Old-school parenting-book author and advice columnist, John Rosemond, has been given a cease and desist order from the Kentucky attorney general and Board of Examiners of Psychology. His crime, according to this Associated Press report, is dispensing Q- and-A advice under the title of psychologist.

While Rosemond has his masters in psychology and is a licensed psychologist in North Carolina, he’s not licensed in Kentucky, where his syndicated column is published. The board wants Rosemond to stop identifying himself as a psychologist, and likens the question-and-answer format of his columns to dispensing direct mental health services.

The order is the result of a complaint from a retired Kentucky psychologist who took issue with Rosemond’s advice to parents of an academically-underachieving teen to strip the teen’s room to bare essentials and take away all electronics and privileges and not return them until his grades improved for at least eight weeks.

Rosemond has responded with a federal lawsuit, claiming unconstitutional censorship.

A spokeswoman from the Kentucky psychology board insists the content of Rosemond’s columns isn’t at issue.

Eva Markham, who chairs the Kentucky psychology board, said Tuesday that the board’s primary point of contention is that Rosemond refers to himself as a psychologist, when he is not licensed in Kentucky. “We don’t care what he writes,” she said. “I see advice columns that are horrendously bad … but we can’t do a thing about it.”

I’m surprised to see this much attention paid to an advice column. Dear Abby counseled anonymous “patients,” sans credentials, for years.

I’m a little surprised about the particular advice the retired psychologist took issue with, since much of Rosemond’s advice, from what little I’ve read, has a similar authoritarian tone.

In another column, Rosemond advises the parents of a 3-year old who wakes his parents frequently in the night to

“Cut his bedroom door in half, then re-hang it and turn the knob around so you can control the lock. After you put him to bed, close the half-door and lock it. Children don’t like being closed behind a full door because they can’t see out, but they accept the locked half-door fairly readily. Acceptance usually takes about a week.”

Rosemond tells another parent who laments the disruptive mealtime behavior of her 18-month old, not to bother including the child in the family meal:

“Until they are at least 3, maybe 4, and in some cases even 5, children should be fed before everyone else in the family sits down to eat, even if the everyone else in question consists of husband and wife only. If you insist upon having a young one at the table, give finger food, then ignore as much as possible. If she begins to disrupt, pick her up, take her to her crib, and let her scream her lungs out until everyone’s finished.”

None of Rosemund’s advice, with the exception of withholding electronics, is my style.

That said, advice is advice. We can take it or leave it.

Have you read any of Rosemund’s parenting columns or books? What do you think of the cease and desist order given him in Kentucky?