Beautiful testimony from an adoptive mom/former Pearl follower........

[Corraleno]

I read somewhere that a shepherd would break a sheep's leg in order to keep it from running away to danger. Certainly not saying to break a limb or anything like that but I am saying that a shepherd's rod was used to keep his sheep safe however he could. He knew best and if the sheep needed to be prodded (or something like that) to go where it was safe, he was going to do it to keep them from harm's way...it was not only used to ward off wolves, etc.

 

Considering that shepherds also slaughter and EAT their sheep, I think applying the shepherd/sheep analogy to parenting has it's limits.

 

Any book that claims the best way to train children is to whip them like animals until they "no longer have breath to complain" is a textbook for child abusers, not a "parenting manual." And children will continue to be abused, injured, and even killed as long as Michael Pearl is able to convince naive parents that his sadistic and very personal interpretation of scripture is the only way to raise Christian children.

 

Jackie

[Audrey]

I haven't read anything by them since I first started homeschooling until just now. There's something about the way they write, especially Michael, that strikes me as off, not mentally balanced. I think the word I was looking for was 'delusional'. Maybe he truly see himself as God's only true spokesperson???

 

Reading his web site -- what he, himself has directly written, not what others have said he's written -- it seems quite obvious that he has, at very least, an extreme superiority complex, if not, indeed a god-complex. He also seems to have a serious detachment from reality, either by willfully ignoring it, or being incapable of seeing it.

 

I cannot comment on whether he is biblically accurate or not. I don't care about biblical anything, and would leave that to his fellow christians to expose his fallacies. I do think, though, that the article, which mentioned how christians are starting to object to him, is hopeful. I do think that it has to be his fellow christians who eventually shut him down. No one else will hold any credence over him.

[kmacnchs]

Considering that shepherds also slaughter and EAT their sheep, I think applying the shepherd/sheep analogy to parenting has it's limits.

 

Any book that claims the best way to train children is to whip them like animals until they "no longer have breath to complain" is a textbook for child abusers, not a "parenting manual." And children will continue to be abused, injured, and even killed as long as Michael Pearl is able to convince naive parents that his sadistic and very personal interpretation of scripture is the only way to raise Christian children.

 

Jackie

 

I am SOO not advocating the Pearls. I have never read a book of theirs. Someone was comparing the rod to a Shepherd's rod (saying that a Shepherd would never "harm" his sheep) and I was just making a different point using the same analogy.

[Annabel Lee]

To Be a Mother - written by a dear friend of mine

 

In my eyes, I want you to see acceptance, not anger or fear

In my arms I want you to feel warmth and love, not rejection or neglect

From my hands I want you to have trust, not pain

From my mouth I want you to hear love, blessings and understanding, not curses, impatience or yelling

I want you to know and experience these things from the first day you are at my breast, to the day that I take my last breath

To me this is being a Mother

 

THIS (the above) is what doesn't square up with the Pearls' teachings. Their teachings go against the grain of good bonding/attachment. Their message of consistency in raising children, while it may be true & helpful, comes buried amidst too much trash for it to be worth sifting through.

[Peek a Boo]

In my opinion it is a SIN to call your own ideas biblical when in fact they are not. To say an idea is from the Lord when it is simply man made is breaking the 10 commandments. Specifically the commandment which states "Thou shalt not use the Lords name in vain". Putting the Lords name on your own idea and saying He is the author is one way of using the Lords name in vain. I believe the Pearls have used the Lords name in vain by saying their ideas are from the Lord and biblical, which they are not. We must be very careful about putting forth our own ideas and calling them biblical. We should at least have the decency to call them our own ideas.

 

:iagree:

[Tohru]

edit to delete post.

 

Changed my mind :)

 

Thank you for the book recommendations. I have it on hold at the library.

Edited March 2, 2010 by jadedone80

[Joanne]

Bumping this up with a lovely (not ;)) update from Mr. Pearl himself.

 

http://pearlchildtraining.blogspot.com/2010/03/michael-pearl-laughs-at-critics.html

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

Bumping this up with a lovely (not ;)) update from Mr. Pearl himself.

 

http://pearlchildtraining.blogspot.com/2010/03/michael-pearl-laughs-at-critics.html

 

:ack2: He even advocates beating dogs!!

 

I guess infants and children are not enough for him IMHO. He has to beat them into submission IMO:glare:

Edited March 3, 2010 by priscilla

[Rosy]

I didn't think "sinless perfection" meant that you laugh at people who disagree with you.

[LibraryLover]

That essay sounds so hollow.

 

 

Bumping this up with a lovely (not ;)) update from Mr. Pearl himself.

 

http://pearlchildtraining.blogspot.com/2010/03/michael-pearl-laughs-at-critics.html

[smrtmama]

:ack2: He even advocates beating dogs!!

 

I guess infants and children are not enough for him IMHO. He has to beat them into submission IMO:glare:

 

Well, abusing animals is usually an early warning sign of someone who will abuse a spouse or a child, so it's not surprising to me that a man who advocates beating children, whose spouse advocates staying with a man who beats his wife and molests their children, would also abuse animals.