Customer Reviews

Spanking, Why, When, How?

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Yes, the truth is hard sometimes. I was the child who was raised by Roy Lessin's method. Not only did my parents follow Roy's book, Roy and his family were a part of our lives--Roy was a leader in our church. In fact, I was spanked by Char, Roy's wife.

My life has been full of pain and anguish due to Roy's methods. Your daughter is happy because children will be whatever you ask them to be after hitting them. I would have thought someone strange for telling me my parents were cruel too when I was six, twelve, or even 15 years of age. My parents were my world when I was a kid. The horrible affects of Roy's spankings will probably not show up until it is too late. You will have already made your parental choice and the damage will be done. I was a happy child or so everyone thought. Inside I was torn up and didn't really understand why until years later. I was the kid that everyone pointed to as proof that Roy's methods worked. As a child I did what I was told with a smile on my face. No one says that I'm proof now.

Your daughter will be grown and will have endured your Roy Lessin spankings. She may, as others have, marry someone who at best will dominate her at worst hit her to keep her under control. She may choose to stay because she has become use to violence. After all being hit won't be new to her.

From my own personal experience both with Roy's book and Roy himself, you are following a method that has hurt not only me but a handful of other children who grew up with me. The children at Outreach back in the day when Roy and his teachings were in full swing. If you don't believe me, ask Roy what happened to all those Outreach children 18-20 years ago. The ones whose parents hit them using Roy's specific method that they called spanking. The same ritual that called for prayer and whose justification came from scripture.

Yes, truth is hard. Please get more information on spanking before you do permanent damage to your children. Google Roy and other websites to get more information. There are individuals out there trying to get the information to people like yourself so that you can make the best decision for your children. Believe me, it's out there. The truth is that even with your loving intentions, you can still do damage to your children by hitting them-even if you include prayer and scriptures.

How can someone write a book completely devoted to hitting a child's private area?

What kind of book writes things like (p.80) "A spanking must be long enough and hard enough to bring a child to a place of repentance."
Shouldnt it be your words, reasoning and confidence that show children to listen to you , following their conscience? Saying that hitting someone viciously enough so that the hitting itself brings "confessions" is like torturing a prison victim to confession.

Yeah and spanking builds up your self-image? Can you see a little girl saying "Mommy spanks me every day, and I am so I proud of it!" "Nothing gets me down because I submit to vicious hitting of my private areas at home!"

What Lessin refers to as "spanking" throughout this book would more accurately be characterized as "whipping" or "flogging." He advocates a flexible switch and whaling away until the child's "cry of anger" turns into a "cry of repentence."

But this "cry of repentence" has nothing to do with actual repentence. It is the cry of anguish of a creature broken by torture. Any child thus treated would emit a "cry of repentence" after enough lashes had fallen, even if the child actually wasn't guilty of anything. This is not about "repentence," it is about torture.

One of Lessin's many dubious assertions is that children "spanked" with a flexible rod will not fear their parents, only the rod itself. In short: "parents don't spank children - *rods* spank children!." (Presumably Mr. Lessin is not a member of the NRA). Such brazen denial permeates this book, manifesting also in the cloyingly cute pencil illustrations which clash so markedly with the book's actual content and message.

Lessin's book constitutes a how-to manual for those who wish to practice what author Susan Forward calls "Toxic Parenting." Throughout the book, the author urges parents to use "spankings" to force children to exhibit outward emotions pleasing to the parent. On page 51, he recommends spanking a child who goes to bed immediately when told, simply for having a pout on their face. He also recommends that a child who cleans their room when told, but with a "long face" should be "spanked" as well. On page 52, he writes " Even a small child can be told, 'Please change your attitude. Be happy,' and be trained to do so.'" This forcible suppression of the child's real emotions, while training them to exhibit fake emotions more to the parent's liking, is profoundly harmful to the child's emotional development. It is not "for the child's own good." Rather it serves the interests of the parent only.

One issue which Lessin never touches on at all is the sexual aspect of spanking. Several of the other reviews of this book by amazon readers are clearly penned by spanking fetishists who see this type of book as pornography catering to their tastes. The fact that so many buyers of this book also purchased "Spanking The Maid" is further evidence that many of Lessin's fans are actually spanking paraphiliacs who view Mr. Lessin as a source of masturbation material. ("Spanking the Maid" is a soft-core S/M novel with artistic pretensions).

One way a child may cope with parental cruelty is by eroticizing it. Such children possibly include the author's own son. On p. 76, Lessin relates an anecdote in which his wife had given their son a quick spanking. "When she finished he turned to her and said, 'Mommy, could you spank me again? only this time let me pull down my jeans. It didn't hurt enough.'" Lessin claims this proves merely that "children need effective discipline," but this is not the only possible explanation.

Those who are turned on by talk about whipping children on the buttocks with rods will probably enjoy this book. Those who are serious about raising healthy, happy, automonous children would do better to read "Parent Effectiveness Training" by Thomas Gordon and "How To Talk So Kids Will Listen And Listen So Kids Will Talk" by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.

As a parenting manual this book is worse than useless, and belongs in the dustbin.

People like this give Christianity and Yeshua a bad name.

WAKE UP CHURCH!!! The only thing that separates TRUE followers of the Messiah from religious zealots fo chrisitanity and all relgions alike, is LOVE. Love is not spanking/physically hitting someone when they do somethign "wrong".

Coming from a spanking family, we vowed not to spank, and our child is so incredibly confident in himself as well as in our relationship. If you spank, you can be assured that your child will never share his/her inmost problems with you.

Very plainly, it's a matter of perspective. If you believe God punishes for every wrong-doing, then your focus is on behavior, and in short, on your performance before GOD. There's no grace in that, and then when you fall short, your salvation is jeopardized.

Get a life - and I mean a REAL one. Jesus came to SAVE us, not SPANK us!!!

Why do so many people defend spanking on grounds that it has been around so long? Original Sin is still around; the Oldest Profession is still around; nobody calls these "time-honored."

I know for afact that at least one statement made here is a lie: the statement that children who are spanked have higher self esteem. I know this to be lie, because of firsthand experience. No, I was not abused. I recieved "normal," socially-acceptable spankings. After each one, I felt like I might just as well go throw myself in the trash; like I had just been stripped of human dignity. Regaining my self-esteem has been an agonizing battle that has occupied most of my adult life (I am now 34, and still not there).

People act like spanking is so Biblical...so how come those supposedly-Biblical people never mention such verses as "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love" (1 John 4:18)? Any why do supposed Christians want to live under Old Covenant instructions (Proverbs), when the New Testament, and the Gospels, so clearly lay out a different way?

My tags are simply those that amazon.com automatically suggested. Very instructive.

"What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispred in your ear, proclaim from the roofs." (Matthew 10:27) I will shout it from the rooftops: I WAS SPANKED, AND I DIDN'T TURN OUT OKAY!

I invite you to read this book, but before you do, I dare you to take a look at the effects it has put on one of it's victims:

(...)
This URL will take you to a letter written by the author's friens's daughter as a testimony about just how "successful" this book's teachings are and how they have affected her life 19 years later. Whether you are for or against spanking, anyone with sense will agree that the long-lasting effects are horrific.

As the webmaster who hosts this letter describes it: "In this stunning and courageous letter, Beth confronts the man who taught her parents how to use corporal punishment to extinguish all outward evidence of childish emotions displeasing to the parent, and how to instill instant, unthinking obedience based on fear. She vividly describes the dark cloud Char and Roy Lessin's methods cast over her childhood, as well as the long lasting psychological, emotional and medical harm which resulted from Roy Lessin's so-called "loving correction of the rod.' "

If you don't believe me, then see for yourself. I view this book as the "Mein Kampf" of the parenting section in any library or bookstore.

I am a christian, but I can not, and will not ever tolerate such cruelty, nor do I believe that it is "discipline". Spanking is a barbaric prarice (and I also theorize a form of molest) which teaches children that violence is a way to solve their problems, or simply represses them to live in fear. This book teaches that a 'loving' parent is to beat a child (bare backside) untill they release a "cry of repentence", and then to comfort the terrorfied kid and, if he/she continues to cry for a period afterward, the child is still displaying a "bad attitude" and the 'loving' parent is to repeat the process. To some seriously depraved and/or brainwashed individuals, they can indeed consider the cry to be one of repentence, but to anyone who loves children or, even better, may even remember their childhood, this "cry of repentence" is actually that of a broken, betrayed young spirit. The brave letter in the URL above proves there is no difference between spanking and beating, as many pro-spankers argue.

I never understood or agreed to the book burning mindset (being a Harry Potter fan and all) - untill I stumbled across this title.

How can this primitive child abuse book still be around? In the 38 years since its publication, hundreds of scientific studies have shown the harm and tragic results of spanking and other corporal punishments. In 1979 I had already successfully brought up two sons to age 14 and 16 - with never once a recourse to punishment - corporal or otherwise. Today they are happy, successful, and totally gentle in bringing up their well behaved children. Lessin, self-appointed spokesperson for God (ala Rush Limbaugh), could as well cite instructions from Deutoronomy: If your teenager doesn't obey, call in the neighbors and stone him to death. The author skips completely the (opposite) lessons of Jesus. Here's Lessing: "Spanking is God's idea. He is the one who has commanded parents to spank their children as an expression of love." I hope he has since found a therapist to help mitigate the pain of his own upbringing and heal his mental/emotional illness. - Norm Lee, author of "Parenting Without Punishing"

This book gives some people the license they have been searching for to beat their children. Advocating child spanking in 2005 is the equivalent of advocating wife beating in 1805. Christians should be ashamed of themselves and try to break into the 21st century with the rest of us. By advocating child beating the author is dooming hundreds of kids to a life of depression, substance abuse, and aggressive behaviors. Some will not be that bad, some will be worse, but by branding non-physical punishment a contrivance of liberalism they leave children at great risk.

Why does Amazon sell such books? To encourage child abuse and human rights abuse? This got to be the sickest book out on child abuse. To command "right attitude" ,"instant obedience" and get physical with another human being - in God's name!! How sick can it get?

To hit another of God's creations in order to control them shows a lack of intelligence, in my opinion. This is appalling, and just plain sick. My heavenly parent, God, has never once hit me, and I believe God is cringing when people torture their young.