'Counting On' Alum Derick Dillard Sparks Controversy With Comment About 'Training' Children

Only a week into 2019, and Derick Dillard's parenting skills are already being questioned.

On Sunday, the controversial Counting On alum shared a picture of his and wife Jill Duggar's 18-month-old son Samuel on Instagram showing the little boy getting busy and helping mom and dad with some household chores.

"He's a good little helper :) training him young lol ;)," Dillard captioned the photo, adding the hashtag, "#cleanuptime."

While the post seemed innocent enough, many fans took issue with Dillard's caption and choice of wording, considering "training" to be more fit for an animal than a human.

"You train dogs, not people…" one person wrote.

"Gross. Children don't need to be 'trained' for chores at 2 years old. And the word training makes me think of a dog," another commented.

"Just curious does the kid get a chew toy after training?" another asked. "If he is unsatisfactory, does he have to sleep in the dog house?"

While several others came to Dillard's defense, claiming that the word choice was prompted by a Bible verse, the controversy seemed to stem from the Duggars' controversial child-rearing method. The family supposedly follows the Pearl Method, which refers to the parenting advice offered by No Greater Joy Ministries' pastor Michael and Debi Pearl in their book, To Train Up A Child.

The book, used as a parenting guide to teach obedience, encourages the use of corporal punishment to teach children of all ages — including infants — how to behave, and instructs mothers to pull their infant's hair if the baby accidentally bites while breastfeeding. The book also encourages spanking, withholding food, and blanket training, in which a baby is placed on a blanket and are hit with a flexible ruler or another instrument if they roll over or crawl off the edge.

In 2011, it was reported that three children had died "allegedly at the hands of parents who kept the Pearls' book," which has racked up dozens of bad reviews on sites like Amazon from parents criticizing the potentially deadly parenting methods.

Although only a handful of days into 2019, this isn't Dillard's first controversy of the new year. On New Year's Day, he faced harsh backlash after he shared a blog post on how to keep up with your New Year's resolution, promoting the post as a piece about his drastic weight loss, which was actually a false story.