I changed accounts.
Well, I don't think a criminal case would hold up in court against the show, but I would hold them to be ethically responsible for it.
Also, on a normal day, this would just be stupid. The fact that her husband is a police officer makes it unbelievably horrible. I mean, I guess the cold shower thing could be done right, but if they fuck it up they could drown the kid. I don't think the hot sauce thing is right either way...
I am now known as Flyboy.
I would say that punishing a child just to get on TV is clearly exploitative and cannot be in the childs best interests. With that in mind I would say that this is abusive, although I doubt it's something anyone will face jail time for. And yes, I would say that the producers of the show are, if not legally guilty, ethically guilty.
And if the family in question really had to go to these lengths to get help for the kid, then someone somewhere isn't doing their job properly.
edited 24th Aug '11 11:28:09 AM by TheBatPencil
And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)
One Winged Egret
Liking a bit of hot sauce on your food is very different from having it squirted into your mouth (or rubbed on your body). [1]
Lover of masks.
... I guess I am the only kid who chugged tabasco and thought cold showers where divine?
Please.
I have heard of hot sauce being rubbed in wounds being used as a form of torture. Just because some people love the taste of spicy things, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt other people.
This reminds me, a little, of how mothers used to wash their childrens mouth out with soap for swearing. Hot sauce seems a lot worse than soap to me because it actually hurts, rather than just tastes bad.
Would this be viewed the same way if it was pepper spray instead of hot sauce?
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Eye'm the cutest!
Considering the active ingredient in mace is found in hot sauces and many peppers...
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."
> How many people actually consider this child abuse ?
thats depends on the Jury, societal view of child abuse change with time and place. its possible that something considered child abuse in one place is not in other place.
when i was little, teacher smack kid hand with ruler is acceptable, last year one of my teacher sued by parents for the same thing.
Laugh it off, everybody
No, fuck this. I changed my mind. I am not dignifying this topic with a response.
edited 24th Aug '11 9:11:35 PM by SpainSun
I spread my wings and I learn how to fly....
Happy New Year!
I never really understood why it is societally acceptable to physically abuse people who are unable to defense themselves. Hit a small child who won't shut up and people would bat an eye. Try doing it to that yuppie who talks loudly on a cellphone and suddenly everyone is surprised.
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Update: Dad accidentally hit my Berserk Button just now and the results was I ripped a tissue box to shreds and he twisted my arm and threw me across the room...
The hot sauce incident seems mild in comparison to what I had to go through.
edited 27th Jan '12 12:24:23 AM by sabrina_diamond
In an anime, I'll be the Tsundere Dark Magical Girl who likes purple MY own profile is actually HERE!
Great. Hot sauce and a cold shower. When contrasted to outright neglect and battery for the lulz, it looks absurd. True, how you use either the sauce or the water could cross into torture territory, but, still... I'm not exactly getting that vibe from the description.
And, yes: the show should get more than a rap on the knuckles. They practically encouraged her to go beyond her usual methods.
By this reasoning, my mum should've faced trial for doing the 'only spinach lasagne, lentil loaf or Mediterranean sprouts with fish: and, no pudding until your marks improve' move on my brother and me - if enough people deem that a disproportionate response to not getting above a D, that is. 
EDIT: I now like lentils, spinach and sprouts. Self defence is healthy!
edited 27th Jan '12 12:32:32 AM by Euodiachloris
I'm with Sabrina here. Besides, a bit of hot sauce (even if it's a mouthful) isn't really that bad. My stepdad used to force-feed me spoonfuls of paprika powder as a punishment for lying, and that was worse because I'd accidentally inhale the stuff sometimes and cough until I puked.
"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian
This is rather obviously child abuse. Its sad that she felt that the only way to get help was a talk show.
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?
Zzzzzzzzzz
Just a reminder, here: the line between "abuse" and "not abuse" is not determined by "it could be worse..."
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Yes, it's abuse. Cruel and unusual punishment, too.
edited 27th Jan '12 8:30:53 AM by RTaco
Street Writing Man
-shrug- I dunno, any mother who asks for advice from a daytime talk show and then takes it probably shouldn't be a parent anyway. And as to pouring hot-sauce in a kid's mouth, that's several kinds of dangerous. What's wrong with a simple spanking?
I wouldn't say it is abuse specifically, but the whole scenario reeks of other problems.
Also...making a video of punishing your kids and then putting it on national television? In today's world, that's just irresponsible. A spanking you learn from, but something like that'll stick with him forever. Hell, it's probably on You Tube right now. He better pray his classmates don't find it.
edited 27th Jan '12 8:53:30 AM by drunkscriblerian
If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~
Prince of Dorne
Of course it's abuse. And so are the "this is worse" examples in this thread.
Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic
The Shadows Devour You.
Pouring an extremely spicy substance down a young childs throat in large quantities is potentially dangerous. Kid must have felt like he was choking.
As for the shower, how long was the kid there? And why the hell would you recruit your ten year old daughter to film it for you?! What is wrong with that woman?
As for the dad... well, read "A Child Called It" some time for how spouses cover up for their partners abuses.
The hot sauce thing alone is grounds for taking the kid away from there.
This isn't the kind of thing a right-thinking adult does to a child, ok? Spank them, lock them in their room, take away their consoles, privileges, etc... burning or freezing them when they are that small?
No. Thats outright dangerous, for Petes sake.
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.
Street Writing Man
The fact that she tried to attention-whore and used her kid to do it is way worse in my book...the matter of the hot sauce smacks of simple stupidity rather than malice.
Parenting books are cheap, the advice of friends is free, and Dr. Phil is an idiot. People who go on talk shows aren't looking for anything except fifteen minutes of fame...and if they want that, they can act like retards in their own person without exploiting their kids.
edited 27th Jan '12 11:28:45 AM by drunkscriblerian
If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~
What the drunk guy said. I see stupidity over malice. Stupidity isn't a defense however.
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?
Oh My
The attention whoring bothers me more than the punishment itself. I personally find it to be a hideously ineffective and stupid way to deal with problems for anything. Screaming, depending on how you scream and how the kid views you, can also be useless as shit. It's not malice that results in such punishments though. More stupidity. Going to Dr. Phil is more of that. The yelling can represent a lack of control over oneself and their temper. Again depending on how the person yells and acts. My grandfather is a master at raising his voice to quiet people down yet calming off as remarkably calm. You shut the fuck up when he yells at you and you stand there and listen.
A part of me wants to say "Well it's not that bad. I've gone through that and much worse". Another part of me wants to declare it abuse and wrong. It's been something I've been struggling with for years. I've gone through it myself and came out alive. I'm not sure how many of my issues per se can be related to the physical punishments. Save that I can safely say that they did not in any form make me respect my mother or wish to listen to her words. I typically went right back to what I was doing before and came up with lies to pin everything on my brother instead. I also want to think that in certain circumstances, depending on how it is administered, such punishment can be useful in the short run.
But from my experience it seems to work like shit and raising one's hand to another or putting them through pain like that goes against my vows to not hurt people without proper reason. Losing my temper and needing to teach them a lesson doesn't count as proper reason and that's the only time I ever want to use such punishments on my siblings.
So in the end I'll just say it's abuse. Stupid abuse that probably won't scar the kid for life (I've never met a family that uses hot sauce in large quantities, just a few drops) and won't do a fucking thing to help their behavior, but abuse.
edited 27th Jan '12 12:13:28 PM by Aondeug
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah
I honestly don't care so much about the attention-seeking. Sure, it's the capstone on top of all this that it wasn't even done for any kind of legitimate disciplinary purpose, but this would totally be child abuse even if she had a "good reason" for doing it.
Pain is not a thing you should use to discipline your children. Especially because BOTH of the things she did are potentially dangerous; the hot sauce other people have pointed out can be toxic, and the cold shower seems like a great way to get hypothermia to me.
Also to several people, maybe you were abused worse but that's really not relevant at all.
edited 27th Jan '12 1:28:30 PM by BlackHumor
I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1
Street Writing Man
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I guess we (once again) disagree then; I've never seen an issue with the concept of corporal punishment as long as its carried out with a degree of logic *. As I said earlier, I scratch my head as to why she didn't just go with a simple spanking. It's effective and not likely to result in permanent damage, unlike the employment of hot sauce.
I stand by my statement that the videotaping and the use of it to get on a talk show was the worse behavior; it took the event out of the debatable arena of punishment (whether one agrees or disagrees that it was "too much" is a debatable point) and into the realm of exploitation.
If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~
I'm inclined to agree.
Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.
You can find all sorts of creepy stuff online, and this is no exception. The article in question
:
Jessica Beagley, 36, made a videotape of how she punished the boy and submitted it to the show. The tape shows Beagley yelling at the crying boy, then tipping his chin up and pouring hot sauce in his mouth.
Beagley then had the screaming boy stand in a cold shower for sword-fighting with pencils in school.
Both actions were recorded on a videotape submitted to the "Dr. Phil" show. Anchorage police got calls from viewers after the show aired last October.
Neither Beagley nor her husband showed any emotion when the six-person jury announced its decision on Tuesday. The couple walked quickly from the courtroom and down a set of stairs without responding to questions from reporters.
Jessica Beagley could face the maximum sentence of one year in jail, a $10,000 fine and up to 10 years of probation when she is sentenced Monday, said District Judge David Wallace. She remains free without bail because the case is a misdemeanor.
Prosecutor Cynthia Franklin also left the courtroom without commenting.
Beagley and her husband, Gary, an Anchorage police officer, adopted the twins in 2008 when they were 5 years old. The boys had already spent three years in an orphanage. When located by Russian authorities, their family was living in a shack and the twins were sleeping on shelves in an armoire.
One of the twins made a fairly easy adjustment to his new home in Alaska, but the other exhibited behavioral problems that included lying and urinating on the floor.
Beagley's attorney said his client turned to unconventional forms of punishment when spankings, time-outs and restricting television weren't effective in changing the boy's behavior.
Defense attorney William Ingaldson said his client was faced with a difficult situation dealing with a child with emotional problems when she reached out to the "Dr. Phil" show for help. If she hadn't done that, she never would have been charged with child abuse, he said.
"It is our feeling Jessica was doing the best she could. ... This is a very good, loving family," Ingaldson said.
He believes the city child abuse ordinance fails to spell out what is acceptable in terms of punishment. For example, under the law it would be possible to convict a parent who put a child in a timeout for what a jury might consider too long, he said.
Ingaldson will request that Beagley receive no jail time. Asked if the children could be taken from the family, he said the Office of Children's Services had already investigated and found no reason to take action.
In closing arguments Monday, Franklin said Beagley recorded the punishment on Oct. 21, 2010, for a segment of the show titled "Mommy Confessions."
Beagley's lawyer countered that she made the video and eventually went on the show because she was desperate to find help for her son.
Both prosecutors and the defense attorney acknowledged that the eight-minute video showing Beagley punishing the boy was hard to watch.
"There is no reason in the world why someone has to hurt a child to get on a reality show," Franklin said in her closing argument.
When the episode aired, it sparked public outrage in Russia, with some people demanding the boy and his twin brother, who were both adopted by Beagley and her husband, be returned to their native country.
Franklin told the jury it wasn't Beagley's first attempt to get on the "Dr. Phil" show.
After seeing a segment in April 2009 titled "Angry Moms," she contacted the show but heard nothing for a year and a half, Franklin said.
The show eventually called to find out if Beagley was still angry, she said.
Beagley then submitted audition videos in which she yelled at the boy, but producers said they needed to see her actually punishing her son, the prosecutor said.
That's when Beagley got the video camera ready, made sure there was enough hot sauce on the shelf in the bathroom and recruited her 10-year-old daughter to shoot the video, Franklin said. Days later, she was headed to Los Angeles to tape the show that first aired on Nov. 17, 2010.
Dr. Phil Mc Graw describes Beagley's actions as brutal and abusive, according to a transcript of the show.
"I think anybody would look at that and say that that is absolutely outrageous, it is over the top, it is abusive, it is inefficient, it is — it is out of control," Mc Graw said in the transcript after portions of the video were shown.
The show provided the Beagleys with an evaluation of the boy and counseling.
More recently, the boy has been diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder and is in therapy.
In his closing arguments, Ingaldson encouraged the jury to look closely at other footage submitted to the show in which Beagley coaches the children on not getting into trouble and reminding them of what happens if they do.
"She is not trying to get these kids to misbehave. She is trying to do the opposite," Ingaldson said.
1) How many people actually consider this child abuse? Giving a child hot sauce seems like a bit of a dick move, but I can't say that it's a punishment unless they're allergic to spicy foods or something. I mean, my youngest kid loves Wasabi-flavored Funyuns. And I've thrown my kids screaming into a cold shower, too.* And as the lawyer points out, a vague enough law could be used to charge anyone, even if they don't get convicted, the time, money, and social stigma from being tried is often harsh enough. And apparently her husband, the police officer who presumably knows more about the laws than Average Joe, didn't appear to have any issues with it either.
2) Is this really going to benefit any of the children in that house? It appears that the parents are otherwise excellent parents, and their daughter and the other adopted son were happy and doing well. While trying to get on a talk show seems IMO to be the dumbest way to get help* , the mom has a very good point that this is not her normal method of punishment - she escalated to this because the talk show told her to.*
3) Can/Should the producer of Dr. Phil* be charged with, say, Accessory to Child Abuse, or in any other way held legally responsible? Personally, I would love to see this. Talk shows have a reputation at the worst television has to offer* , and this points straight at them. They openly told the mother, "That's not good enough, you have to be way worse than that to get on our show."
So... Thoughts?
edited 24th Aug '11 11:02:49 AM by BlueNinja0
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw