In the very first p/c church I was in, I witnessed at least 5 different children <= 4 years old get severely paddled for "disobediences" as simple as refusing to pick up a toy in the living room because the child was tired.

In a couple of these scenarios I recall the parents having a fairly well-defined ritual involved in carrying out the punishment. I can still remember the sheer terror in one little girls eyes as her daddy carted her off to administer the beating .... This man was a dead-pan. He was so dysfunctional that his ideal of a "productive" Friday evening was siting around listening to a (p/c church) "leadership" tape with this wife. :nuhUh Complete "crazy-making". The little girl's name was "Grace" ... I sure hope she grew up to find in her namesake what her childhood lacked. By now she would be about 30.

In all of these cases, I can now clearly see that the involved parents were to some degree "under the spell" of the cultic leadership of this Church (these were ex-AoG's turned "Charismatic").

After many years of pondering and therapy (years ago), I think I have some insight into why I traded some of the best years of my early 20's for this kind of hyper-toxic cult atmosphere. Having come from a broken home myself, I guess I was looking for "family". The problem is this p/c toxic-crazy stuff was far worse then the lack of boundaries/discipline that I had as an adolescent.