Michael & Debi Pearl: Helpful or Harmful? – Pastor Peter Vik

I found this video very well worth the time. They explain their concerns with the teachings of the Pearls and of Bill Gothard very well. Pastor Vik states that he is not against all corporeal punishment, which makes this good to share with pro-spanking Christians who will not consider any arguments from non-spankers.

Read More

Some Looks At The Williams

Cindy Kunsman, from Under Much Grace, looks at the Williams Trial and compares the Williams family with the Schatz family in Awaiting the Verdicts in the Williams Trial: Another Michael Pearl/To Train Up A Child Associated Death.  She also gives a brief outline of Pearl and his teachings and a lamentation for the devastation they…

Read More

Reb Bradley

Latebloomer was raised in Reb Bradley’s church, Hope Chapel, and is one of the Sheltered, Controlled Homeschoolers who “didn’t ‘turn out right,’ yet another disappointment to the former parents and leadership of Hope Chapel.”  She shares some important insights about this in “Biblical” Parenting, Introduction.  (By the way, I was surprised to see Kevin and Elizabeth…

Read More

Sarah’s Arguments Against Spanking

Sarah explains why she does not believe in spanking in a well researched and chatty post entitled, A person’s a person no matter how small.  She also answers some common arguments for spanking with counter arguments, which many will find helpful.

Read More

Challies reviews TTUAC

After his review of Created To Be His Help Meet a few days ago, Tim Challies has decided to review To Train Up A Child, which he does in 2 parts: Tim Challies Review of To Train Up A Child Part 1 in which he looks at training versus discipline, and his concerns with Pearl’s…

Read More

Should Obedience Be The Goal of Parenting?

The Hippie Housewife asks if our goal for our children should be Obedience or something else. On a similar note, Created To Be His muses on the idea that Sons of Hell Can Be Rather Impressive. Meanwhile, Pearl in Oyster (PIO) continues her 52 Tool Cards series with 52 Tool Cards Double Feature: Act Without…

Read More

Christianity Today Looks at TTUAC

Rachel Stone of Christianity Today takes a close look at To Train Up A Child  in When Child Discipline Becomes Abuse.  I notice that she linked to my blog which I much appreciate.  She obviously read TTUAC with a critical eye and really “gets it.”

Read More

Behaviorism at the Root of Child Training

Carissa Robinson explains that “If you observe most recommended Christian parenting practices today, you might be surprised to discover a secular influence: behavioral psychology” in Awaken Their Hearts. Meanwhile, Greenegem explains the error in thinking that we have to DO anything more than believe in order to be saved in No Assembly Required.

Read More

Psychology and the Christian Mindset

JeriWho has written a very interesting blog about Psychology and The Fundamentalist Christian at Blog On The Way.  Her premise is that while rejecting Psychology for being “atheistic, Darwinistic, and utterly secular,” they tend to embrace behaviorism which is also atheistic and unbliblical.  She makes some very good points here and gives much food for…

Read More

Behaviour Modification

This blog post is exactly one year old today. I am linking to it because I just found it and have always found this topic interesting.  Behaviour Modification: Punishment by Hippie Housewife.  Here is a quote: …Every day I hear the same parenting advice – punishment and rewards, threats and praise, negative and positive attention.…

Read More

Counter Arguments 4

Karen made a comment on Train Up Your Child at Awful Library Books to which I would like to reply. Perhaps the person who put this in the “awful books” category should have read the positive as well as negative reviews on Amazon…the list of things from the book were from the top negative review…

Read More

Amy’s Arguments

The philosophical underpinnings of these kinds of “Christian” behaviour “training” models do not sit well with biblical theology. The more I read about Ezzo and Pearl’s behaviour modification techniques the more I am reminded of Behaviouristic psychology (the works of Skinner, Watson, Pavlov etc) Fundamentally, behavioural psychology advocates the use operant/classical conditioning for behaviour modification…

Read More

Kathy Thile’s Arguments

“The Pearls believe that training is a separate thing from teaching and discipline. They start very early using a switch to inflict pain…to train babies to avoid things the parent wants the baby to avoid…just like a behavioral psychologist might use electric shocks and rewards to train rats to navigate a maze. In my opinion…

Read More