When 13-year-old Hana Grace Rose Williams died, she was found naked, face down in the mud in the backyard, in 42 degree weather.Reactions?
Charging documents in the murder case against her adoptive parents show Hana was the victim of ongoing abuse and neglect, a corporal punishment style of parenting straight out of a book sold on Amazon.com. The book is titled "To Train Up A Child."
A family friend told detectives that Hana's mother, Carri Williams, gave her the book during a visit to the family's home. Written by Michael Pearl, an Amish fundamentalist preacher in Tennessee, Pearl encourages parents to go to extreme measures to discipline their children.
In the book, Pearl explains how to use a plumbing tool to switch children starting at age one. He advocates giving cold water baths when potty training, putting children outside in cold weather and having them miss meals, all examples of abuse investigators said Hana endured.
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"To Train Up a Child" is linked to the deaths of at least two other adoptive children, four-year-old Sean Paddock of North Carolina and seven year-old Lydia Schatz of California. In each case, police said these punishment techniques were used.
Talking about adoption, birthparents, abandonment, race, and China with my kids. That's not all we talk about -- but reading this blog, you'll think it's all we do!!!!!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Extreme Discipline Book Connected to Adoptees' Deaths
From Seattle's Q13 Fox News:
My husband read that and sent it to me. It just makes me sick. It's beyond sad. I hope the parents never see the light of day again and that's not going to be severe enough. It's sad that all the children lose their parents but they're parents have to pay for taking the life of a child. As far as the book. I haven't read it and I think that they should be held accountable if what they are suggesting is abuse. However, I think if a normal person would read such crap they would laugh it off or maybe even better have a good fire and burn that trash.
ReplyDeleteSocial workers need to be aware of some of the most extreme punishments to children by SOME fundament religious families. THEY need to do their job better in screening them out.
ReplyDeleteIt breaks my heart when any child is treated like this but when that child has already suffered such a loss as an international adoption - there are no words.
The Paradise CA family mentioned adopted two girls from Liberia if I remember correctly and the one that survived asked why they adopted them so something like that on the stand at trial.
Horrific that ANYONE cannot see this is NOT the way to raise a child.
These people passed a homestudy? How????
ReplyDeleteHas anyone ever NOT passed a homestudy? Seriously.
ReplyDeleteI know of a family that practices the Pearl's discipline methods, and it truly is abusive. I don't know what makes people not think when they read something like the Pearl's book...or even think, while they are beating their children, that this manner of discipling is ok or good for the child. Ugh.
ReplyDelete