Christian homeschoolers receive maximum jail time for death of child
I have never seen a book get so much hate mail as this one called see it on Amazon
To Train Up a Child
Beating and starving their adopted daughter to death in accord with Biblical based parenting techniques.
November 3, 2013
In Washington state a Christian homeschooling couple received maximum prison sentences allowable under the law after being found guilty of beating and starving their adopted daughter to death in accord with Biblical based parenting techniques.
Superior Court Judge Susan Cook showed no mercy to Larry and Carri Williams, found guilty of causing the tragic death of their adopted daughter, Hana, by using Biblical based parenting techniques found in the controversial child-rearing book, To Train up a Child, by Michael and Debi Pearl.
Cook sentenced Carri Williams to 37 years in prison. Her husband Larry, convicted of lesser charges, was sentenced to just under 28 years. Both terms are well above the standard sentencing range.
Cook said, “I feel the punishment should match the outrage felt by this community. I am at a complete loss. I think at some point in this trial each and every one of us sat stunned and speechless without the slightest hope of making any sense of this whatsoever.”
Last September a jury found Larry Williams guilty of first-degree manslaughter, and his wife, Carri Williams, guilty of homicide by abuse as well as manslaughter. The couple adopted Hana, 13, from Ethiopia in 2008.
Hana’s death was consistent with a corporal punishment style advocated by many Christian extremists, and memorialized in the controversial book, To Train Up A Child. According to reports, Hana was beaten and starved as part of a regimen of corporal punishment subscribed to by many Christian homeschoolers and other Christian fundamentalists.
The New York Times reports that the couple's abusive parenting tactics mimicked instructions from the Christian parenting book. Evidence presented at trial indicated Carri Williams had repeatedly beaten Hana with a plastic tube - a device recommended in the book.
To Train Up A Child advocates using a plumbing tool to beat children with starting at age one. The book also advocates giving children cold water baths, putting children outside in cold weather, and forcing them to miss meals, as well as beating them; all of which exemplifies the abuse investigators said Hana endured.
The book is also linked to the deaths of at least two other children, four-year-old Sean Paddock of North Carolina and seven year-old Lydia Schatz of California. In each case, punishment techniques advocated by the controversial Christian parenting manual were used.
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This is the book they used to kill a child!
To Train Up a Child
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Nadine Dorries Urges Amazon To Ban Christian 'Abuse' Parenting Book, 'How To Train Up Your Child'
The Huffington Post UK | By Jessica Elgot Posted: 07/11/2013 14:36 GMT | Updated: 07/11/2013 14:38 GMT
A controversial parenting book that advocates beating children as young as four months old must be banned from sale by Amazon, Tory MP Nadine Dorries has said.
The book in question, which the MP raised in Business Questions in the House of Commons on Thursday, isTo Train Up a Child: Turning the hearts of the fathers to the children by Michael and Debi Pearl.
It includes instructions like: "If you have to sit on him to spank him then do not hesitate. And hold him there until he is surrendered. Prove that you are bigger, tougher, more patiently enduring and are unmoved by his wailing. Defeat him totally. Accept no conditions for surrender. No compromise. You are to rule over him as a benevolent sovereign. Your word is final."
The book, written by the Christian evangelist couple, has more than 80 negative reviews on Amazon, with just five positive.
In 2011, it was alleged that a copy of the book was found in the home of Larry and Carri Williams, from Washington State, who were convicted of manslaughter this year, after their 13-year-old daughter Hana, adopted from Ethiopia was found naked, frozen to death, outside their home. Hana was kept in a locked closet, starved for days, forbidden from using the bathroom and beaten daily with a plumbing tool.
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Dorries asked Leader of the House Andrew Lansley if he would "use his good office to apply pressure on an issue that has come to my attention in the last 24 hours.
"It is regarding a book which is for sale on Amazon called how to train up your child by Michael and Debi Pearl. It actually advocates the beating of children, under the age of 12 months, using a switch.
"And the book recommends that a switch be cut from a willow tree and be no longer than 12cm in length and 8cm in diameter. The book advocates the use of paddles, rulers and other means to beat children from four months onwards."
Dorries said she had written to express her horror about the book's sale to the Departments for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Education, and the Prime Minister.
