lindalove

On the news the other night there was a story about parents and day cares using hot sauce for a form of punishment on their children. What they do is put a drop of hot sauce on the childs tongue as a punishment for back talking and saying things they shouldn't. The kids they interviewed said it worked because the hot sauce really burned their tongues and that made them think the next time they wanted to talk back. Some people say this form of punishment is barbaric others say it works and has no long lasting affects on the children.

What is your opinion?

This leaves a sour taste in my stomach, but I don't suppose it's too detrimental. My only question is how do you get the kid to open his or her mouth if they've been bad?

Ample

I think there is much better methods in punishing children then hot sauce. I’m sure if you hold a kid upside down until he/she is just about to pass out would work too, but not very constructive, and neither is burning your kids tongue.

If a daycare pulled that crap on one of my kids, I would have then taken out immediately and do what ever I could to have their license revoked.

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skinnymofo

it seems just like a safer form of washing out a mouth with soap.
im still under the belief that one good hitting is far better than all the other alternative punishments. Time out? never bothered me in the least
soap? i liked the taste of dial and actually tried it myself before ever being told to wash it out.
1 good smack is what straighted me out, you dont forget something like that.
ive always like spicy food so that would of just been a reward for me.
i guess my final opinion on this one... its dumb and wont work past a 6-8yr old depending on the smarts s/he has.

vanblah

I used to think that you could reason with a three-year-old. All it takes is a little patience, I would say. All those parents who spank/shout/time-out/hot-sauce/etc. are just bad parents who don't know how to handle their kids.

Now I realize how wrong I was. Every kid is different, of course, so results will vary.

I've spanked my kid one time that I can recall(she's 5). It was for running out in the street without stopping; despite being told over and over not to do it. She just charged head-on laughing the whole time. She was three. I snatched her up faster than she could realize what was happening and swatted her butt. I doubt she really felt it. She was more scared of my reaction. She has not run into the street since.

I've had to threaten the hot-sauce technique on her for sticking out her tongue recently (about a year ago). Sticking her tongue out was becoming a habit ... and no amount of positive reinforcement seemed to work. I told her that she had three chances. The first time she stuck her tongue out again, I told her to go get the hot sauce. She did. I just explained that it would burn her tongue and we put it back. The second time she stuck her tongue out I told her to go get the hot sauce again. This time I had her SMELL it. A really good whiff. Then we put it back. There has not been a third time. But if there is a third time then I will put a drop of hot sauce on her tongue. I have no choice ... it's just an empty threat if I don't and THAT is far worse.

The key here is consistency and reiteration. You don't actually have to PUNISH your kid every single time. You just have to make them AWARE that there are consequences. Fear is a very good emotion to tie things to if you want someone (not just kids) to really remember things. You don't want to take it as far as resentment though ... that's usually the line that so-called psychologists are talking about.

I know that there are a lot of books out there that talk about negative reinforcement and how "detrimental" it is. The fact is most of these books are full of crap when it comes to YOUR kid. I've read several and they all have one thing in common: YOU as a PARENT must have something wrong with you if you don't do it like the author. How can this be true if there are literally hundreds of books with different techniques and they've all been praised and honored by various parent councils?

My daughter is about as happy as a kid could be, and we've used negative reinforcement for certain things: don't open the doors for strangers, don't run out in the street, etc. You want a very strong emotion to tie these "rules" to, fear is probably the strongest.

absorbentishe

A day care doing it, I'd be a lot upset (unless it was approved first). Me and my wife, that's another story. I works. We have used it several times, when soap didn't. Just the thought of HOT sauce, would make our children dread a punishment. I think we only used this once or twice (actual hot sauce on the tonge), and that was plenty. One actually liked the hot sauce so that was out.

There isn't one best punishment that will work for everyone. But unless you are a parent yourself, you can't judge what others do. If you promise to punish, you must follow through, period. A threat to punish, whether time out, swat on the butt, does nothing if not carried out.

Willravel

I reason with my 2 year old every day, and I never use pain as negative reinforcement. This hot sauce treatment is, in my mind, along the same lines as spanking, washing the mouth out with soap, or any other physical injury.

While it is important to teach children that there can be physical consequences for their actions, such as being burned, hot sauce is meant to be a deterrant and doesn't fit under that lesson.

One thing I have been able to recognize in myself is the difference between methodical and patient reinforcement, and the temptation to give into small urges to enforce out of vengence and anger. Yelling is a good example of letting your rage speak instead of your parenting. The only time you will ever hear me yell at my daughter is when she is far away and cannot hear me. Because my parents yelled at me, this has been unbelievably difficult but necessary. That's not to say that all parents who yell at thair kids are letting their anger parent on purous, but yelling is an intimidation technique. I have no reason to intimidate my daughter (or anyone else for that matter). Giving your child hot sauce, for many people, can be as much to have them experience the pain as the parent whitnessing the child enduring pain. I say this because I have seen it with spanking and other pyisical negative actions. Mom at the store with a look of rage in her face grabs her 4 year old son who she can't control and spanks him. Immediatally after, she feels better. As stated in my signature: I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

snowy

I had some friends growing up that were hot sauced. Their mom would put a drop of Tabasco on their tongues and tell them they could have as much water as they wanted to drink (which only makes it worse). Needless to say, the kids figured it out quick, and as far as I can remember they had the cleanest mouths I know of.

I think it's safer than washing a kid's mouth out with soap, for sure, and sometimes it's good to have a corporal punishment to fall back on, simply because some kids don't respond to reasoning. All children take punishment differently, and need different kinds of punishment to suit their personalities. For instance, my mother could send my brother to his room but not myself--why? Because I had books in my room, and so sending me there was not a punishment. So instead I would have to take a time-out in the toilet/shower closet in my parents' bathroom, which was far worse.

I think there are better ways to handle your children, and certainly, a childcare provider should not be making those decisions for you, but it's better than soap.

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Grasshopper Green

I was hot-sauced as a child. Once. It didn't kill me, and I never said "shit" in front of my mom again.

I've never done it to my son because he doesn't need much punishment, and time out or going to his room works. It's never even crossed my mind. I would probably be upset if I found out a day care provider did it to him though; appropriate punishment/consequences should be discussed prior to the child attending.

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shakran

Boy, I sure do hear lines like that a lot. Well it's ok for ME to spank/whip/physically torture my kid with liquids that make his mouth burn, but no one ELSE better do it!

That's a load of crap. If it's an appropriate punishment then it's an appropriate punishment. If you feel squeamish about other authority figures using a given method to punish your kid, then perhaps that's a sign that it's not exactly the best idea for you to be doing it either.

Physical punishment in general is also a load of crap. We spend over half of the kid's childhood trying to convince the kid that physical violence is the wrong way to respond when someone upsets you, and then we haul off and hit the kid when he upsets us. Kids are smarter than many people think they are. They WILL catch on to that double standard.

Pouring burning liquids in a kid's mouth is piss poor parenting. If you think it's too hard to discipline your kids without resorting to tabasco torture then kids are not for you.

analog

Yes. Putting a drop or two of hot sauce is "pouring burning liquids". *rolls eyes*

Also, given the severity and duration of the effect it has, I would hardly call it torture.

That being said, I find it kind of stupid. A quick swat on the ass is better for the following reasons:

1. It's immediate. There's no time wasted trying to get the sauce out and placing it in their mouth.
2. What are you going to do? Carry a bottle of sauce around in your purse or pocket all the time? So then you only break out the sauce when you're home?

*shrug* I just take issue with how impractical it is, more than anything. I don't care to think about it any further than that.

Grasshopper Green

Gee, it's a good thing you read my entire post and responded appropriately to the fact that I've NEVER done this to my son, nor has it crossed my mind until reading this thread. I guess time outs and pouring hot sauce in my kids mouth are exactly the same thing

I still stand by my opinion that daycares should consult with parents as to what are appropriate punishments BEFORE any incidents occur.

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Formerly Medusa

shakran

My mistake entirely. I apologize - I meant to quote absorbentishe, who said that he and his wife do hotsauce the kid, yet would be upset if a daycare did it.

for the record I agree with you - daycares should consult with parents. My point is that a parent who uses a certain punishment on his child has no call to be upset when the school/daycare uses the exact same punishment. If it's bad for the teacher to do it, then it's just as bad (if not worse) for the parent to do it.

Baraka_Guru

I agree with the line of thinking that suggests you are teaching your children by example. The danger of any form of corporal punishment is that it deters certain behaviour on the basis of fear. Is this something that should be administered to children? What does it teach, if not how to fear and how to cause fear?

The reason why parenting has moved away from spanking in favour of other forms of discipline (note: as opposed to punishment) is likely because these other methods aim to teach something other than how to use fear to manipulate people.

By "reasoning" with children, we give them the opportunity to learn why their behaviour is unacceptable and that other behavious can be rewarding.

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vanblah

Reasoning with anyone in these situations, a child or an adult, assumes that there are consequences for actions. Anyone, who says otherwise is a fool or deluded. I think that the problem we have here is that people assume that advocates of certain forms of punishment reach for the "hot sauce" for any minor infraction.

It is true that there are parents who do hit their children at the drop of a hat. This I find utterly disgusting. However, parents who use ALTERNATE forms of punishment (time-out, hot-sauce, etc) are usually quite a bit more conservative with those forms of punishment. Like I said, I never actually had to put a single drop of hot sauce on my daughter's tongue. Trust me--we had talk after talk about how sticking her tongue out hurt people's feelings, and it wasn’t nice and how would she feel if someone stuck their tongue out at her. She gave me all the right answers. She agreed that it wasn't nice. She would be "sad" if someone stuck their tongue out at her. It was becoming a habit to stick her tongue out. So, I chose to use a little negative re-enforcement to help her remember NOT to stick her tongue out.

I stand by my assertion that FEAR is a very powerful and effective tool. It is not something to be abused. It should be used only to re-enforce memory. However, you cannot, MUST NOT, confuse fear with respect; and this is where most people get confused. Respect is a mutual thing ... I respect my daughter and she respects me (in her 5-year-old way). I understand that she is her own person and I whole-heartedly encourage her personality. But I'll be goddamned if she's going to run out into the street without looking again. Again, I only used the immediate punishment because we hadn't had a chance to "reason" with her about busy streets. The appropriate thing to do is to continually reinforce "don't cross the street" by simply explaining it to your child every time you come to a street. Believe me, we'd been doing that on our old street which was a dead-end and was not busy at all. We had just moved to a new house and our new street was quite a bit busier and she was two and gave into the whims of her two-year-old mind. I did not have that luxury of calmly explaining to her that we don't run in to the street and had to make a quick judgment that included a couple of swats on the butt and the use of FEAR as a reinforcement of the memory.

I know that a lot of "pop" and armchair psychologists talk about fear and anger as "negative" emotions. I say bullshit. I read tome after tome of self-help books back in the 80's and 90's when I worked at bookstores. I came to despise the people who wrote them. ANY EMOTION can become a negative emotion. There are people who love "too much." There are people who have "anger issues." There are people who are "adrenaline junkies." Yep, this is all true, but these so-called professionals make it sound like we're all destined to have some sort of problem. I'll say it again: bullshit! The problems are rare in the average population. Don’t get me started on the whole ADHD money-making scam.

There is a reason for fear. Fear helps us remember not to walk to close to the edge of a cliff for instance. Fear helps us to think twice about reaching through a fence at a barking dog.

There is also reason for anger. I'm not talking about impotent rage here which is what most people think of when they hear the word "anger." Anger is a tool for survival; rage is born out of frustration. People who we call angry would better be described as frustrated or enraged.

Finally, this is NOT a black and white issue. Not every child will respond the same way to every form of punishment. I think we can all agree that ANY form of punishment should be well-thought-out and not used as an immediate deterrent. In an ideal world there would be no need for punishment of any kind. This is not an ideal world … we are human beings and we are all fallible.

I don't blame you if you just skip this post since it's so long.

Chamaeleontidae

I was raised in a household where punishment was "When you father gets home, your going to be punished" That punishment was usually a yard stick across the ass. Coming from that environment i think it only had minimal effect, and led to escalation.. Well if 3 swats wasn't enough, this time it will be 5...

For me "hot saucing" is just another form of physical and psychological domination. It might work for a while, but isn't really a solution... I wouldn't do, and I would be pissed if the daycare did that... When we brought our girls to the new daycare we specifically asked "WHAT", "HOW", "WHEN", etc. regarding discipline.

We have used "time outs" with success, but are trying to encourage positive actions. I have spanked my child one, and that was one swat after she slapped me. I couldn't bring my self to spank her hard, and she called me on it, saying "That didn't hurt" I was pissed, which is why she got a spank in the first place. I looked her square in the eyes and said "Do you WANT it to hurt" She was 5 at the time and saw the error in her ways and quickly retreated from any abstinence...

For bad language, my 5 year old has brought the word "Dam" home from daycare, she was told that is not ok for her to say. She then got a STERN warning / reminder that we don't use words like that, and got a short timeout. On the third usage I told her to sit on the couch and had her hold onto her tongue for a minute. Just two fingers, hold the end of your tongue. She seems to have gotten the point, and hasn't used the word since.

When I sense I'm losing the battle with self control I tag out with my wife. Only once have I said: "If you want to still have two children in the morning, you'll handle this", but I didn't mean it. I just needed time to calm down. Once I'm calm, I swap back with my wife and have a sit down with my daughter. Explaining why what she did was wrong, and I apologize if I had raised my voice trying to explain that parents get frustrated too.

No one ever talks about parenting being easy. As parents we need to walk a fine line... We have to let kids be kids, and play and have fun, yet still protect them from themselves and from the evils of society. We want them to grow up and be good members of society, and yet also want them to be confident and have a good sense of self.

We do our best to encourage creativity and responsibility. We let them know what a better way would have been to handle a situation, and encourage our girls to communicate better with each other, explaining why they didn't like what the other one said or did. It's working for us. Our girls are now 5 and 8, and they haven't killed anyone yet. Well as far as I know at least... I know that our ability to shelter them from the evils of society are limited, but I will as long as I can...

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Plaid13

hot sauce as a punishment is just wrong. That kid will grow up not liking spicy food and alot of really good food is spicy! just spank the kid a whack on the butt isnt going to warp a kid for life i dont care what anyone says. Dont beat the kid dont hit them in the face or arm or anything just the kids butt and make sure they know why. Just enough to sting and make them think twice before doing something stupid again. I dont think anything related to food should be used as punishment or reward for anything a kid does. that will make them develop some unwanted ways of thinking. Dont need some kid that grows up to be 500lbs chowing down on cake because he thinks hes a good person and deserves it and you dont need someone starving themself to death because they feel guilty.

Classic punishments work stick with them. A spanking if they do something really wrong. Ground them from the things they enjoy doing for stuff they do wrong thats not going to get anyone hurt. But dont just toss them in the kids room and let them watch tv and play video games. dont let them watch tv dont let them play with toys. Give them a good book to read instead. Maybe they will learn to enjoy it. If they cant read yet sit down with them and teach them how! If they cant read yet and you have been teaching them how already give them a pencil and tell them to draw not a coloring book though make them do something creative not just fill in color between the lines.