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.
When Isaac was living with us, we had to discipline him for a number of things, mostly because he had never learned any sort of self-control or self-restraint. Trouble was, our preferred method of discipline — time out — is completely useless for a child who is accustomed to being ignored. If the child is unfazed by discipline, it isn’t working. Sometimes you have to be creative when you discipline a child.
I discovered after a few weeks that his main means of sensory stimulation were tactile, taste and visual. No one had ever talked to him, so speech meant nothing to him, and corporal punishment obviously is out of line for abused kids who aren’t your own, no matter what you may think of it for your own.
But he loved to watch things. When I took him to walk the dog with me, he tripped every 10 feet and would lie there watching cars go by because he found it interesting. I finally got him to stand up by pulling his hat down over his eyes until he did stand.
I found that worked for time outs as well. Isaac absolutely hated being unable to see. So for him, time out became time in a chair with arm rests, with a bag over his head. (When his sense of balance improved, we started having him stand in the corner.) His behavior improved immensely.
We used the food thing primarily as a means of controlling his behavior at the table. He was accustomed to leaving the table, running around and eating at his leisure. Since he needed structure and discipline, the rule became, “Leave the table, leave your food.” He stopped leaving the table.
He also would feed the dog or throw bits of food on the floor. When he did that, he lost the rest of his meal.
If he didn’t eat the meal we gave him — he wasn’t used to fresh produce or healthy food, and preferred chicken nuggets and other processed junk food — that was too bad. At snacktime he got a normal-size snack, and had to wait until the next meal.
His eating habits and table manners improved tremendously as well.
So you have to be creative when it comes to discipline, since not every child is going to respond in the same way. E would think having a hat on her head is funny, although she otherwise hates being in time out.
On those grounds, I understand the hot sauce technique although I don’t think I would use it. For starters, I’m concerned about the associations it could cause with hot foods — I don’t want the girls to think they’re in trouble every time we eat something spicy.
Additionally, when time out is over, I can let the child out of her chair, or I could pull the hat off Isaac’s head. If you spank, it stings for a little, and then the punishment is over.
Hot spices can burn for quite a while. I once picked my nose after chopping jalapeños — a bad idea — and was miserable for about half an hour.
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