Naive me. Hot sauce in mouth acceptable punishment among some fundamentalists.

[madfloridian]

This just stunned me. I had no idea. Looks like it is promoted by Today's Christian Women magazine, and also by James Dobson's Focus on the Family.

"Hot Saucing" A traditional method for punishing children

What it is:
"Hot Saucing" (a.k.a. "Hot Tongue") involves burning a child's tongue with Tabasco or a similar hot sauce as a punishment for unacceptable behavior. It is generally used when the child's misbehavior is related to the use of their mouth: talking back to adults, lying, biting someone, swearing, spitting, refusing to eat, etc. Variations on the punishment include the use of acetic acid (vinegar), lemon juice, soap or some other highly noxious substance.

According to the Washington Post, " 'Hot saucing,' or 'hot tongue,' has roots in Southern culture, according to some advocates of the controversial disciplinary method, but it has spread throughout the country. Nobody keeps track of how many parents do it, but most experts...including pediatricians, psychologists and child welfare professionals, ... familiar with it." 1

"Hot Saucing" has been promoted on some Internet sites, in Today's Christian Woman magazine and in a Focus on the Family book, described below. Focus on the Family is a Fundamentalist Christian agency located in Colorado Springs, CO.

More about it.

Medical contraindications:

Carleton Kendrick, a family therapist from Boston, MA, recommends against the use of hot saucing. He said that it can burn the child's esophagus and cause their tongue to swell. This can create a potential choking hazard. He said: "There are many different kinds of hot sauce on the market, and parents who say they know the dilution to use so it won't sting, or say they only use one drop, are wrong. It's done because it hurts. It stings. It burns. It makes you nauseous." Giorgio Kulp, a pediatrician in Montgomery County, VA, says that the use of hot sauce on children is dangerous because of the risk of swelling and the possibility of triggering unknown allergies. He notes that "Every child's reaction, physically, is different." So it might be safe for one child but not another.

An associated method of inflicting pain on children is the force feeding of hot-peppers. Two child psychologists reported that this "can result in anaphylaxis or cause significant burns and damage to developing tissues in the mouth, esophagus, intestinal walls, stomach, and colon."

As I said, I must be naive. Not long ago I posted about the day care center in Florida which is in trouble because one of the teachers used this method.

Florida licensed day care teacher taped mouths, locked in closets, put hot sauce in mouths to punish

This is one of the licensed day care that gets state money to run pre-kindergarten classes. I believe they lost that privilege.

A Lakeland day care faces sanctions for failing to report suspicions that a teacher was taping the mouths of children in her care, locking them in a closet and dispensing hot sauce to cure ill behavior. The issue came to light June 1 after the department received a complaint about the abuse going on at Colors R Us, which is licensed for 89 children and has been in business since 2004. The person filing the complaint told DCF that staff were failing to notify the state's abuse hotline, as the law requires.

That is stunning to me to see that method advocated by some Christian groups.

[timeforpeace]

1. Haven't they heard about washing their mouths out with soap?

[depakid]

24. Doesn't inflict a painful enough punishment...

and unfortunately, that attitude isn't close to being limited to fundies in America.

[DontTreadOnMe]

2. aw c'mon!

We gotta teach these childr'n. I use a spray bottle of water and spritz 'em when they are bad.

[EFerrari]

3. Do these good Christians know they're using homeopathic magic

to raise their children?

Sometimes these people display such low awareness of their own behavior, it seems like there's some part of their frontal lobes that doesn't get enough juice or something. Bizarre.

[AllyCat]

4. Oh.My.God.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. My mom used to wash out my mouth with soap when I was a child.

I used to sass her.

Did it help?

HELL no.

It was extremely unpleasant, but I never had an allergic reaction.

It taught me nothing.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

9. +1 and, I drink Tabasco sauce like milk.

Supply side Jesus is one mean sonofabitch. Nobody should do that to their kids! Hot sauce is wonderful but it is definitely an acquired taste.

[MineralMan]

27. But...didn't Jesus say

"Suffer, little children?"

[old mark]

45. I think he really said, " Shut them brats up - beat their nasty ass." That's the

the new translation.
Fucking "christians".

mark

[Ineeda]

26. My mom did too, and scraped the soap against my teeth.

It only made me more defiant.

[lutherj]

6. I think I know where James Dobson would really like to shove that bottle of hot sauce.

Why the hell do we have to put up with people like this? Isn't Dobson himself pretty much proof of the non-existence of God?

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. You know this is not just done in the US

just as an FYI using hot sauce is common in places south of the border as well as soap.

I don't agree with it... for the most part... but it is not limited to fundies in the US.

[DeSwiss]

8. And parents should be forewarned.....

...that if they somehow end up killing their child using these Christian discipline techniques to raise their children with, that they run the risk of being found guilty of negligence or reckless homicide or something. And they could even be forced to serve a sentence of 30 days per year in the pokey AND probation. For 10 whole years.

- And maybe even a fine.....

CHICAGO — A Wisconsin couple were sentenced to jail time on Tuesday for failing to seek medical attention for their ill daughter, renewing a debate in some circles over whether states should allow parents to practice spiritual treatments. The parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, were ordered to spend 30 days in jail each year for the next six years and were placed on 10 years’ probation. Mr. Neumann, 47, and Ms. Neumann, 41, who live in Weston, in central Wisconsin, had been convicted of second-degree reckless homicide in August.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/us/08sentence.html?th...

[notadmblnd]

10. there are some hot sauces that can be pretty dangerous

I have some at home here- and just a drop on the tongue will set your mouth on fire.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

12. Good though, huh.

Anybody who gives this stuff to children should be shot on site. I love hot sauce and you would have a hard time making something too hot for me BUT, children have very sensitive palettes and forcing them to taste Capsicum is torture. Do we just have to shoot these sons of bitches?

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Given I started eating hot sauce adn biting serranos by

the age of six... at least...

I grew up in a country where we ate this stuff almost with our mother's milk... oh wait, with our mother's milk.

[notadmblnd]

36. The warning on my bottle of Blair's Ultra Death

Be warned, this sauce contains ingredients 800 times hotter than a jalapeno chile. Use sparingly. Ultra Death should not be consumed without dilution.

People have laughed at me when I tell them how hot it is, but just a bit on the tip of a toothpick will send you seeking relief. One drop in a pot of chile or bbq sauce makes a huge difference.

[Chulanowa]

11. All shit like this teaches kids is that adults are sadists

[PDJane]

13. That's all this stuff taught me..........

And that a large protective dog can be your friend.

She was mine.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

14. Yup!

Time to start chopping their heads off.

[WildEyedLiberal]

35. +1 - it's a good way to turn kids into authoritarian bullying assholes

[mrcheerful]

16. More of the good old try to control your child through pain and torture

While I never got the hot sauce treatment, probably because by age 10 I was eating it like it was any other non hot food, at age 6 I started eating meats with horse radish . I did get dish soap in the mouth for smoking and beat like a red headed step child for any other reason under the sun, like mom taking bro into the store leaving me to watch the other 3 siblings in the car, bro stole a pack of gum from the store he got his ass beat and taken into the store so mom could pay for it, he had opened it.

Then mom came out to the car and beat my ass with a belt for letting my bro steal the gum, even though I didn't know about it until mom and bro got back in the car, then I asked mom if she bought bro gum. Mom and dad were chirstians but non fundy type, they believed they had to beat the fear of god into me. Did their tactics work? Nope I just got very good at covering my ass and staying out of sight. My dad once broke a 2 X 4 across my back because I couldn't find a horse harness under 4 foot of grown over grass, apparently dad saw it laying there right after the last snow fall and waited till it was grown over and he decided to mow the mess before telling me about it, he hit it with a lawn mower, I was 9 or 10 at the time.

It was well known back then to the neighbors as my friends in the neighborhood often lied to my parents when I was involved in neighborhood hell raising. But this was back in the 60's and most abuse was ignored and parents told their kids that if you opened your mouth you'd be put in a state home where it was really hell to survive, it didn't help I had cousins that were taken by the state who told stories about state care. Don't get me wrong it wasn't pure hell as there were good times but when it was bad it was a living hell.

I wore leg braces at the time so when school asked about bruises and cuts they were told that I "fell down". Because I was expected to work when I wasn't in school I tended to fall a lot but that was from exhaustion more then it was from my disabilities. Now my sister got hot sauce put on her thumb to stop her from sucking it, My moms sister came up with the bright ideal and it only took sis 1 time and she stopped.

[flvegan]

17. In Florida, no eating soap either.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/...

[Jeep789]

21. Wouldn't it be better to educate people than throw them in jail

and ruin the entire families' lives for what appears to be simply ignorance (or what they were taught themselves). The daughter's allergy certainly wasn't known to them and no doubt at least one of them had endured the same punishment and thought it worked.

In fact, by this standard, couldn't any parent who gave their child a peanut product, not knowing the child was allergic be equally guilty?

I'm not defending forcing a child to eat, soap, tobacco or anything else for that matter but am wondering what good placing the parents in jail and quite probably ruining their chances for descent employment for a learned (albeit bad), parenting practice serves.

[trusty elf]

18. Hell, why not douse their eyes with Tabasco?

After all, what's a little "tough love" if it saves the kids from eternal damnation?

[Liquorice]

19. The first time I heard of this stupidity was from that woman who

played Blair on the Facts of Life, Lisa Whelchel. She says she did that to her kids, and then I knew she was insane.

[madfloridian]

33. This part about Blair was at the first link. I never heard of such stuff as this.

"Lisa Whelchel was a Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeer, played the role "Blair" in the television program "Facts of Life," is a home-school mom, is an Evangelical Christian, is a motivational speaker, and the author of the book: "Creative Correction: Extraordinary Ideas for Everyday Discipline." 2 She said that "For lying or other offenses of the tongue, I 'spank' my kids' tongues. I put a tiny drop of hot sauce on the end of my finger and dab it onto my child's tongue. It stings for a while, but it abates. It's the memory that lingers!" 1 She feels that the practice worked for her children when other disciplinary actions failed. Appearing on ABC News' Good Morning America, she said: "It does sting and the memory stays with them so that the next time they may actually have some self-control and stop before they lie or bite or something like that....I prefer my child receive a small amount of pain from my hand of love than to encounter a lot more pain in life....It's a logical consequence. If you cause somebody pain, either by the words you say by lying and not being a trustworthy person or by biting, this is a logical consequence. It's your mouth that's the offender." Whelchel restricted the punishment on her own children between the pre-school age to their 10th birthday. In an interview with the Washington Post, she said: "A correction has to hurt a little. An effective deterrent has to touch the child in some way. I don't think Tabasco is such a bad thing.... drawing a line to protect the child and if they cross that line, there will be pain." Whelchel said she believes that disciplinary methods should be left up to parents. They know their child best, are devoted to the child's well-being, and can administer punishment with love. She mentions that hot saucing can be overdone. "If there's a mom who shakes the bottle on the kid's tongue, that mom probably does deserve to have someone poking into her business. But I think most moms are caring and intuitive. You can't throw out a bunch of good stuff because of the exceptions." 1 She quotes: Proverbs 10:31: "The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom: but the forward (perverse) tongue shall be cut out." 6

http://www.religioustolerance.org/spankin9.htm

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

20. If I can get some chicken wings with it then sign me right up.

[harry_pothead]

22. As a teacher, I am a mandatory abuse reporter.

If a kid ever tells me he/she has been hot sauced, I'm making a report of it pronto.

[armyowalgreens]

23. In Arizona, teachers are still allowed to hit students.

[Gman2]

25. This will create many with eating disorders.

Stupid to associate punishment with a bodily function. As stupid as beating your child for pooing or peeing not on the toilet. The affected child should sue for therapy later. A few cases like that, and parents wont use cruel and unusual punishment.

[Orsino]

28. When watching The Passion of the Christ stops doing it for you. n/t

[Jennicut]

29. A daycare used this method??? I worked in daycare for two years and we could not

lay one hand on a child that was not a gentle one. Wow, just unbelievable. What are these people thinking? Cruelty teaches children nothing. I worked with abused kids as well...it never "corrects" their behaviors, it can actually make them destructive toward themselves or others.

[JVS]

30. If you kids don't stop fighting we're going out for wings!

[madfloridian]

31. Declared legal in Sarasota in 2004. This stuff stuns me.

"Prosecutors Say Making 13-Year-Old Drink Hot Sauce Is Not Crime
Lawyer Compares Punishment To Washing Out Mouth With Soap

POSTED: 6:53 am EDT October 13, 2004
UPDATED: 3:08 pm EDT October 13, 2004

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Prosecutors in Sarasota have dropped felony child-neglect charges against a man who forced his 13-year-old stepson to drink hot sauce as punishment for leaving a gate open. An attorney for Michael Massanelli said prosecutors have acknowledged that making the teenager drink hot sauce was no different than washing a child's mouth out with soap. In the words of lawyer Derek Byrd, "if giving hot sauce were criminal, then a lot of our grandmothers would have gone to jail."

Sheriff's detectives charged Massanelli in June and booked him into jail on child abuse charges.

An arrest report said he told detectives he was upset because his two-year-old daughter could have wandered out of the gate left open by his stepson. After forcing him to drink the hot sauce, the boy told detectives his stepfather wouldn't allow him to rinse his mouth, which "felt as if it were on fire."

Detectives say they charged Massanelli with child abuse because he intentionally inflicted physical or mental injury upon the boy.

Later, the prosecutors amended the charge to felony child neglect. But Byrd says once they examined the record, they realized there was NO malice or criminal intent.

[madfloridian]

38. Drinking hot sauce is far worse than putting it on the child's tongue.

I just never heard of this stuff.

[dysfunctional press]

32. " 'Hot saucing,' or 'hot tongue,' has roots in Southern culture..."

ahhh...the south- what a magical place it must be...just another of the myriad reasons that we're SO LUCKY to have it as a part of our country.

[madfloridian]

42. That does not surprise me one bit.

Many things have roots here.

[MajorChode]

46. I'll make a deal with you

We can split the country in half culturally and go our separate ways.

We'll take back jazz, blues, rock & roll, and just about every American cuisine worth eating.

You take back hamburgers, Hip Hop, and W.

What say you?

[Mari333]

34. assholes.

[KamaAina]

37. Some public school principals, too

I remember hearing about that being done to a kid with autism on Maui.

[Contrary1]

39. "...cause significant burns and damage to developing tissues in the mouth, esophagus"

That's no small thing. My brother-in-law drank something caustic when he was very young. It could have killed him, but he was able to spit most of it out. But not before it caused major burns to his esophagus. The resulting scar tissue has caused him problems all his life, and he's in his 60's now.

People who do this sort of thing should be charged with child abuse.

[Lagomorph]

40. I got hot saused, spanked, punched, tied up, kicked, grounded....

There was little discussion, just BAM! When I moved out I didn't know how to relate with people. I gravitated to people who gave me immediate feedback. It took a long time to learn how to relax. Religion was not involved.

[aikoaiko]

41. It makes me sad that something so good is used for punishment.

[bertman]

43. Lord help 'um if they get caught masturbating!!

[madfloridian]

48. lol

What a thought!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

44. For refusing to EAT?????

Hell, my grandma cooked SLOP. She was from Mississippi. Turnip greens, boiled mush, just total crap. Even so called "turkey dressing" that looked like dog food. I have no idea what was in it.

I wouldn't eat any of it. I wouldn't eat raw onions or bell peppers or tomatoes either, because I hate them and I am also allergic to them (didn't know that when I was a kid). I got yelled at and nagged at, but they never made me sit there at the table forever.

I was raised on bland food and I have real sensitive taste buds. I can't eat hot sauce now, and never have. I'm sure I'd have blisters.

I've eaten the refried beans at Taco Hell and gotten blisters on my mouth from the dab of red sauce they put on top of it.

[quaker bill]

47. It is always stunning to me

that people anywhere believe that inflicting pain on children in any manner is effective discipline or at all useful in any manner for any reason.

I simply do not get how modeling sadism directly for and to one's children is supposed to improve their character.

(unless you are trying to raise sadists, I guess)