To Train Up A Child

Rating:
Summary: Technically "No Stars"
Review: The author's of this book adhere to "another Jesus", not the loving Father of the New Testament. Christ himself said "suffer the little children" meaning be patient with them, and to "forgive seventy times seven". The authors of this book are guilty of child abuse, possible death in having written this dark tome and are no doubt bound for eternal lock either here or in the burning judgement of the here-after.

Shame on you people, may the Lord turn your hearts of stone into hearts of flesh and steer you right before it's too late...

---Army Medic

Rating:
Summary: Don't fall for extremes...
Review: It seems people either praise this book to the high heavens or want to burn it like Annie Wilkes did Paul Sheldon's novel in Misery. Some of the things in this book are good: the stress on obedience, the need to establish warm family relations, the importance of good behaviour and so on. Other stuff wasn't so appealing: ex. setting up children to "fail" by placing an inviting object in front of them and slapping their hand if they touch it. I also completely passed on the stuff about women forgoing any sort of career (it does seem Mrs. Pearl has a career in writing doesn't she), the absolute necessity of homeschooling (I do support homeschooling, but I don't think it's the ONLY way to educate a child), etc. All in all, I think the Pearls do give a recipe for a well-run, efficient yet loving household. If you read this book, take the stuff you like and disregard that which you don't.

Rating:
Summary: Yikes!
Review: I've read this book cover to cover many times. And while I appreciate that the Pearls advocate consistency, their "child-training" methods are horrifying. I have a friend who I was in a ladies Bible study with who sat there, attempting to lead the study, and "snipped" (smacked with fingers) her 8 month old baby girl for grabbing the Bible study book that was two inches from her face. I lost count at 35 times. The baby was screaming with pain, and still reached out for the book, and Mama still snipped her. We all were very young mothers and didn't know what to do; we all offered to take the baby, but she said "no, she needs to learn." This is the result of the Pearls' teaching, folks. Don't distract babies, don't be gentle and full of grace, just beat them into submission. My friend is a wonderful person and has five children, and has subjected them all to this incredibly cult-like teaching. They couldn't even untie their shoes and miss a beating.

The Pearls are good, homey people; and therein lies the trap. Their homespun, folksy wisdom makes you want to lean in and listen, but their suggestions on how to train up your child are no less than child abuse. Spanking a newborn for crying...sitting on children who struggle when getting spankings...hitting a child back, as hard as you can, even rearing back to get a really good momentum going when they hit you (no matter what age)...putting children deliberately in situations where they will either fail or be humiliated in order to "build character" (such as throwing them into a lake, or leaving breakable items right in front of a baby and then smacking their hands every time they touch it).

Buy this book if you want to learn how to abuse your children and get caught up in a way of thinking that is both cultish and completely non-Biblical. Otherwise, read your Bible, especially the part where Jesus asks the children to "come to Me". I'm pretty sure (in the words of Woody Allen) that if He saw what the Pearls "were doing in His name, He'd never stop throwing up."

Rating:
Summary: For God so Loved the World
Review: While the negative reviews of this book are not surprising given the prevailing humanistic atmosphere of the world we live in today; it IS disappointing to see so many people commenting on something of which they have little or NO knowledge.

To successfully employ the training methods in "To Train Up a Child" one must FIRST have a heart which LOVES GOD. NOT a heart that kinda believes in God, or one that believes in.....some kind of a god. It requires a heart that loves the God of Abraham....who through his love and obedience to God, was willing to sacrifice his son's mortal life. (NOT something I have have the faithfullness to have done if I were ever to have been called upon). One must have a heart that loves the God who "gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life".

Negative reviews of this book have taken sentencenes "out of context" and added their own rather "unloving attitude" to them in order to form a guidebook to abuse. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Would these reviewers deny their child a vaccine for a deadly disease solely because it causes a moment of "pain"? Is the pain of a measels innoculation "abuse"???

Furthermore, only an abusive person, or one so emotionally crippled by past or current abuse, would equate "discipline to abuse". THE WHOLE IDEA is absurd! I'm a grandmother now, but was raised predominantly with these methods, and I KNOW that the IDEA of "spanking" is NOT to inflict pain....but to IMPLY that you mean business. Those who can't bear the thought that children are trained in much the same way as Pavlov's dogs had better continue allowing the tail to wag the dog. IN FACT....it was some 20 yrs ago, while training a puppy...that my OWN daughter first grasped the nature of parenting. She LOVED that puppy....and when she realized that the dog was CLUELESS when we talked to it about the hazzards of the street...she realized....SOMETIMES you just have to keep them safely on the right path UNTIL THEY DO Understand!

My own mother was crippled from Polio in 1937....she was 3 yrs old. When I was a toddler, and we went into town....she put me in a harness on the end of a leash. I've heard stories about the abuse that SHE endured by those who would have rather had her allow me to be killed by a speeding car rather than "treat me like a dog". In later years....when "child harnesses" became popular, in pink and blue, I read similar stories of disgust in "Dear Abby"......30 years hasn't changed people's hearts to the point that they would RATHER see a child SAFE, than to avoid seeing something with an uncomfortable innconotation to THEM. PEOPLE......DEAL WITH IT! UNTIL you can LOVE THE CHILD MORE...than you love YOUR comfort level you will NEVER understand the principles of this book.

God Bless ALL the parents who LOVE their children MORE than you love what "the neighbors think". You children WILL Bless you for it!

Rating:
Summary: What is our society coming to?
Review: I am so disturbed. Children our precious. How can one promote spanking and abuse? This world is becoming a very sad place when parents turn to this sort of nonsense.