Corporal Punishment Book Sparks Outrage
KERO 23 ABC
December 26, 2005
http://www.turnto23.com/news/5662921/detail.html

Parents angry over books promoting corporal punishment
KESQ News 3
December 26, 2005
http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=4286817&nav=9qrx

Woman wages war on pro-spanking pair
The Bakersfield Californian
December 25, 2005

bakersfield.com Archive Article

Woman wages war on pro-spanking pair

Author(s):     STEPHANIE TAVARES, Californian staff writer e-mail: stavares@bakersfield.com Date: December 25, 2005 Page: b1 Section: Local
The Bakersfield mayor's office has been inundated with e-mails since anti-spanking activists from all over the country discovered a Web site for a local company that sells books promoting corporal punishment and a tool for hitting children. Mayor Harvey Hall's clerical staffers say they've received numerous e-mails about Child Training Resources, which a northwest Bakersfield couple operates out of its home. Hall was not available for comment.

The e-mail campaign is being spearheaded by Boston-based corporal punishment opponent Susan Lawrence. She has spent the past six months encouraging people through her anti-hitting Web site -- stoptherod.net -- to e-mail protest letters to Hall and any banks or businesses involved with Child Training Resources.

Lawrence, a devout Christian who previously headed a successful letter-writing campaign against a similar company in Oklahoma, discovered Child Training Resources after reading a newspaper story on corporal punishment online.

"I didn't really want to tackle it but I thought, 'Well, I've got all these people on an activist list and the more I looked at (Child Training Resources) the more I saw that they were even worse than Oklahoma,'" Lawrence said. "All of the books recommend hitting babies younger than one year. I thought, 'This is so horrible and outrageous.' I thought, "Anyone would consider that child abuse.'"

Child Training Resources is an Internet-based business run by Stephen and Melanie Haymond. The couple caused a big stir in Bakersfield the summer of 1996 when it sent marketing materials for a plastic spanking stick to local churches and parenting groups including the Kern Child Abuse Prevention Council/Haven Counseling Center.

Through their Web site, the couple sells five books promoting corporal punishment as well as their "Chastening Instrument." The instrument, originally marketed locally as the "Wee Wacker", is a flexible polyurethane strip that measures nine inches long, an inch and a half wide and about as thick as a credit card* (correction: the "Chastening Instrument" is 3/16" thick, much thicker than a credit card!)

The product is advertised as unbreakable and affordable enough for people to own one "for kitchen, bedroom, car -- wherever." The order sheet offers a discount for bulk orders.

The books and plastic instrument are marketed to Christians as Bible-based parenting tools.

The Haymonds did not return phone calls seeking comment this week.

Local child welfare advocates called the Haymonds' parenting message and products "shocking."

Pam Holiwell, court services director for the county Human Services Department said it likely isn't against the law to sell instruments marketed for hitting children, but that using the instrument might be illegal.

She said it is considered inappropriate, and in some cases abusive, for parents to hit children anywhere on the body except the buttocks or with anything except an open palm.

"In using an object, you don't know what that feels like," Holiwell said. "With your hand, you know the impact. ... If they really feel like they have to spank them it should be with nothing more than their hand on the bottom."

Lawrence said if it's not illegal to sell and use the plastic hitting stick, it should be. She hopes that if enough people protest, the company will be forced to close shop.

"I just want them to do something better with their lives than that," she said. "It's so grotesque. That this is happening in my own country -- it's shocking."
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FLASH!
CICC to Release Corporal Punishment and Verbal Aggression Newsletter on January 24
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STUDIO CITY, Calif. - On Tuesday, Jan. 24, The Center for the Improvement of Child Caring (CICC) will be e-mailing you an important newsletter on corporal punishment and verbal aggression in response to a disturbing and grotesque news story out of Bakersfield, Calif.

According to the Bakersfield Californian, a home-based business in that central California city has been marketing books promoting corporal punishment and selling a plastic spanking tool called a "Wee Wacker" over the Internet.

In the newsletter, Corporal Punishment and Verbal Aggression, CICC Founder and Executive Director, Kerby T. Alvy, Ph.D., presents the latest research, long and short term effects, and alternatives to such harmful parenting practices that cause pain and injury to children.

Dr. Alvy says, "Since 1974, CICC has worked to diminish all types of violence directed at children. All of CICC's programs and services for parents have emphasized the avoidance of treating children in demeaning ways. CICC believes that children have a right to be treated with dignity, and to be free of threats and use of abusive practices like corporal punishment and verbal aggression."

As part of CICC's National Effective Parenting Initiative, CICC has developed a new, one-day seminar that provides parents postive alternatives to spanking and other forms of demeaning punishment. The seminar focuses on how to be an authoritative parent without using corporal punishment and verbal aggression.

The seminar is called Confident Parenting: Survival Skill Training. CICC also has special versions of Confident Parenting for African and Latino American parents. These evidence-based programs are already in use in 44 states and the District of Columbia by over 2,500 organizations. They have won awards for their effectiveness and cultural relevance. They are being used for a variety of prevention and treatment purposes, depending on the missions of the organizations who bring the programs to their communities.

Additional information about CICC's National Effective Parenting Initiative, seminars and workshops for parenting groups and agencies as well as a variety of postive parenting books and audio visual materials can be found on the CICC Web site, www.ciccparenting.org or by calling 1 (800) 325- 2422 or by e-mailing Dr. Alvy at kalvy@aol.com.

Again... watch for tomorrow's important newsletter on corporal punishment and verbal aggression!