Having grown up in a place which is the subject of a book titled, “The Most Southern Place on Earth,” I would assume that anything tied to Southern culture would not come as total news to me.

Not so.

A young teacher called about a practice which is new in her city.

It is called “hot saucing.” Parents use a drop of hot sauce to correct their children’s behavior. As a teacher, she was looking for medical information because she did not know if there was any research on the short or long-term consequences of this. What could I give her?

This is discipline? Texas Pete Punishment? Tabasco Terrorism?

According to this 2004 Washington Post story, the practice already had spread across the United States six years ago.

The parents who favor it are quoted as saying, “It works like a charm.”  The Post reported that the state of Virginia listed “hot saucing” as bizarre. That is too kind, but Virginians tend to have lovely manners.

A quick search online shows that hot saucing has support in some parts of the conservative evangelical movement—although the story excerpt below quotes an evangelical Christian parenting expert as saying that he disapproves of “saucing.”

Clearly, hot saucing is no longer Southern, if indeed it was rooted there. It is no longer something only conservative Christian groups seem to find effective.

This is not about culture. This is not about religion. This is about whether someone respects a child’s person, both physical and emotional. They are small. The people packing the sauce are large. What part of this method possibly could build character?

“Just because something works doesn’t mean it is a good idea,” the author of “Grace-Based Parenting” told the Post.

Every child is different. Every parent has to decide how best to bring up that child.

But, speaking from experience, I can tell you that there is a far, far more effective means of discipline than hot saucing.

It is your father telling you what you have done wrong, and then saying, “I am very, very disappointed in you. I hope you will do better next time.”

Hope? Hope? I would have died before I put myself in the position of having to look into his unhappy brown eyes again because I did not do better and repeated the mistake.

He did this very rarely.

It involved no physical harm.

It, too, worked like a charm.

The Washington Post

“Hot sauce adds a kick to salsa, barbeque, falafel and hundreds of other foods. But some parents use it in a different recipe, one they think will yield better-behaved children: They put a drop of the fiery liquid on a child’s tongue as punishment for lying, biting, hitting or other offenses.

“Hot saucing,” or “hot tongue,” has roots in Southern culture, according to some advocates of the controversial disciplinary method, but it has spread throughout the country. Nobody keeps track of how many parents do it, but most experts contacted for this story, including pediatricians, psychologists and child welfare professionals, were familiar with it.”

…”Tim Kimmel, a parenting expert who said he approaches parenting from an evangelical Christian perspective, has heard from parents that hot sauce works well. But he does not approve.

“Just because something works, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea,” said Kimmel, author of “Grace-Based Parenting” (W Publishing Group).

“”Fear can be very effective as a discipline technique, but it’s overkill. You haven’t corrected the problem, and it means nothing in terms of building character. Our job as parents is to build character, not to adjust behavior.” (Emphasis added)

Source: Washington Post, August 10, 2010