Given the wide variety of increasingly-dangerous hot sauces that are available these days, I say any parent who wants to try this had best be careful. And for the record, has anyone ever heard of this? I sure hadn't.
The practice of "hot saucing" a child's tongue as a method of discipline may seem cruel to some parents, but those who regularly use the punishment say it teaches their charges valuable and long-lasting lessons.
Lisa Whelchel, who played Blair on the popular 1980s TV series Facts of Life, is an advocate and practitioner of "hot saucing." Whelchel, the author of Creative Correction: Extraordinary Ideas for Everyday Discipline, says the practice worked for her children when other disciplinary actions did not.
"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," Whelchel said on ABC News' Good Morning America.
Whelchel says she would have never used hot sauce to discipline her three children if it caused lasting damage. The actress-turned-home-schooling mom suggests using just a dab of hot sauce, placing it on your finger, then touching your finger to the child's tongue.
Boston family therapist Carleton Kendrick says he is vehemently against hot saucing or corporal punishment of any kind.
"There's no room for pain and humiliation and fear in disciplining healthy children," Kendrick said. "I think it's a rather barbaric practice to say the least."
I can't decide what's weirder about this - the idea that there is no room for any kind of humiliation in child-rearing (embarassment is a useful learning tool for kids and adults), or the fact that this is how Blair from The Facts of Life is getting press again. And don't some kids like spicy foods? I suppose it's unlikely that hot sauce could become positive reinforcement instead of punishment, but with kids, you never know.
And the part about Virginia considering this "an actionable offense" is just ludicrous. Does this mean if an adult leaves a spicy taco lying around so that a kid can eat it and burn his lips, the adult is guilty of criminal negligence? Ridiculous.
Posted by kswygert at August 24, 2004 05:45 PM