Welcome to the Historical Fiction Online forums: a friendly place to discuss, review and discover historical fiction.
If this is your first visit, please be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above.
You will have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed.
To start viewing posts, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

This is parenting?

A place to debate issues or to rant about what's on your mind. In addition to discussions about historical fiction, books, the publishing industry, and history, discussions about current political, social, and religious issues and other topics are allowed, so those who are easily offended by certain topics may want to avoid such threads. Members are expected to keep the discussions friendly and polite and to avoid personal attacks on other members. The moderators reserve the right to shut down a thread without warning if they believe it necessary.
User avatar
Misfit
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 9581
Joined: August 2008
Location: Seattle, WA

This is parenting?

Post by Misfit » Fri October 7th, 2011, 9:06 pm

I am beyond words, let alone that a book that encourages this kind of parenting is allowed in the marketplace.
Hana Williams was found dead in May - naked, face-down in the mud in her own backyard - after she had spent much of a cold, rainy day outside as a punishment, according to court documents.

Although she died of hypothermia, there were other contributing causes to her death, including severe malnutrition and chronic gastritis, doctors said.

The Williams had adopted Hana from Ethiopia in 2008 as a diseased little girl to begin a new life in America.

Instead, according to court records, she was beaten, starved, forced to sleep in a barn at times and deprived of love and basic necessities.


Further investigation revealed that Hana had a number of injuries on the night she died, including a large lump on the head, bloody marks and injuries "consistent with disciplinary impacts with a switch," according to court documents released Friday.

Those same documents describe the hellish life that Hana endured in the months before her death - which included systematic withholding of food, forced times outdoors in the cold or locked in a dark closet, interspersed with regular spankings or beatings with a plumbing tool.
A witness told investigators that the Williams got their ideas for the disciplinary measures from a book, "How to Train Up Your Child," which recommends switchings with a plumbing tool, cold water baths, withholding food and putting children out in cold weather as forms of punishment.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

User avatar
LoveHistory
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3751
Joined: September 2008
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Contact:

Post by LoveHistory » Fri October 7th, 2011, 9:40 pm

It's a terrible thing that makes me feel sick.

But I have to say that it sounds like the problem is with those parents and not with the book. From what I have read about it, it sounds like they took some things way out of context and ignored the parts about love, and never disciplining when you're angry. "A witness" says they got the ideas from the book. Doesn't mean they did, or that all of the ideas came from that particular book.

I've read books with all kinds of odd and sometimes even stupid advice. I don't follow that advice. People read crime thrillers; they don't go out and commit those crimes. The parents are to blame here.

And no, that is not parenting.

User avatar
Misfit
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 9581
Joined: August 2008
Location: Seattle, WA

Post by Misfit » Fri October 7th, 2011, 10:10 pm

The first chapter(s) can be sampled via Kindle and I'm curious what is said in that portion. The idea of hitting any child with a flexible plumbing tube is just so wrong.

No, that is not parenting and something is very very wrong there. You wonder why they bothered to adopt the kids from Ethiopia in the first place.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

User avatar
boswellbaxter
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3066
Joined: August 2008
Location: North Carolina
Contact:

Post by boswellbaxter » Sat October 8th, 2011, 12:27 am

There's a mother here who adhered closely to the teachings of that book, including beating her children with PVC pipe. She was convicted of the murder of her four-year-old son a few years ago, although the method she used to kill him (wrapping him so tightly in blankets he suffocated) apparently wasn't from the book. One of the things she took with her to prison was that book.
Susan Higginbotham
Coming in October: The Woodvilles


http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/
http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/blog/

User avatar
Misfit
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 9581
Joined: August 2008
Location: Seattle, WA

Post by Misfit » Sat October 8th, 2011, 12:56 am

I just read through the free sample and I have no intention of lining their pockets even at $3.95 for the kindle version. One quote on the problem of nursing babies biting their mothers,
"One particularly painful experience of nursing mothers is the biting baby. My wife did not waste time finding a cure. When the baby bit, she pulled its hair (an alternative has to be sought for bald-headed babies). Understand, the baby is not being punished, just conditioned...After biting two or three times, and experiencing pain in association with each bite, the child programs that information away for his own comfort. The biting "habit" is cured before it starts. This is not discipline. It is obedience training."
The free sample also includes a list of chapters, following are some but not all of them,
The Rod
Applying the Rod
Philosophy of the Rod
Child Labor
Attitude Training
"Religious" Whips
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

User avatar
boswellbaxter
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3066
Joined: August 2008
Location: North Carolina
Contact:

Post by boswellbaxter » Sat October 8th, 2011, 1:19 am

The author has several books of this nature, and a website. He has many devoted followers. God knows how many children have been scarred, physically and psychologically, by his methods.

This is one person I would happily pay to see get a taste of his own medicine. Two people twice his size hitting him with PVC pipes--but not in anger, of course. That might adversely affect their aim.
Susan Higginbotham
Coming in October: The Woodvilles


http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/
http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/blog/

rebecca
Compulsive Reader
Posts: 798
Joined: July 2011

Post by rebecca » Sat October 8th, 2011, 1:46 am

OMG! :mad: I wouldn't train my dog like this let alone a child!!! Where are their brains?!! It beggars belief!

Bec :)

User avatar
Nefret
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 2994
Joined: February 2009
Favourite HF book: Welsh Princes trilogy
Preferred HF: The Middle Ages (England), New Kingdom Egypt, Medieval France
Location: Temple of Isis

Post by Nefret » Sat October 8th, 2011, 5:22 am

:eek: Beyond words at that article too.

Reading that website made me shudder.
Into battle we ride with Gods by our side
We are strong and not afraid to die
We have an urge to kill and our lust for blood has to be fulfilled
WE´LL FIGHT TILL THE END! And send our enemies straight to Hell!
- "Into Battle"
{Ensiferum}

User avatar
Vanessa
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 4378
Joined: August 2008
Currently reading: The Farm at the Edge of the World by Sarah Vaughan
Interest in HF: The first historical novel I read was Katherine by Anya Seton and this sparked off my interest in this genre.
Favourite HF book: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell!
Preferred HF: Any
Location: North Yorkshire, UK

Post by Vanessa » Sat October 8th, 2011, 10:29 am

How terrible and disgraceful!

I think we can all get to the end of our tether with our children (they can be so infuriating!), but there's no need to use those sort of methods.
currently reading: My Books on Goodreads

Books are mirrors, you only see in them what you already have inside you ~ The Shadow of the Wind

User avatar
EC2
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3661
Joined: August 2008
Location: Nottingham UK
Contact:

Post by EC2 » Sat October 8th, 2011, 11:39 am

Absolutely dreadful and disgusting. While children need to know the boundaries of what's acceptable and what's not, (and some of the parents appear to have loony attitudes as to what constitutes acceptable and what's a transgression) abusing them with violence is not one of the ways to a result.
Les proz e les vassals
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard n’I chasront

'The Brave and the valiant
Are always to be found between the hooves of horses
For never will cowards fall down there.'

Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal

www.elizabethchadwick.com

Post Reply

Return to “Debate/Rant Forum”