom who presumably cares about the survival of her children -- has written a parenting book in which she blithely describes thwarting that protective mechanism in her children." 4 |
| Margaret McGowen, a staff scientist for a trade association and the mother of a 17-month-old infant, had her tongue sauced when she was 3 and 4 years old. She was punished for telling fibs. She said that her mother "...told us the devil was dancing on our tongue, and she put a drop of Tabasco on it to drive him away." She recalls that "it really did discourage us from fibbing. All I had to do was see the bottle. Even if [my mother] was just using it for cooking or adding it to a recipe, it put fear in me." However, she will not use hot saucing herself. She said: "I don't need to resort to chemical warfare." She doesn't blame her mother for the punishment "because she was probably ill-informed." But she believes that "today we are more educated about the psychology of children." She can still recall how the sauce felt some 30 years ago: "It hurt. It burned. It was hard to get rid of the sensation." 1 |
| Christian Homeschool Fellowship's web site says: "We also do not believe some discipline methods are appropriate –such as applying hot sauce to the mouths or tongues of children. It is our prayer that the Lord blesses all the parents on CHFWeb with His wisdom and direction in bringing their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord!" 12 |
| Dr. Julie Beasley, a child psychologist, believes that hot saucing and similar methods don't work long term. She said: "I'm not saying that it probably doesn't work for some children. I think for some children it probably will. They'll probably stop for fear of that happening again. Again, that's parenting out of some fear and that's a powerful parenting technique. Spankings are fear based." 7 |
| "The Ghost of Christmas Future" posted the following note on a Northwestern University public blog: "My disagreement is with the idea that a child must physically "feel" pain in order to learn a lesson. The article often mentions "hot-saucing" a kid if they swear or lie, but in what way is this preferable to some other non-corporeal punishment? A good grounding or the loss of TV or video game privileges can teach the exact same lesson. I suspect that part of the appeal is that "hot-saucing" is immediate, but over within minutes, while grounding or the restriction of privileges requires parental oversight over-time to ensure compliance. I can certainly understand the impulse to use the immediate and certainly effective saucing punishment, however I still can't justify the practice when perfectly good non-physical punishments are available." 9 |
| Dr. Malcolm Lochiel, of Brook Medical Clinic in Wichita Falls, KS, said: "I think that the consensus these days is that it is not recommended as a form of punishment; when a child sees that his behavior has really upset or provoked the parent, it is felt that they sense power in their actions, and tend to perform in the same manner more frequently. It's probably best to simply reward good behaviors and withhold privileges for negative behaviors." 10 |
| Rob Boston of Americans United comments: "Religious Right activists constantly extol the virtues of the family and proclaim their love and concern for children. But, as the controversy over 'hot saucing' proves, at the same time they seem to be awfully creative when it comes to thinking up new ways to inflict pain on misbehaving youngsters." 11 |
This essay continues below.
Sponsored link:
What do sauce manufacturers say?
| McIlhenny Company of Avery Island, LA manufacture Tabasco. The owners of the company condemn the use of the product for child discipline. President Paul McIlhenny called hot saucing "strange and scary" and "abusive." 1 |
| Glenn Garner, marketing manager for the producer of Texas Pete hot sauce also rejected the use of hot sauce as a discipline method. "Obviously that's not something that we condone or believe in at all....As a child I ate [hot sauce] because I enjoyed it, not because it was forced on me." 13 |
Legal aspects of "hot saucing:"
| Virginia's child protective services agency groups hot saucing along with forcing children to kneel on sharp gravel or locking a child in a closet as "bizarre behaviors." 1 Manager Betty Jo Zarris said: "We have to have some community standards for what's appropriate to do to children. Common sense would tell you [hot sauce] is not appropriate for a child. The common man on the street would know this is offensive." |
| In Michigan, a child care center was sanctioned for using hot sauce to discipline a child. Allegedly, a mother of a 18-month old infant gave child care workers permission to use hot sauce to discipline her son who was biting other children. |
| A childcare center in Georgia was investigated after it was discovered that workers used hot sauce to discipline some children. 8 |
Reviews of "Creative Correction:"
"Creative Correction," by Lisa Whelchel, is a Focus on the Family book. Focus is a Fundamentalist Christian agency centered in Colorado Springs, CO. Its founder, James Dobson, is a psychologists who recommends spanking infants and young children from the age of 18 months upwards as an effective discipline technique.
Amazon.com, the world's largest online bookstore, allows individual book readers to post their comments. This book received a range of ratings from 1 star (the minimum) to 5 stars (the maximum). The average rating of 50 reviewers was 3.5.
Some comments:
| 5 stars: "Lisa does a fabulous job of using different examples of her own kids and how she actually tried some of the methods in the book and was very careful to admit not everything works for each situation." |
| 1 star: "If one of Lisa Whelchel's kids came into my schoolroom complaining of being forced to drink hot sauce, having his/her hair pulled as punishment, having water sprayed in his/her face like a dog, or having meals withheld from him/her, there is no question that I would be duty-bound to report it' as a teacher." (This reviewer is misrepresenting the hot sauce technique. The child is not forced to drink the sauce. A small quantity is placed on their tongue.) |
| 3 stars: "I liked how she used Scripture to back things up. She even explained why it is so important to use Scripture when raising your children." |
| 1 star: "...the child exposed to this type of "parenting" will grow to remember the cruelty of the "correction" rather than the action that prompted it. Treat children with respect and they will respect themselves....Unfortunately, many atrocities have been committed in the name of Christianity, and this book, in it's uniformed cruelty towards children, is just another." |
| 5 stars: Each child is "...a future adult. God has given you this gift to raise him in His light. Lisa stepped out of the "box" of today's parenting, if that is what you call it, and gives a refreshing, creative way to deal with issues. Get the book, try some of the tools and see what happens...you will be surprised!" |
| 1 star: "I cannot imagine a book worse than Whelchel's 'Creative Correction.' It's overly preachy, pithy, and full of really bad 'hints.' I realize it's published by Focus on the Family, but this isn't the way to go if you really want to try and discipline children. Hot sauce! Really! A LOVELY childrearing hint."" |
| 5 stars: "I have found this book to be incredibly helpful, mostly because for each problem, there are several suggestions for how to handle them. ...Not every parent will need or use every idea, but it sure is nice to have the choice." |
| 1 star: "Lisa is a fundamentalist 'Christian' who has no clue about raising children. I predict her own children will spend years in therapy and end up hating their mom, once they are old enough to learn that their childhood was far from normal. Avoid this book. It is poison." |
| 5 stars: "This is a wonderful book. Lisa Whelchel not only covers the traditional methods of displine, but also gives some very interesting and "creative" ideas....It will give some scriptures and some ideas that will refrain you from pulling your hair and also help you explain to the child why it's wrong to be acting the way they are and have a suitable punishment for it. ...the book would be a good start on how to discipline children." |
| 1 star: "I was reminded more of techniques used by torturers than of loving parents." |
| 5 stars: "I also like the one that says if you catch your child playing with matches, pick something very special to him (like a favorite baseball card) and burn it. Wow...that'll send a strong message to never play with matches again. Let's get real. Kids need discipline and structure. To all the parents that imply this book is too strict or disrespectful to children....get a clue and be a parent!" |
| 3 stars: "I fail to see the logical connection (or biblical support) for putting hot sauce on a child's tongue for any reason or justification with spanking a child. In Canada, a parent who employs the hot sauce method risks being charged with assault and having their child removed from their home. The same applies to parents who use paddles, straps, switches, etc." |
Poll results:
| The ABC News web site, in a non-scientific poll, received over 8,000 votes.
Results were:
| ||||||
| WLMT-TV of Memphis, TN conducted an informal poll of visitors to their
web site. Results were:
|
Author bias:
The author of this essay opposes all methods of corporal punishment and feels that the hot saucing technique is an abusive act. All of the staff at ReligiousTolerance.org personally oppose hot saucing. One suggests that, from most children's point of view, hot saucing is a terrorist act against them. We strongly recommend against this or any other discipline method which causes physical pain. We have include the essay on our website because the use of hot saucing appears to be spreading. We feel that our site visitors need to know what it is and what people think about it.
References:
-
Alison Buckholtz, "Feeling the Heat. Some Parents Apply Hot Sauce to a Child's Tongue as Punishment. The Practice Has Some Experts Burning," The Washington Post, 2004-AUG-10. Page HE 01. Online at: http://www.axisoflogic.com/
-
Lisa Whelchel, "Creative Correction: Extraordinary Ideas for
Everyday Discipline (Focus on the Family Book)," Tyndale House, (2000).
Read
reviews, read sample pages, and/or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store -
"Stinging Debate. Parents Divided Over Practice of ‘Hot Saucing’ as a Form of Discipline," ABC News' Good Morning America, 2004-AUG-24, at: http://abcnews.go.com/
-
"Stinging Debate -- Parents Divided Over Practice of ‘Hot Saucing’ as a Form of Discipline," at: http://nospank.net/
-
Tim Kimmel, "Grace-based Parenting," W Publishing, (2004).
Read
reviews, read sample pages, and/or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store. -
Al Tompkins, " 'Hot Saucing' Children," PoynterOnline, 2004-AUG-18, at: http://www.poynter.org/
-
"Hot Saucing of Kids Draws Criticism," KLAS TV, Las Vegas, NV, 2004-AUG-25, at: http://www.klas-tv.com/
-
Pamela Page, "Tabasco Discipline: 'Hot-Saucing' Your Kids," WOAI TV, 2004-AUG-25, at: http://www.woai.com/
-
" 'Hot-saucing' kids for a better America," Public blog at Northwestern University, 2004-AUG-10, at: http://64.233.167.104/
-
Michael Hines, " 'Hot saucing' puts some in hot water. Experts agree spicy solution to kids' bad mouths not an option," Times Record News, Witchita Falls, TX, at: http://www.timesrecordnews.com/
-
Rob Boston, "Suffer The Little Children: Focus On The Family And 'Hot Saucing'," Americans United, 2004-AUG-11, at: http://blog.au.org/
-
"The Titus Two Women’s section is NOT provided for the following purposes: Spanking Specifics and Discipline Methods," CHFWeb.com, at: http://chfweb.com/
-
Bo Emerson, "New flavor to punishing kids: Sting of hot sauce. Drops on tongue popular option. Parenting experts call it distasteful," Cox News Service, 2004-SEP-02. Published in the Toronto Star, 2004-SEP-03, Page D3.
Copyright © 2004 to 2006 by Ontario Consultants on
Religious Tolerance
Originally posted: 2004-AUG-28
Latest update: 2006-MAR-29
Author: B.A. Robinson
|
|
