Having been raised under some (not all, thank God, but definitely some) of Michael and Debi Pearl's teachings, and having recently heard horror stories of the use or misuse, as the case may be, of these same teachings on child raising, I felt it was time to read the books myself and draw my own conclusions based what I felt to be Biblically accurate. So, I read their iconic book "To Train Up A Child", along with Volume 1 of "No Greater Joy" (another child training book), and am currently working my way through "Created To Be His HelpMeet", a book written by Debi on how to be a godly wife and mother.
And while I would love to believe their motives are not sinister, I was struck by the sinister nature of some of their material.
For instance, who advocates stripping a child and spraying his bare behind with a garden hose in order to potty train him?
Who in their right mind would deliberately trip a small child and cause her to fall into a pond in order to teach her to stay away from it?
Who thinks that spanking on a bare bottom is even remotely acceptable?
Who teaches parents that the height of effective parenting is to break their children's wills the same way a horse's will is broken?
This is not to say that there isn't any good to be gleaned from the books. On the contrary, I discovered quite a few interesting insights. However, there are enough questionable aspects to their methods where one can easily see how it could translate into child abuse.
And I don't know about anyone else, but I for one would rather err on the side of mercy.
<3 Tirzah
No comments:
Post a Comment