Anchorage Mom Arrested For Hot-Saucing Son

A mother from Anchorage, Alaska has been arrested and charged with misdemeanor child abuse for forcing her adopted son to keep and hold hot sauce on his tongue for lying until he admitted it. Only when he admitted it, did she allow him to spit it out. But, the punishment didn't stop there. After that, she gave him another punishment, also for lying. She made him get into a freezing cold shower and stand there until she told him he could get out.

There are advocates of these punishments, and some people don't think they cause harm. But, they do and they are child abuse. It is not the same, as someone actually posits in the video, as feeding your child something with hot sauce on it. In that case, the hot sauce is probably minimal and if it's too hot the child probably has the option of not eating it or of finding a way to cool the heat. In the case of this punishment, it is forced. And, what is the point of punishing the boy twice in ways that he obviously finds traumatic for the same wrong action?

The woman blames her actions on being fed-up with her kids, and with him in paricular because conventional methods don't work. This is often something that you hear when parents resort to violence to discipline their kids. And it isn't a good enough reason, sorry. You don't legally get to beat or torture your child until they do what you want them to do. It doesn't even really work. Ruling by fear of the parent really just makes the kid get better at being sneaky and lying, especially if they do something wrong and it's an accident and they don't feel they can trust their parents to understand it was an accident. I'm aware lying is not an accident, but I'm speaking generally here. Also, in a situation where the lie is only strongly suspected but not already confirmed by other sources, such torturous and traumatic behavior could cause the child to admit to something he did not do. Which will further alienate the parent from the child. I know if I were this kid, I'd never want anything to do with either of those creeps again when I was able to get away from their care.

I think that it's outrageous this woman is only up on charges of misdemeanor child abuse. In my opinion, she should be up for a stiffer crime than that. At least take the word "misdemeanor" off of it. This woman needs to do jail time, in my opinion. And that boy, and the rest of her kids, need to be taken out of her custody for good. She can't handle being a parent when her kids misbehave, then she can't handle being a parent period and shouldn't be allowed to keep her kids.

Taking kids out of the custody of the parents is always extreme and isn't to be done lightly, but if it means they don't have to endure trauma and torture, then I think it's the lesser evil. The woman's husband is a police officer and I guess he's apparently fine with what she did. Which is even worse. It teaches the kids they don't get help from police when they're in danger.

The only reason this ever went so far in the legal system is because video footage of the punishment she was giving the boy was aired on the Dr. Phil Show. Afterward, so many of the viewers were heartsick and worried for that boy, and the other kids in the household, that they contacted the Anchorage Police Department, where the father worked of course, and reported the abuse that it just could not be ignored and something finally got done about it.

I just hope that this judge throws the book at this woman. I feel that some responsibility should also be placed on the father, since he obviously knew what was going on and did nothing about it. As far as I'm concerned, you do not ever treat another living creature this way, especially not one as helpless against you as a child. I don't care how fed-up you are.