Another "To Train a Child Up" abuse case?
So sad - horrifying. My wife and I are adoptive parents. No one can be completely prepared for the innate difficulties involved with adoption, but I cannot begin to imagine doing something like is described here. Surely this extreme inhumanity is not directly related to the book referenced, right?
Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?
[Chip Van Emmerik] So sad - horrifying. My wife and I are adoptive parents. No one can be completely prepared for the innate difficulties involved with adoption, but I cannot begin to imagine doing something like is described here. Surely this extreme inhumanity is not directly related to the book referenced, right?“starving their daughter and keeping her locked outside”.
“starved Hana for days, put her in a locked closet, shower room and forced her to sleep outside in the barn in the cold. She wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom in the house, instead a porta-potty behind the barn. “
“not speaking to her”
“Hanna was forced to watch the family celebrate Christmas from outside”
No. Despite all the problems many of us have with the book, it does not seem to advocate such practices. The book has some serious problems scripturally and practically, but more abuse arises because of the kind of people who read and recommend it than from the book itself. The flawed instruction of the book put into practice by broken people produces more severely abused children.
“Hana was struck daily with a plumbing tool, a tube with a round ball on the end.”
This last one might be inferred from the book’s instructions on training.
At no point in time were the Pearls personally involved with this family. Doctors and social workers, however, saw the family and child regularly. Exactly who dropped the ball here?
Someone is trying to make a case out of dryer lint, and a convenient scapegoat for those who were actually involved with this family and allowed this child to die right under their noses.
Someone is trying to make a case out of dryer lint, and a convenient scapegoat for those who were actually involved with this family and allowed this child to die right under their noses.
Be sure to read the entire probable cause document.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/66907264/Probable-Cause
As far as the social workers go, if they were actually able to do random home inspections (which I can’t find that they did or were allowed to), it seems from the P/C document that the family (parents & kids) were well-skilled in putting on a good face and covering up the abuse. Without being allowed to inspect the home & property thoroughly or inspect the children physically & privately, a social worker could easily be snowed by these people.
Are the Pearls directly responsible for this atrocity? Apparently not. These parents would’ve abused the children without any help from the Pearls. The Pearls merely supplied them with some “discipline” techniques (plumbing supply line…hosing off…doing without food…) that the parents took to extreme measures.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/66907264/Probable-Cause
Doctors and social workers, however, saw the family and child regularly….Did they? I couldn’t find that. From the P/C document, looks like the last visit to the doctor was a year before her death and her growth/weight stats appeared normal. But since that last doctor’s visit, Hanna went from 106 to 78 pounds (she was 5’ tall). It appears that in the meantime, she started her monthly cycle and things went seriously downhill rather quickly..
As far as the social workers go, if they were actually able to do random home inspections (which I can’t find that they did or were allowed to), it seems from the P/C document that the family (parents & kids) were well-skilled in putting on a good face and covering up the abuse. Without being allowed to inspect the home & property thoroughly or inspect the children physically & privately, a social worker could easily be snowed by these people.
Are the Pearls directly responsible for this atrocity? Apparently not. These parents would’ve abused the children without any help from the Pearls. The Pearls merely supplied them with some “discipline” techniques (plumbing supply line…hosing off…doing without food…) that the parents took to extreme measures.
One of the interesting things about this is that in a rural setting, hosing off outside, even in cold weather, is not a big deal. We didn’t have indoor plumbing until I was 14 (my dad bought a farmhouse and we renovated it ourselves) and we had to do all kinds of things in the bitter cold with nary a thought. Hosing off with ice cold well water before we came in the house was one of them. We did have enough sense to come inside before we turned blue. ;)
But city folks would read something like that and be horrified. It’s a cultural thing, not abuse.
But city folks would read something like that and be horrified. It’s a cultural thing, not abuse.
Haven’t read Pearl’s book … not likely to … not defending it …
But I can’t blame the book for this!
But I can’t blame the book for this!
Abuse happens all the time, and a person (unfortunately) doesn’t need a book to learn how to abuse a child. It sounds to me like King5 is trying to play up one side of this in order to publicize their coverage - which is unfortunately all too common with the press.
If the allegations are true (and I have no reason to doubt them), then the foster parents ought to be locked up for life. But that’s up to the future jurors to decide, not me.
If the allegations are true (and I have no reason to doubt them), then the foster parents ought to be locked up for life. But that’s up to the future jurors to decide, not me.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
Did anyone campaign to throw J. D. Salinger in jail after all the murders and school shootings ‘motivated’ by Catcher in the Rye? Why don’t we hold all authors accountable for actions that others take based on or inspired by the contents of their books? Because we know that leads to INSANITY.
[Susan R] One of the interesting things about this is that in a rural setting, hosing off outside, even in cold weather, is not a big deal. We didn’t have indoor plumbing until I was 14 (my dad bought a farmhouse and we renovated it ourselves) and we had to do all kinds of things in the bitter cold with nary a thought. Hosing off with ice cold well water before we came in the house was one of them. We did have enough sense to come inside before we turned blue. ;)But was this used as a form of punishment for wetting your pants? And were you then not allowed in the house to warm up after your cold shower? What you experienced as a child may have been somewhat cultural & due to temporary necessity; what Hana Williams experienced was torture.
But city folks would read something like that and be horrified. It’s a cultural thing, not abuse.
Jim wrote:
Haven’t read Pearl’s book … not likely to … not defending it …
But I can’t blame the book for this!
I’ve read significant portions of the book (I know too many people with Pearl sympathies) as well as some theological critiques. I blame the book insofar as it advocates some of the techniques the Williamses used in physical discipline as well as some of the definitions of offense (for example, not standing in precisely the spot dad says to stand in = rebellion or self-will, which must be punished forcefully & defeated soundly). I’m also not sure that the Pearls do an adequate job of communicating what true parental love is. I found chilling the testimony of the children in the Williams case when asked, “Did you like Hana?” They replied, “No, but they loved her because she was their sister.” They learned that way of thinking from their mother. When they were asked if their mother liked Hana, they replied, “No…she didn’t like her and didn’t want to see her grumpy face but loved her because God made her and she was her daughter.” Indeed, the Pearls insist that that their punishment techniques need to be administered in love, which Carrie Williams would somehow claim she was doing.
Susan wrote:
Did anyone campaign to throw J. D. Salinger in jail after all the murders and school shootings ‘motivated’ by Catcher in the Rye? Why don’t we hold all authors accountable for actions that others take based on or inspired by the contents of their books?
Do you think there’s a different level of moral responsibility for someone writing a “how-to” manual than for someone writing a novel? And I differentiate between moral responsibility and legal culpability.
Hosing off a kid who has had an accident is training. Throwing them out naked into the yard to die of hypothermia is abuse. Yes, let’s differentiate, please.
There is a real danger in making authors accountable for their works, fiction or nonfiction, being used in a way in which they were never intended. If a parental hot-to book advises a parent to put their child in a quiet, isolated place for a short time out, and the parent locks them in dark closet for 24 hours, is that the author’s fault? Should every single piece of advice be spelled out in excruciating detail, followed with disclaimers? The average book would look like the tax code.
It’s bad enough that there are warning labels like “Do not use as flotation device’ on everything from snow suits to toasters. The start of every Mythbusters episode is “Do not try this at home”. Do people just not have good sense anymore? On what planet does a parent translate “Break their will” into “Break their bones”?
I don’t recommend the Pearls’ stuff. There is much better material out there without all the doctrinal peculiarities and One Size Fits All methods. But as soon as we make this kind of abuse the fault of the author of a book, we are in heap big trouble, because anyone can take anything written to any extreme.
There is a real danger in making authors accountable for their works, fiction or nonfiction, being used in a way in which they were never intended. If a parental hot-to book advises a parent to put their child in a quiet, isolated place for a short time out, and the parent locks them in dark closet for 24 hours, is that the author’s fault? Should every single piece of advice be spelled out in excruciating detail, followed with disclaimers? The average book would look like the tax code.
It’s bad enough that there are warning labels like “Do not use as flotation device’ on everything from snow suits to toasters. The start of every Mythbusters episode is “Do not try this at home”. Do people just not have good sense anymore? On what planet does a parent translate “Break their will” into “Break their bones”?
I don’t recommend the Pearls’ stuff. There is much better material out there without all the doctrinal peculiarities and One Size Fits All methods. But as soon as we make this kind of abuse the fault of the author of a book, we are in heap big trouble, because anyone can take anything written to any extreme.
I think that asking “are the Pearls guilty?” (which requires a yes/no answer) sort of snows the issue.
So here’s a different approach: Is there anything in the book TTUAC that would lead well-meaning parents to abuse their kids? And I’m not talking about it being even to the point of killing a child.
And I think one would have to give a much more cautious answer.
Yes, withholding food, hosing down, and plumbing line are all mentioned in the book. I’m sure they were not intended in the way they were applied here, but mix that with the control and adversarial messages … plus sinful parents … it’s so sad.
I do agree with Susan that one aspect of it is cultural—the hills of TN kind of thing. I grew up in Chatt, TN, so I recognized it when a friend gave me Debi Pearl’s Created to be His Helpmeet a few yrs back. I was generally shocked by the mocking, degrading way that women’s spirituality was portrayed as being so untrustworthy and incompetent (in that book), but I could see from the particular examples they used to communicate that, in what exact region of the US they they were living in— not far from my own home town. It doesn’t excuse their ungodly views, but it gave me a bit of “understanding” for them.
So here’s a different approach: Is there anything in the book TTUAC that would lead well-meaning parents to abuse their kids? And I’m not talking about it being even to the point of killing a child.
And I think one would have to give a much more cautious answer.
[TTUAC] “And hold him there until he is surrendered. Prove that you are bigger, tougher, more patiently enduring and are unmoved by his wailing. Defeat him totally. Accept no conditions for surrender. No compromise. You are to rule over him as a benevolent sovereign. Your word is final.”
from To Train Up a Child, by Michael and Debi Pearl, Chapter 6: Applying the Rod)
[tulipgirl] Train through swatting (smacking, spanking, switching… different terms used in different places in the book… regardless, “training” uses an implement on a child’s skin to case pain.)I wish I could post some comments from former TTUAC parents here. They illustrate how it is possible to be well-meaning but also get sucked into abusive approaches.
It doesn’t take long to see that if a child is not “easily” trained and compliant immediately, a parent trying to do the “right” thing will be led by the Pearls’ teachings and philosophy to abuse.
A child who doesn’t understand, doesn’t comply, or isn’t submissive right away… A parent is taught to be consistent, defeat totally, continue spanking/swatting/smacking…
In this context, can you see how easily the Pearls’ teachings can lead to abuse?
I’ve know parents… loving, well-meaning, dear parents… Parents who never spanked in anger… who got to the point where they saw they were ABUSING their children (in love… with good intentions) because of this underlying theme of consistency and total defeat.
(this is from http://www.tulipgirl.com/index.php/2011/10/when-friends-defend-the-pear… tulipgirl’s blog)
Yes, withholding food, hosing down, and plumbing line are all mentioned in the book. I’m sure they were not intended in the way they were applied here, but mix that with the control and adversarial messages … plus sinful parents … it’s so sad.
I do agree with Susan that one aspect of it is cultural—the hills of TN kind of thing. I grew up in Chatt, TN, so I recognized it when a friend gave me Debi Pearl’s Created to be His Helpmeet a few yrs back. I was generally shocked by the mocking, degrading way that women’s spirituality was portrayed as being so untrustworthy and incompetent (in that book), but I could see from the particular examples they used to communicate that, in what exact region of the US they they were living in— not far from my own home town. It doesn’t excuse their ungodly views, but it gave me a bit of “understanding” for them.
is that we tend to read books that reinforce the perspectives we already have. I think it would be hard to make the case that this tragedy is a direct result of the Pearl’s teaching. But there IS a reason why a family already functioning by such dynamics would find TTUAC appealing. Nothing in it would challenge or confront their parenting methods; and it would actually reinforce their established paradigm of extreme punishment to break the child’s will.
We seem to be trying to distinguish the Pearl’s level of responsibility. Are they not to blame at all? Are they slightly to blame? Are they fully to blame? I’m not sure we can answer that question without talking to them and finding out at what point in their descent into child-raising idiocy they read the Pearl’s book and how it impacted that descent. I say idiocy because they were starving their daughter to death and didn’t know it.
The Pearls wrote a book that encouraged some forms of discipline that are in the Williams family’s repertoire. Yet the tendency has been for journalists to note the presence of the book where they find the most heinous forms of child abuse.
This imparts an imprecise impression (that somebody wrote a book encouraging parents to do this very set of heinous things to their children). I fear it is setting up a firestorm of resistance against all physical correction – even the most mild and calmly administered spankings such as almost all good parents administered in, say, the 50’s. Since many Evangelical and Fundamentalist parents believe there are appropriate forms of spanking, I fear the day the stories say “and a King James Bible was found in the home.”
So, the News Media have failed to clearly identify the source of the problem (as in previous stories of this kind).
The Williams failed. They hurt their kids because they were messed up people. They may have taken the Pearls’ book and received some encouragement in their views from it, but they went much farther than the Pearls would have endorsed. It’s not fair to the Pearls, who seem to be a sincere couple (as mistaken as they are on some things), to blame them for the fact that broken people read their book.
The Pearls failed. They wrote a book that is flawed. Though it has a veneer of apparent Biblical justification, it is clearly a Behaviorist document. The Pearls do not seem to understand that they have partly adopted an unbiblical philosophy to justify their method. They also misrepresent a number of passages on “the rod”, though they do it in a way that is rather common among Evangelicals and Fundamentalists in America.
And finally, there was significant failure on the part of friends and neighbors. It seems that plenty of people came forward after the death, sharing their concerns about how the child was being treated. But there does not appear to be any record that they made any reports before the death. That should be warning to us.
The Pearls wrote a book that encouraged some forms of discipline that are in the Williams family’s repertoire. Yet the tendency has been for journalists to note the presence of the book where they find the most heinous forms of child abuse.
This imparts an imprecise impression (that somebody wrote a book encouraging parents to do this very set of heinous things to their children). I fear it is setting up a firestorm of resistance against all physical correction – even the most mild and calmly administered spankings such as almost all good parents administered in, say, the 50’s. Since many Evangelical and Fundamentalist parents believe there are appropriate forms of spanking, I fear the day the stories say “and a King James Bible was found in the home.”
So, the News Media have failed to clearly identify the source of the problem (as in previous stories of this kind).
The Williams failed. They hurt their kids because they were messed up people. They may have taken the Pearls’ book and received some encouragement in their views from it, but they went much farther than the Pearls would have endorsed. It’s not fair to the Pearls, who seem to be a sincere couple (as mistaken as they are on some things), to blame them for the fact that broken people read their book.
The Pearls failed. They wrote a book that is flawed. Though it has a veneer of apparent Biblical justification, it is clearly a Behaviorist document. The Pearls do not seem to understand that they have partly adopted an unbiblical philosophy to justify their method. They also misrepresent a number of passages on “the rod”, though they do it in a way that is rather common among Evangelicals and Fundamentalists in America.
And finally, there was significant failure on the part of friends and neighbors. It seems that plenty of people came forward after the death, sharing their concerns about how the child was being treated. But there does not appear to be any record that they made any reports before the death. That should be warning to us.
Discussion