Hace tres mil años, un hombre sabio dijo: "Entrena a un niño en el camino que debe seguir y cuando sea viejo no se apartará de él". Un buen entrenamiento no es manejo de crisis; es lo que haces antes de que surja la necesidad de disciplina. La mayoría de la crianza es accidental más que deliberada. Imagina construir una casa de esa manera. No necesitamos reinventar el entrenamiento. Existen principios y métodos de entrenamiento infantil que han funcionado desde la antigüedad. Descuidar el entrenamiento deliberado es empujar a su hijo a un mar de elecciones y pasiones sin un bote de brújula. Este libro no trata sobre disciplina, ni sobre niños problemáticos. El énfasis está en el entrenamiento de un niño antes de que surja la necesidad de disciplinar. Es evidente que, aunque esperan obediencia, la mayoría de los padres nunca intentan entrenar a sus hijos para que obedezcan. Esperan hasta que el comportamiento se vuelve insoportable y luego explota. Con un entrenamiento adecuado, la disciplina se puede reducir al 5% de lo que muchos practican ahora. A medida que comprenda la diferencia entre el entrenamiento y la disciplina, tendrá una visión renovada para su familia, no más voces elevadas, ni contención, ni malas actitudes, menos azotes, una atmósfera alegre en el hogar y la total obediencia de sus hijos. .

Horrible and disturbing descriptions of child abuse. That someone would pick a book like this as a guide for raising their kids is beyond me. Because you think all the other books on child raising are linked to an alarming number of cases of child abuse and kids DYING at the hands of their parents?! Nope. Just this one!
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"Another couple found guilty of murder for parenting by "To Train Up a Child"
http://www.examiner.com/article/another-couple-found-guilty-of-murder-for-parent... ( )

This book is being held as responsible in three cases of parents killing their children by following its advice.
http://www.examiner.com/article/another-couple-found-guilty-of-murder-for-parent...

I believe the parents are entirely responsible for their own behavior. Of course, they're obviously stupid, irrational, & ripe for the picking of such con men as the Pearl's, but none of that is excuse enough to torture children to death.

I don't like convicting books or people without some background, so I checked out their FB page & didn't think they sounded too far out. Very religious, possibly even Fundamentalists, but a lot of otherwise decent people are. Then I checked out some of the reviews on Amazon. Several went into detail that convinced me the article was not blown out of proportion. This book does promote child abuse. This one was the best:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R33MBC5A65IPTI/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=...

This review is by heavenpeas on Amazon (link above, bolding is mine):
... My kids range in age from 14-2 and each of them is a blessing. Each of them is different. Each of them needs something different from us regarding discipline. Love your kids. Get to know them. If you are a believer, ask God for guidance. And DON'T BUY THIS BOOK.

Some excerpts: On p.65 co-author Debi Pearl whips the bare leg of a 15 month old she is babysitting, 10 separate times, for not playing with something she tells him to play with.

After about ten acts of stubborn defiance, followed by ten switchings, he surrendered his will to one higher than himself. In rolling the wheel, he did what every accountable human being must do-he humbled himself before the "highest" and admitted that his interests are not paramount. After one begrudged roll, my wife turned to other chores

On p.59 they recommend spanking a 3 year old until he is "totally broken."

She then administers about ten slow, patient licks on his bare legs. He cries in pain. If he continues to show defiance by jerking around and defending himself, or by expressing anger, then she will wait a moment and again lecture him and again spank him. When it is obvious he is totally broken, she will hand him the rag and very calmly say, "Johnny, clean up your mess." He should very contritely wipe up the water.

On p.79 they recommend switching a 7 month old for screaming.

A seven-month-old boy had, upon failing to get his way, stiffened clenched his fists, bared his toothless gums and called down damnation on the whole place. At a time like that, the angry expression on a baby's face can resemble that of one instigating a riot. The young mother, wanting to do the right thing, stood there in helpless consternation, apologetically shrugged her shoulders and said, "What can I do?" My incredulous nine-year-old whipped back, "Switch him." The mother responded, "I can't, he's too little." With the wisdom of a veteran who had been on the little end of the switch, my daughter answered, "If he is old enough to pitch a fit, he is old enough to be spanked."...

I wonder how long Amazon will keep it on its shelves. From this review, I believe it violates their terms. It certainly violates mine.

This is one of the wickedest books I have ever read and, given who I am and what I read, that is saying a lot. This is a book so vile, written by a man so degenerate, that there is literally no way for a moral person to discuss it with anything approaching neutrality. It is a book written solely with the intent of breaking the wills of small children, beating them into submission, and it has become a text used by witless Christian parents to beat their “willful” children to death. And Michael Pearl is okay with that because he says those parents didn’t beat their children with love in their hearts or they wouldn’t have struck their children repeatedly with plumbing line until their muscles broke down and clogged their kidneys with biological debris, killing them.

This book is deeply problematic beyond just the content, which we will get to in a moment. This book upsets me so much because though I am an atheist, I know excellent and fine Christians. My grandfather was one. He would have rebuked a man like Michael Pearl and if Pearl beat a child or a dog with a piece of wood, a belt, or plumbing line in front of him, Pearl would have found out what it is like to be at the mercy of a larger, angry man. That is not because my grandfather was some sort of vengeance seeker. Far from it. He was not a man who looked for fights. He would have rebuked Pearl because genuine believers cannot stomach the harms done by True Believers. Many Christians today have the same reactions to the Westboro Baptist Church. This book is so deeply problematic because in fundamentalist, legalistic circles, people use this book in the place of their own judgement as Christians, parents and decent human beings.

This is not a condemnation of Christianity. It is a condemnation of Christians who use Michael and Debi Pearl’s disgusting book of abuse, a book so profoundly horrible that if it was used against prisoners it would be illegal and if it was used on POWs it would be considered war crimes. So if you want to defend Christianity, don’t do it here. Christianity is not what is being discussed here. What is being discussed here is child abuse in the name of Michael Pearl, not God or Jesus, and the way that unthinking faith leads people to do terrible things.

The purpose of To Train Up a Child is to use Amish horse training methods on children, and even then the Amish would likely turn their backs on Pearl if they knew how their methods of taming wild animals were used on children.

Don’t get lost in the details. Pearl in Chapter One lays out a bunch of explanations of how it is that he is not disciplining children, but rather continually training them so he does not have to discipline them. He uses Proverbs 22:6 as his rationale:

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Fair enough, but when “training” consists of pulling a nursing infant’s hair, hitting them continually, deliberately putting them in harm’s way to show them they must obey all commands, even those that make zero sense on any rational level, hitting them if they do not obey quickly enough for your satisfaction, what you are doing is brainwashing your child to follow your demented ideas, not any sort of Godly path. Mindless, shattered, fearful automatons will never depart from the path you put them on.

You can read my entire discussion here: http://houdinisrevenge.com/harry-houdini-will-have-his-revenge-on-michael-and-de... ( )