Call for parenting book advocating corporal punishment on babies and children to be removed from sale.

Trigger warning: This article contains details relating to the physical abuse of children and babies.

Hanna Williams, Lydia Schatz, and Sean Paddock are three American children killed by their parents, beaten, starved and neglected; apparently the parents were following the methods advocated by Michael and Debi Pearl in their ‘parenting’ book, To Train Up A Child.

In their self-published book, pastor Michael Pearl and his wife, of No Greater Joy Minstries, advocate ‘switching’ children with plastic plumbing pipe as a means of disciplining children and ‘training them to behave’.

Hanna Williams was found dead, face down, naked and emaciated in her backyard after her parents, Larry and Carri Williams followed the Pearl’s parenting manual. Hanna’s mother had praised the book and given copies to her friends.

Lydia Schatz, who had been adopted from Liberia, died in 2010 aged 7 years old after receiving numerous forceful whippings with quarter-inch plastic tubing.

She was held down for hours by her mother, Elizabeth Schatz, while her father, Kevin Schatz, beat her on the back of her body, causing massive tissue damage.

The Pearls’ book was found in the Schatz home. Lying next to a children’s book was a quarter-inch diameter piece of plastic plumbing pipe.

Sean Paddock died in 2006, aged 4, from suffocation after being tightly wrapped in a blanket by his mother, Lynn Paddock. Sean’s siblings testified that they were beaten daily with a plastic plumbing pipe.

Hundreds of thousands of copies of this book have been sold to evangelical Christians, and even though the parents of the children killed appear to have been influenced by the authors’ teachings the book is still available for sale.

It can be bought right here in the UK on sites such as Amazon. On their on-line shelves it ironically sits right next to books aimed at small children.

The authors believe in ‘training up’ children, in conditioning them before the crisis arises.

One of the first passages from the book reads: ‘Training is the conditioning of the child’s mind before the crisis arises; it is preparation for future, instant, unquestioning obedience.’

The ‘training’ is meant to start early in order to pre-empt the behaviour. For example, the Pearl’s recommend pulling the hair of a nursing baby who bites the mother’s nipple during feeding.

For babies and children who cannot sleep and are crying they recommend whipping: ‘…never allow them to get up.’

They also recommend whipping a 12 month-old girl for crying and a 7 month-old for screaming.

The Pearls say that parents who don’t whip their babies into complete submission are indifferent, lazy, careless and neglectful and as a result of not chastising their children in this way are ‘creating a Nazi’.

The book, which can be read online, outlines how Debi Pearl whipped the bare leg of a 15 month-old she was babysitting, 10 separate times, for not playing with something she told him to play with.

She hit a 2 year-old so hard ‘a karate chop like wheeze’ comes from ‘somewhere deep inside.’

While the training is meant to start when children are babies, if the parent is starting later and the child is already rebellious, the authors tell parents to ‘use whatever force is necessary to bring him to bay’.

‘If you have to sit on him to spank him then do not hesitate. And hold him there until he is surrendered… Defeat him totally.’

Despite recommending these violent methods of chastising a child, and despite the fact the book was found in the possession of parents who have killed their children, Michael Pearl remains dismissive of the influences the book is having,saying: “There’s no way that a person who reads the book could be led to violence.”

On their website No Greater Joy Minstries, Michael Pearl says: “The book repeatedly warns parents against abuse, and emphasises the parents’ responsibility to love and properly care for their children.”

But by following any of the recommendations in this book, a person is led to violence.

And Amazon appears willing to condone and profit from such a book.

I have become involved in a campaign asking Amazon to remove this book from sale.

In a previous life I worked with men and women who had become embroiled in the criminal justice system and many of them reported childhoods involving abuse.

I believe we all have a responsibility to try and break the cycle, and that is why I personally have become involved.

Amazon, I hope you are listening, because I believe big corporations like yourself also have a responsibility to do just that, and to protect children from child abuse and to protect future generations too.

Preventing child abuse is possible and we all have a moral duty to contribute to doing just that.

A roundtable debate sponsored by the NSPCC was held in September 2013. The debate focused on the fact that children who are abused are much more likely to become adults who abuse – between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of people who are abused as children go on to become abusers themselves.

Michael and Debi Pearl have said that their children use the ‘switching’ methods on their children and so the cycle will continue.

Delegates at the debate told the Guardian: ‘Child abuse – which has dominated the headlines over the past year as a result of the Savile inquiry and other high-profile child-cruelty cases, and which is often presented as one of the country’s most intractable problems – could be reduced by 70 per cent by the year 2030.’

Parenting bloggers passionate about removing this book from sale are joining forces and the NSPCC has requested Amazon withdraw this publication from sale.

Peter Wanless, CEO of the NSPCC, said: “There is no place for Dickensian workhouse punishments in modern families.

“Hitting a child with an implement – aside from being cruel and unjustifiable – is illegal in the UK. So if parents followed the so-called parenting guidance in this book to the letter they would be committing an act of child abuse.

“We urge Amazon to consider whether it’s acceptable to profit from books, or any material, that supports child cruelty.”

Conservative MP Nadine Dorries is also supporting the campaign and calling on Amazon to ban the book.

Amazon has so far responded with the following statement: “Amazon does not endorse the content of any book that it offers. This book has been widely debated in the media, and on Amazon, for many years and anyone who wishes to express their views about this title is free to do so on its product page on our website.”

Amazon may not endorse the content but it appears perfectly willing to profit from it.

You can find out more on how to support the campaign here.