Please, Mom, not the hot-sauce treatment again!

Okay, so if you were going to take parenting advice from any single member of the cast of The Facts of Life, who would it be? Tootie? Mrs. Garrett? Proto-baby-dyke Jo? Clearly it would be Natalie, who was already a mamela-in-the-making at puberty.

One thing is certain, though: It wouldn't be Blair. And yet Lisa Whelchel is the only Lifer (so far) to publish not one but TWO books on this very subject: So You're Thinking About Homeschooling and now Creative Correction (thanks to Bookslut for the link). Rather than give you our own review of the book, we offer instead an Amazon reviewer's take:

... I liked how she used Scripture to back things up. She even explained why it is so important to use Scripture when raising your children. ... But I have some problems with some of the corrections she mentions. ... First, I've never liked the hot sauce/vinegar/soap treatment. Second, she mentions spraying water into the face of a toddler who has a temper tantrum. I'd feel like I was treating my child as a housepet if I did that. Then she mentioned things like letting a child go without a meal for failing to do a chore. I do believe strongly that you should never threaten to withhold food from a child, for any reason.
Another example of something I wouldn't try is when the child refuses to hold your hand when going across the parking lot. She mentions giving the child a choice: either hold the child's hand or hold the child's hair. If I was leading my child around the parking lot by the hair, I'd be afraid someone would sick Child Protective Services on me. --L.L Wasson, Indianapolis

Yes, L.L Wasson, we would call Protective Services on ya. In the meantime, we look forward to follow-up books from Facts of Life short-timers George Clooney and Molly Ringwald.