"Hot Sauce Mom" Charged with Child Abuse

Most of you know my background of my birth siblings dying in a fire due to neglect from my birth mom, and that my brother and I were saved because child protective services had removed us from the home before the fire. When I combine that with the fact that I hate government intervention especially when it comes to dictating how to raise kids, I am sometimes in an emotional state of conflict.

Here is some other stuff about my background. I have spanked my kids before. Not often, but when I did, I always felt in control of my emotions and it was always at a time or place when a "time out" or reasoning was not possible. I think it is ridiculous that as a parent I had to worry about "getting caught" as I could get charged with child abuse. BTW, my boys are six, and I think now they are too old for physical punishment, as it could backfire.**

Also, growing up I attended a private school. The punishment for swearing or saying God's name in vane was getting your mouth washed out with soap (literally!). I had my mouth washed out with soap once...and you guys may notice that I rarely swear and I didn't for quite a while afterwards. Infact, my classmates rarely swore as we all knew the punishment. So perhaps the punishment served it's purpose.

So when I first heard about this mother being charged with child abuse over using hot sauce as a form of punishment, I thought "are they kidding?!!" Here we go again with the government criminalizing spankings and such.

However, once I saw the video of the mother I have changed my opinion some. Here are some things that stand out which cause me mixed feelings:

> I am not seeing the full context. I don't know how extreme the child's behavior was that led to the punishment and I don't trust TV editors, they want the most "shock value".

> I don't know how often the mother uses these methods and/or what methods she uses before she gets to this point. Physical punishment is just a "quick fix" it should not be used as a regular method as it usually is ineffective in stopping the bad behavior other than for that instant.

> The mother's punishments take place in her home with no one else around, indicating that she has opportunity for better disciplinary methods.

> the boy is very compliant, indicating that he has been taught to fear authority. I can tell you that there is no way my six year olds would sit still if I tried to put hot sauce in their mouths as they have been taught to defend themselves as well as question authority (ok, sometimes that last part bites me in the butt)

> The mother says she feels "out of control" (a huge red flag when using this type of punishment)

This child was adopted from Russia. From what I understand it is a terrible situation for orphans in Russia and questionable adoption policies. Many babies are born addicted to drugs, go long periods of time w/o physical contact, are placed in overcrowded orphanages etc which gives them all sorts of emotional,behavioral and psychiatric problems that some adoptive parents have not been warned about, or qualified to deal with.

So I think investigation and intervention (such as providing her with parenting skill classes, counseling, examining the children for special needs) would be more helpful than charging her with abuse (assuming the investigation does not expose more reasons for concern). Also I would like to focus on the Russian adoption process and possibly the need for more regulations. Did she adopt as a single parent? Was there a thorough background check of both her and the child to determine if it was a suitable placement. Are all six of her children adopted?, etc.

**Parents that regularly use physical punishment will someday realize that as they get older and weaker, the kids (especially boys) get bigger and stronger. Pretty soon, the male teenager becomes out of control when he no longer fears the physical threat of the parent.