Why would any rational person choose to hit a little kid without evidence that it is more effective than a non-violent method?
I don’t actually see any claims in this thread that spanking a child will automatically cause serious psychological harm. Rather it’s been pointed out that it is perfectly possible, and surely more consistent if one wishes to raise non-violent kids, to raise well-behaved kids without hitting them.
Were you spanked?
For any system of discipline to work you have to have an escalation option. If the first thing a parent does is strike the child, you can’t escalate far before you are clearly in abuse by any reasonable definition. If you don’t have anything worse that the level of restriction/timeout/grounding that the child is willing to tolerate, your ability to influence the child is limited.
I like the analogy to the united nations. Resolutions condeming the act (verbal guidance to the child), economic sanctions (time out), military actions (spanking). Single country veto powers cause the UN to be inconsistent therefore less effective leading to my final point.
My experience (receiving, giving and observing) is that if the possiblity of escalation is real (i.e. consistent) there will be limited reason to use it.
It does happen. It didn’t happen for you, but it does happen.
For me it didn’t happen after the first time, but that first time, I had tried every alternative I could think of, other than forcing his limbs though the sleeves in his shirt. (Actually, I think I started to try that and found (a) it’s pretty damn hard, and (b) more physically abusive than a good rear smack.)
Almost entirely, we control our kids with their cooperation. We might think we exercise direct control, but other than putting a leash on them and dragging them like a puppy, we don’t: not unless they yield it to us. When they’re really small we can carry them off to bed and ignore their screams, but after a certain age, if we don’t have their cooperation we’re really out of options.
IMHO, a spanking is useful only to establish (or re-establish) that cooperation.
I’m talking about relatively normal kids. I can only imagine the difficulty of dealing with kids with behavioral disorders. Normal kids are enough trouble; my heart goes out to families with extra challenges.
BTW, my “kid” is now 30, towers over me (and I’m over 6’), nearly double my weight, and has worked as a bouncer. I’m glad I was nice to him when he was little!
I only believe in consensual spanking and children can’t consent. Right?
Children aren’t likely to consent to any form of punishment though, lol!
I’ve been spanking every day since puberty and all it did to me is give me carpal tunnel syndrome.
Are you suggesting that accidental deaths only happen when the parents are present?
Drowning is, apparently, the #5 cause of accidental death in the home. I try to watch my child all the time, but I also try to teach him to keep away from roads, and ponds, and boiling water.
I think those other parents didn’t choose to give their children the chance to run into traffic, so I also teach him road rules.
I was brought up by my Methodist grandmother who I loved dearly. She was a truly good and wholesome woman. She taught me right from wrong and where the lines were drawn that I must not cross. I rarely got a spanking from my grandmother that consisted of single slap. There was first a warning disapproving look. There there was a verbal warning that “You are going the right way” and I knew what that meant. Then, if I persisted in my bad behaviour out of nowhere came a single slap with the admonition “you asked for that”. As I said, I was rarely slapped because I quickly learned what the sequence was, and a withering disapproving look from my grandmother was enough. I read this quote in a Victorian novel some years ago about a man telling his friend not to spare the rod on his persistently naughty child “I have yet to hear of a badly behaved child whose behaviour was not remarkably improved following a sound thrashing.”
Man, sure is a good thing there haven’t been any advances in psychology since victorian years! 
Sigh. I have described this before on these boards, but I will try again. First off, I was regularly spanked as a child and I don’t think it screwed me up.
When my daughter was little she was generally well-behaved and we spanked her only once. And her face dissolved in tears and disbelief (so it seemed to us–why are these people I love and trust inflicting pain on me?) We never spanked her again. When our son was born, he didn’t turn out so tractable and we started spanking him regularly. One day my wife and I discussed this and agreed that spanking wasn’t working and decided to try not doing it. And guess what. His behavior improved dramatically! We never spanked him again. We never considered spanking the third child. All three have grown up to be happy and successful adults. They have, between them 6 children, none of whom has ever been spanked and seem to be turning in happy and successful adults (insofar as they are old enough).
They weren’t raised without discipline, far from it, but it was never corporal. Anyway, the only true discipline is self-discipline and I think that is taught mainly by example.
I’d add that whichever parts of discipline are not taught by example - that is, they’re taught, but some other way - are extremely likely to fail.
For our children it is all about a controlled environment and the fear OF the discipline as opposed to hurting your child.
I am a strong believer that most importantly you should never hit your child anywhere but on the behind and never do it in anger as an instant reaction. The few times we have spanked our most recent child, it came with lots of discussion, regret that we have to do it, sympathy for child, an understanding that this is a consequence of an action and that I - as the parent - do not really have a choice… all that is followed by a lot of love directly after and letting them know the slate is clear and confidence they will do better moving forward.
3 spankings in 8 years and the fear of it is the great child behavior motivator.
Classroom behavior? What? It used to be that the worst problem for classroom discipline was chewing gum.
A few people touched on a crucial aspect of disciplining children: temperament. Children who are by nature compliant won’t need spankings much, if ever. Children with a more defiant personality may need some spanking, but it is to get their attention, not break their spirit.
I have been teaching for more than 20 years. “New” programs for classroom discipline have been introduced and put into practice many times in my career. Some were just new names for old systems, others were different, but none of them lasted. Talking to students about their behavior and asking them to reflect on it just doesn’t work. If a student needs to be corrected about their bad behavior, the consequences must be unpleasant or it will continue unabated.