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Book Review of To Train up a Child

To Train up a Child
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The author is very unclear in most places in the book as to which age of child he is talking about. So you are left wondering if you are supposed to apply the method to an infant, toddler or older child. Much is to be desired in the cookie cutter application as well. According the author child training via swats and spankings are THE only biblical and reasonable way to avoid raising self centered brats. I first purchased this book twelve years ago. I will admit to only half heartedly attempting to follow the methodology laid out in the book. Unless you are a very peaceful person with the patience of a saint it is impossible to follow the confusing instructions without losing your temper and doing what the author cautions about train/swat/spank in anger.
Attempted to follow? Due to my quick temper and my inability to be that hyper perfectly consistent I never could apply the method in the way it is written out in this book. That should have been a red flag for me but I naively thought that the bible actually taught this in the "rod" verses. No truly biblical method will put a normal, high strung yes but normal, parent at risk for inflicting abuse upon their children. The method in this book is not infrequent spankings given for serious misdeeds but daily if not hourly training "swats" that redden the skin and must cause tears of repentance from a child to be "effective".
We are not to provoke our children to anger but that is what this method does unless you push on to a broken and submissive spirit in your child. I do not want broken children. I do not even want submissive children. I want to raise people with healthy inter-personal boundaries who are exactly who God created them to be.