Hot Sauce Mom

Is using hot sauce and cold showers to discipline a lying child a fair punishment or child abuse? That's what an Alaska court will have to decide in the coming weeks (watch the ABC news coverage here).

My first thought was that this isn't such a big deal. Kids in many cultures eat hot pepper laden foods. An anthropologist friend of mine who did research in Wahaca, Mexico told me he often saw very young kids huffing and puffing to cool the spicy burn in their mouths while eating family meals. No one would arrest a parent for letting their child try a spicy curry, right? True, not all hot sauces are the same, but it appears in the video that the hot sauce that was used was similar to Tabasco sauce.

What really gets me in the video is the anger the mother is expressing. Was this a punishment or payback? The parent is supposed to be the rational, level-headed Jedi to his/her immature padawan.

Which leads to a more important discussion about discipline.


I was spanked. Not often. Not hard. To be perfectly clear, I was never abused.  Even so, I vowed at a young age that I would never physically hurt or intimidate my own children in order to make them do what I wanted. Why? Because in my opinion, the myth of hitting as corrective has been passed from generation to generation as a way to let parents think it is okay when you lose your sh*t and paddle your kid. My mom did it, so its okay for me to do it too. And this passing of the baton is needed for the older generation to avoid guilt for having treated their kids unfairly while asking for perfection.

Let's face it, hitting is punitive. It's a way to say, "you made me mad, now I am going to make you mad." Not to mention there is blatant hypocrisy involved when you tell a kid, "No hitting," and then turn around and cop them in the head for not listening to you. The research is clear, hitting (swatting, paddling, spanking, assaulting... whatever you want to call it) may get a child's attention and get them to immediately stop an unwanted behavior, but it also increases aggression, anxiety and depression, while decreasing cognitive development and school performance.

If you are still reading, let's do a mental experiment:

Pretend you are out for a walk on a nice day with your family. You see an old man walking his yellow lab down the road towards you. They too are enjoying the day. As they get closer, you see that the dog is spirited, pulling on the leash, lunging towards squirrels and running back and forth in front of the owner making him agitated. You see the man violently jerking the leash every time the dog pulls and shouting, "No!" over and over again. The man finally looses his patents, grabs the dog by the collar, bashes it across the nose a few times, shouts in its face and then starts walking again. The dog continues to tug...

First, if the thought of that sort of treatment of an animal doesn't upset you, you might want to pass on having kids. If it does upset you, AND you hit your kids, there is something wrong with your wiring.

Second, any dog trainer worth their salt will tell you that the most effective way to train a dog to walk without pulling is to stop walking every time the dog puts pressure on the leash. It's that simple. Dogs love to walk and so they will figure this out quickly. But the owner needs to be patient. You might not get down the driveway in the first 20 minutes. How can you demand respect without giving it first? In all relationships, even between parent and child, respect is earned. When you demand and coerce respect from a child, you might get cooperation, but it is driven by fear, not admiration.

Third, clearly hitting the dog and jerking the leash is reactionary. It has nothing to do with training the dog not to pull. The owner is just pissed and fed up.

So, you want me to believe that paddling is about changing the behavior? Then wait until you are totally calm and mentally present as opposed to being totally enraged and out of control yourself. Think about what the lesson is you want them to learn and then explain to them how hitting them is helping them learn that lesson. Finally, when your kid belts another kid on the playground, don't pretend like you're surprised.