Tony's Note: As much as I would have loved to invent this story, I am not making this up...but I did add a few quotes, of course. Heh heh...

Lisa Whelchel (top right) shown during her 15.01 minutes of fame during the impressively horrible TV Show called "The Facts of Life"

The practice of "hot saucing" a child's tongue as a method of discipline may seem cruel to some parents, but those who regularly use the punishment say it teaches their charges valuable and long-lasting lessons.

Lisa Whelchel, who played Blair on the incredibly bad, yet popular 1980s TV series Facts of Life, is an advocate and practitioner of "hot saucing." Whelchel, the author of Creative Correction: Extraordinary Ideas for Everyday Discipline, says the practice worked for her children when other disciplinary actions did not.

"I used to smack all my kids around quite a bit when my acting career fizzled after Facts. But I found this incredible way to hurt them without leaving a mark," said Whelchel. "It does sting and the memory stays with them so that the next time they may actually have some self-control and stop before they lie or bite or kill or something like that," Whelchel said on ABC News' Good Morning America.

Whelchel says she would have never used hot sauce to discipline her three children if it caused lasting damage, because that can mean jail time, which she is very familiar with from her heroin days. The actress-turned-junkie-turned-home-schooling mom suggests using just a dab of hot sauce, placing it on your finger, then touching your finger to the child's tongue. "If that doesn't work, just put it right in their eyes," she told Joan Lunden with a wink.

Boston family therapist Carleton Kendrick says he is vehemently against hot saucing or corporal punishment of any kind, and is directing law enforcement to Whelchel's home to arrest her.

"There's no room for pain and humiliation and fear in disciplining healthy children," Kendrick said. "I think it's a rather barbaric practice to say the least. Plus, she was a really bad actress, so I have no sympathy for her."

[In a non-scientific ballot on ABCNEWS.com, 34 percent of voters said they feel hot saucing is an acceptable form of discipline. Sixty-five percent of voters said the practice of hot saucing was not. One percent said they would pay $1000 to see Lisa Whelchel fed live to teams of hungry Komodo Dragons in a pit. More than 8,000 votes were cast in the online ballot.]

Whelchel says she's been aware for some time that many people are strongly opposed to hot saucing, (which was covered in The Washington Post earlier this month) a form of discipline that's been around for decades, but she says she believes in many different creative ways to discipline, including this one. "Hacksaws are cool, too, but like I said before, I can't be leaving marks on the little sons of bitches."

"It's totally against popular opinion in culture these days," Whelchel said. "I prefer my child receive a small amount of pain from my hand of love than to encounter a lot more pain in life," she said.

Whelchel said hot saucing works better than traditional spanking when it comes to offenses related to the child's mouth.

"It's a logical consequence. If you cause somebody pain, either by the words you say ("Mommy was a bad actress!"), by lying and not being a trustworthy person or by biting, this is a logical consequence. It's your mouth that's the offender," she said.

Practices at childcare centers in Michigan and Georgia were called into question after it was discovered that workers used Dave's Insanity Sauce hot sauce deep inside ear canals to discipline some of the children. Workers commented, "They listened right up after that, I tell you what."

Kendrick says even parents who endorse corporal punishment should think twice about using hot sauce to discipline children because it could lead to an investigation of child abuse in some states.

"The state of Virginia, for instance, calls this practice bizarre and finds it an actionable offense," Kendrick said.

Whelchel says she practiced hot saucing from the time her children were in pre-school through their 10th birthdays. Her children are now 12, 13, and 14 years old.

Whelchel says parents who turn to creative punishments should always use common sense and make sure the punishment is age-appropriate.

"Habanero sauce in the eyes of infants is possibly out of bounds for me," said Whelchel. "But I swear to God, they stop getting lippy with you when you do it to them."