Questioning the Pearls – No Matter How Much I Beat Her She Cries!

Questioning the Pearls – No Matter How Much I Beat Her She Cries! April 23, 2017

QuestioningthePearlsFor well over a year we’ve been running a second Answering β€˜Preparing To Be A Help Meet’ on Sundays, filled with questions by young ladies trying to get ready for marriage. Since we’ve run through many of the questions on their site it’s time to shift Sundays to something else, like perhaps examining the cornucopia of probably fake emails and questions that Michael and Debi Pearl of No Greater Joy post on their website and the possibly poisonous answers they give.

Question and answer may be found here.

The question, trigger warning β€” it’s pretty horrific. THIS IS NOT CHILD DISCIPLINE..THIS IS STRAIGHT UP CHILD ABUSE!

Dear Pearls,
I’m pretty desperate. I need HELP with my 21-month-old daughter. My husband and I joke that Rebecca was given to us like Paul’s thorn in the flesh – to stop us becoming smug about the other 4 kids! I have never known a child with a will as strong as this, or an attitude as bad. She has been a handful from the beginning, and has almost got us beat. She is sunny and delightful… as long as everything is going just how she likes it. She is not sick. She is not allergic. She eats & sleeps well. She can communicate.
This is how it goes: 1) I give her a command. 2) She scowls at me and says β€œUh Uh!” 3) I give her a swat on the legs. 4) She collapses on the floor and cries angrily. 5) I swat her again & tell her to stop crying. 6) repeat 4 & 5 up to five times. 7) she cries pitifully. 8) I tell her to stand up. 9) she obeys, crying all the time. 10) I repeat the command. 11) she obeys, grizzling unhappily all the time. 12) she is miserable for the next hour… repeat this little scenario 10 – 20 times during the course of an average day.
What am I doing wrong? I HAVE to get control of her, as she is only getting worse with age. We have prayed for her. We have read TTUAC & NGJ (several times since she was born!). We have read everything in the archives on your site. We have watched the videos. We need help. We’re missing something. Give it to me straight!

Michael’s answer isn’t any better:

Your letter indicates that you are responding correctly. I will assume that to be so. I have often said, β€œIf it is not working, you are either not consistent or there is some other piece of the puzzle that is missing.” My neighbours would say, β€œDon’t keep saying β€˜giddyup’ to a deaf horse.”
Not all children can be trained equally with the same techniques. Many parents will do very well with two or three children, and then, using the same technique, do poorly with the next child, do fine on the following two, and then again struggle with the sixth or seventh child. Families have personalities. The personality and lifestyle of one family will lend itself well to training the tender, sensitive children, or do well with the girls, but do a lousy job of training the boys or the independent-minded girls. Another family will do well with rough boys and high spirited girls but will crush the sensitive child. In some families, the first children born are easily trained in the natural flow of the family. The parents relax, thinking that child training is a breeze, wondering why all those other dummies can’t do so well. And then they have a child whose temperament demands something more than the family naturally provides. They keep doing what worked with the other children, but it doesn’t work with this child.

You must constrain with quiet, unemotional resolve. You must take genuine weakness, emotional or physical, into account, but you cannot show pity for weakness and frailty. In a confrontation, remember that you hold the high ground and maintain the dignity of your office. If a smart child sees a crack in your resolve or fortitude, they will attack that weak point and try to enlarge it into an opening by which to get outside the rule of law.
As to how to deal with this child, do not show frustration or anxiety over the difficulty she is causing. Don’t panic because she is operating at a different level from the other children. If you are consistent and don’t break all ties of fellowship, she will come around in time. The real danger here is that you will communicate rejection.

What do you think? Is Pearl’s answer sort of a cop out? Why does he not admit that this much spanking has more in common with torture than child discipline?

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