The hate being spewed out towards the Pearls and their book To Train Up A Child is difficult to watch. Even Christian blogs are speaking evil towards them. They say that three children have been murdered due to the teachings the Pearls advocate. This is simply not true!
Only evil parents beat their children to death. Here are some quotes from the book that specifically warn against abuse ~
“Train up—not beat up. Train up—not discipline up...A child needs more than ‘obedience training’, but without first training him, discipline is insufficient” {page 4}.
“Disciplinary actions can easily become excessive and oppressive if you set aside the tool of training and depend on discipline alone to do the training” {page 9}.
“Disciplinary actions can easily become excessive and oppressive if you set aside the tool of training and depend on discipline alone to do the training” {page 9}.
“Parent, have you trained yourself not to discipline immediately but to wait until your irritation builds into anger? If so, then you have allowed anger to become your inducement to discipline” {page 25}.
“Parent, if you are having problems with your children, you can be assured that you are not alone. Your children are also having problems with you. You are going to have to make adjustments in your own life if you are going to help them with their problems... the responsibility for making a significant change is completely yours” {page 32}.
“Parent, if you are having problems with your children, you can be assured that you are not alone. Your children are also having problems with you. You are going to have to make adjustments in your own life if you are going to help them with their problems... the responsibility for making a significant change is completely yours” {page 32}.
“There are always some who act in the extreme. These individuals are capable of using what has been said about the legitimate use of the rod to justify ongoing brutality to their children” {page 50}.
“The rod should never be a vent for parents’ anger. Where the supreme motivation is anything other than the child’s good, it is inevitable that such behavior by the parent will assuredly create problems” {page 51}.
Now the Pearls are being attacked on Amazon by those who want to destroy their ministry. They are writing horrible things about them and trying to have Amazon remove their book. The Pearls have asked those who support them to give a good review of their book to fight evil with good. If you feel led, please go HERE and give them five stars.
Here is their message they sent out to their supporters ~
Please do not engage in an online debate via the Amazon comment pages. The vast majority of these people have already made up their minds based on false information that agrees with their own preconceived ideas. They are resistant to the truth that challenges their prejudices. “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him” (Proverbs 26:4).
If you read those opposed to the Pearls, you can see the sheer hatred they have for them which is clearly not from God! We raised our children the way they teach. We rarely had to spank our children because they learned very early that what we said is what we meant. The Bible admonishes us to use the rod. It worked for us and for many others who use it in a proper way.
The Pearls main mission in life is to spread the Gospel to all the ends of the earth. We, as believers, ought to do everything we can to pray for and support ministries who do this even if we don't agree with them 100%. Ultimately, they rest in the wonderful fact that GOD is their protector!
Folly is bound up in the heart of a child,
but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.
Proverbs 22:15
***I am not sure writing a positive review on Amazon is going to help much. Since their email went out, their attacks have gotten much more numerous and vicious. It is a spiritual warfare and our God is much stronger than them. He will fight this battle for them. Keep them in your prayers.
HERE is a wonderful youtube of the Pearl family explaining the way they raised their children and what the children thought of it. Very good!
Alix · 592 weeks ago
Kim · 592 weeks ago
Robin · 592 weeks ago
Kim · 592 weeks ago
Kimberly in NC · 592 weeks ago
Lori Alexander 122p · 592 weeks ago
Mari · 592 weeks ago
Because it bears repeating: Either close comments altogether or ALLOW them all. Choosing only to publish those comments that support your position is dishonest and cowardly. When you post something controversial, then opposing viewpoints are sure to follow. If you can't defend what you believe, then you must not be very confident in those beliefs.
Vicki Walton · 592 weeks ago
Vicki Walton · 592 weeks ago
Cynthia · 592 weeks ago
Any book may contain someone's interpretation and application of a Biblical verse, but we need to keep in mind that only the Bible is the Bible.
It's also important to keep in mind with anything that we write that words can be interpreted differently by different people. It's quite possible that the Pearls had one thing in mind when they wrote the book, and were picturing how they raised their own children. The problem, though, is that when you write a book and have others read it, you don't know who your future readers are. They may bring their own background, their own personality, their own circumstances and their own children into the mix, and get something out of your words that are very different from what was intended.
The deaths that are being linked to this book all involved children who were adopted at an older age. There are unique challenges that come with older child adoption: the child has life experiences prior to entering your home, the child may have experienced past trauma, and you need to build a family relationship between people are pretty much strangers to each other. From what I've read, the Pearls never intended for this book to be used for older adopted children.
Tiffany · 592 weeks ago
My six year old has never needed to be disciplined that much. He is just a very eager to please, well behaved child naturally. I think I spanked him once when he was 2 and tried to open the oven while it was hot. He is in school now and his teacher tells me he is a dream student, so well behaved and respectful.
My second child's love language is physical touch. She needs so much physical love and affection to have her "bucket" filled. When we have spanked her, it shatters her. It doesn't teach her anything because she's so completely distraught. Other discipline methods have worked well with her. (sending her to her room, etc)
My youngest is two and honestly just naturally obeys me. She's such a sweet spirit. That may change but honestly, she's an angel and I've never had to discipline her beyond saying "no, no."
I guess what I'm getting at is this: I've never felt the need to spank my kids in order to teach them or get them to obey. Do the Pearls teach that it is always necessary?
Kimberly in NC · 592 weeks ago
shannon · 592 weeks ago
All of that being said, I looked up Michael Pearl on Wikipedia after you had wrote this and it states that they recommend spanking as well as withholding food and cold baths. Are the last two ideas in the book? If so, I am surprised that they would include something unbiblical with something biblical. Is there more to it than that? Do they have a reason for these types of discipline rather than spanking? Hearing that they recommend these types of punishments as well seems cruel but I don't want to jump to conclusions. I would be interested in your response if you are able or want to respond. Thanks Shannon
Amy · 592 weeks ago
Ken · 592 weeks ago
Tough discipline parents often raise the most successful of children who go out to become the doctors, lawyers and tycoons of this world. It is in learning discipline from parents that we learned how to discipline our own fleshly desires and how to fit within the rules of society while achieving great things.
Tell me who is not under strict discipline? If you work for a company you have strict rules to follow, certain hours to arrive, certain days to work, certain goals to achieve and most certainly a strict discipline as to how you treat your customers and fellow workers.
If you function in society, you cannot barge into a restaurant and demand that you get a table before others who have been waiting, or same for a doctor’s office. If you drive on the roads you must adhere to strict rules or face harsh punishments. If you harm a fellow citizen you must pay for your crime.
I am sure few disagree that discipline is mandatory training for our children. What we may disagree about is how this is accomplished. Some of us have found that mild corporal punishment meted out in love and in a timely manner is one of the most effective ways to train our children and that there will be consequences to not following the healthy pre-established rules of the family.
If you disagree with giving a 6 month old a small amount of pain to get them to understand that they cannot crawl up the stairs that will hurt them, or put their fingers into wall sockets, then don’t do it. Be a parents who has to chase down their child all day, put everything breakable away, have them bite you, have them kick and scream at you while you sit there patiently trying to explain to a two year old how wrong they are being. You are either a saint for such great parenting with lots of extra time on your hands, or you are wasting your time and energy instead of taking the most efficient and effect approach which the child will not remember past age three if done correctly. Either way, we who do use corporal punishment do not care how you raise your children, and more power to you if you think you can raise godly kids while chasing them around as teenagers.
But please, leave some room for differences in how we as parents who believe in giving swats to our kids and raise our children with a time tested and proven to be effective method. Don’t start quoting from your psychology journals on how harmed kids are from spankings, because I have read them and do not believe it at all. It is no more than one more liberal showing their bias against God’s time tested methods of raising godly kids. Besides that, there were five health kids raised in my family with no ill effects from spankings, and I have now raised four of my own who are very healthy psychologically. More so I believe because we indeed did teach them discipline at a young age.
If you want to say that spankings need to be done in a very modest manner, never leaving a mark, then that fine… and exactly what the Pearls teach. No one who has actually read their books can say any different, but certainly we all can be quoted out of context to make us appear to say something we never intended.
So allow some room for a parent to be free to train up their child in discipline in a manner keeping with what they know to be true. You are welcome to take the long road to getting your kids to be disciplined, and to suffer the pain and excess time to do so. But for the Alexanders, we believe God at His Word and realize that a bit of pain applied at the right spot and the right time gets children to realize there are consequences to being selfish, mean, difficult, strong-willed and non-compliant, especially when we are dealing with the issue of the will.
I will leave you with one quote from my father that I heard him say many times to those who always complimented him on how well his five children were behaved even as we had to sit quietly through two or three sermons that day. He would say,
“Thank you. My children learned early on that Daddy and Mommy would always win, so they have always been a well behaved joy in our lives.”
Karen · 592 weeks ago
Rebekka · 592 weeks ago
Chris · 592 weeks ago
Schyler Leopold · 592 weeks ago