Greg Cynaumon is forced to admit that he is not a psychologist or marriage and family therapist by the California Boards of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences.

The "Winner"...

Dr. Laura Schlessinger
Dr. Laura Schlessinger, popular talk show host, has been selected as the first member of the Educational Mirage Award Hall of Shame for her endorsement of Greg Cynaumon’s book Discover Your Child’s DQ Factor: The Discipline Quotient System

Dr. Laura Schlessinger provided the following quote on the book cover of Discover Your Child’s DQ Factor:

“DQ Factor is an intelligent, compassionate, and powerful technique for parenting—especially in situations where your children’s misbehaviors make you feel frustrated and hopelessly out of control.”

Mr. Cynaumon also highlights her endorsement on his web site DrGreg.org (http://www.cynaumonbooks.com/index.htm)

On March 5th and July 9th, 2004, I mailed and faxed a letter informing her that she is endorsing fraud (Schlessinger Letter). Greg Cynaumon is not a psychologist or family therapist or talk show host as he describes in his book. The California Board of Psychology and Board of Behavioral Sciences have ordered that Mr. Cynaumon cease his impersonation of a psychologist and marriage and family therapist. Also, he has to remove previous claims to his fraudulent use of those professional titles.

Discover Your Child’s DQ Factor is based on what Cynaumon describes as his self-funded study of 147 families. It is obvious that there was no research study; Cynaumon made up the study from which he provides the advice in his book.

Although I have informed her about this situation, Dr. Schlessinger has not retracted her endorsement of the book. Also, she continues to recommend the book on her Dr. Laura web site (http://www.drlaura.com/reading/?mode=view&id=188). By continuing to recommend this book after being informed of Greg Cynaumon’s fraud, she has earned the Hall of Shame Award.

By endorsing this book, Dr. Laura Schlessinger is endorsing child abuse as being an effective parenting practice. As noted in our report about Mr. Cynaumon, “What is very bothersome about his supposed observations is the astronomically high rates of corporal punishment, often bordering on child abuse. For example, for monkeys (children with manipulative and attention-getting behavior) the observers rated aggressive spanking effective 36% of the time and aggressive spanking (‘taking the child’s pants down, to spanking him with an open palm, to utilizing a spanking instrument such as a wooden spoon, wooden hanger, paddle, etc.’) effective 21% of the time (p. 139). Then, Mr. Cynaumon writes ‘There were no abuse issues throughout this study’ (p. 139). That would be an amazing finding given the high rates of aggressive spanking. Also, because 62 of the 147 children were 13-18, it is improbable that parents would attempt aggressive spanking involving pulling down pants with teenagers. Because Mr. Cynaumon’s advice is based on this zoo animal rating scale, his comments appear to be research-based when they are not. Thus, consumers are misled.”

In her endorsement, Dr. Schlessinger describes the book as providing an intelligent and compassionate technique. Pulling down the pants of teenage girls and boys and spanking them with a “wooden spoon, wooden hanger, paddle, etc.” is neither intelligent or compassionate. The same could be said of using aggressive spanking with younger children. No parenting research study shows that spanking is an effective way of improving behavior.

Why is Laura Schlessinger continuing to endorse book based on a non-existent study and harmful parenting recommendations by Greg Cynaumon, who now has been mandated to stop impersonating a psychologist and marriage and family therapist?

What can you do?

1. Call Laura Schlessinger's and ask her why she is endorsing child abuse. Her talk show phone number is 1-800-DRLAURA
2. Fax her your letter of protest that she is endorsing child abuse and a book written by Greg Cynaumon, who has a history of fraudulent activities, including not being a psychologist or marriage and family therapist as he claims. Her fax number is 818-461-5140.
3. Write her a letter of protest. Her mailing address is
   Dr. Laura Schlessinger
   PO Box 8120
   Van Nuys, CA 91409

For those who have not read the complete Greg Cynaumon report, the following is an excerpt from the Discover Your Child’s DQ Factor section of that report which provides further evidence of Cynaumon’s fabrication of the described study.

2003-Author of Discover Your Child’s DQ Factor: The Discipline Quotient System
According to the quote by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, MFCC on the book cover:
“ DQ Factor is an intelligent, compassionate, and powerful technique for parenting—especially in situations where your children’s misbehaviors make you feel frustrated and hopelessly out of control.”

Mr. Cynaumon says that his book is based on “one of the largest psychological family studies in recent years.” His “research team” was supposed to have transcribed the audio and video tapes of 147 families. Then Mr. Cynaumon said that he created the Discipline Quotient (DQ) system. I say that it is a total fraud. He made up his study.

He even made up the information on the cover pages, Acknowledgements, and Introduction sections of the book. The Acknowledgements section shows an obvious issue. If this study really occurred, Mr. Cynaumon should have acknowledged all members of his research team by name. He did not provide any names. The Introduction section immediately provides more fraudulent claims. Mr. Cynaumon describes himself as an “ex-cop turned therapist and radio talk show host” (p. xi) and then later says “Over the years of conducting a daily, four-hour talk show in Los Angeles…” (p. xi). Of course, he does not have a four-hour LA talk show. Later he described himself as a “Christian therapist” (p. xv) and “I have regularly attended and have been on pastoral staff of a mainstream Bible-teaching church” (p. xvi). Again, as already noted Mr. Cynaumon is not a psychologist or a therapist. The pastor of his church said (December, 2003) that Mr. Cynaumon had been a lay counselor for about 1½ years six years earlier. He was never a paid staff member. His disdain for psychologists/therapists from accredited universities by name calling with his phrase “pointy-headed shrinks” shows up in the Introduction (p. xi) and other places in this and other books and in his interviews.

(It is interesting that below his name on the front cover it says that he is the “Co-Developer of The Phonics Game” Of course, he isn’t. How do I know? He told me; he said that Myrna Culbreath was the creator of the game. Also, given my report on The Phonics Game's fraudulent claims, Mr. Cynaumon’s decision to fraudulently take credit as being the co-developer of this product seems bizarre.)

Discovering that Mr. Cynaumon’s so-called “study” is a fraud should have been obvious based on one sentence on page 22 (in bold): “Since the average family spent approximately 1.7 hours together on weekdays and 2.3 hours together on weekends. I found that one six-hour cassette tape generally did the trick.” (p. 22). Of course, anyone who has purchased audio cassette tapes knows that the maximum tape length is two hours. Six-hour audio cassette tapes do not exist.

Then there is the improbable statistic. Mr. Cynaumon states “I asked the parent(s) of each of the 147 families to record all significant interaction they had with their children during certain hours of the day” (p. 22). Notice that he states the parent(s) were to observe their children. When you add up the number of married parents or single moms and dads, the total is 147 (p. 23). When you add up the number of children observed, the number equals 147, which would mean that every family had only one child. That is an improbable statistic.


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