Phanto...I have a child that has on a number of occasions ran out in front of a car, please provide me with a solution that will get the message across without smacking, please take into account I also have another child that requires restraint as he is only 22 mths.
I DO NOT smack my children with the intent to harm or cause pain.

If we are unable to put forward examples of well adjusted adults that were smacked as children what do you propose we use as examples of whether or not smacking works. If I cants use positive examples surely that means you can not use negative ones.

Goodness me phanto, I feel you are not OK.

You ask how I or anyone else knows they're OK, then when evidence is offered you refute it, though not in a logical way.

Whether someone is or isn't pretty 'OK' can usually be gauged by their interaction with their environment over a period of time. Serial killers are not the result of little kids being spanked. Psychopaths are 'hard-wired' that way. Not many become murderers but their condition makes them undesirable companions or colleagues.

Perhaps you can explain how anyone knows they are OK other than contentment with their lives and fewer regrets than happy memories about the past?

What about children who have never had a finger laid on them but been constantly verbally bullied and screamed at? What about the little sociopaths who have never been parented much in any form?

There's no doubt these things do damage but no evidence to suggest that mild physical punishment in the context of a loving balanced family setting does.

Poirot, whose daughter had a few smacks as a child and at 31 is a fine woman and 11 year old son (who probably had same but aged 11 smacking isn't appropriate anyway) whose character he is proud of provides further evidence of this. Although for some strange reason he/she thinks smacking is not corporal punishment? (Sorry Poirot - it is)

Bec_young mum of 2 - spot on! Smacking is last resort when words or other actions have failed or as a dramatic gesture when trying to bring home the gravity of a situation. Part of a toolbox - not the only or main tool. And YES about concentrating on kids who are truly abused. Too many children die or sustain permanent damage at the hands of abusive parents or step-parents, many of whom have been removed and returned -sometimes more than once.
I'm waiting for some helpful info from Kenny on dog training also. Old dogs can learn new tricks

"Another massive secular failure along with the destruction of the normal family that denies the adamic nature which if left unattended ends up with the violence we witness daily even against 80 year olds. Just plain dumb." So you say runner...

Obviously the 'normal family' needs assistance in this day and age.

My suggestion is that if smacking is so beneficial then it should not be restricted to parents.

So if I see any children misbehaving in public I will help the parents by smacking them... the children that is, not the parents. That would be assault.

divine_msn,

I realise smacking is corporal punishment (well der).

My main point was that my children have not been exposed to corporal punishment as a rule. We haven't felt the need to hit our kids to provide an environment where they thrive. A good set of boundaries does wonders.

So my daughters' "smacks" weren't anything much to write home about and that method of discipline was chucked out fairly early on because it didn't appear to achieve anything.

I'm interested in your experience of being given a hiding with a double strip of redhide around the back of the legs.

I'm more interested in the fact that you think you deserved to be assaulted like that.

My dad whipped me on the bare bum once for something or other, with the wooden end of a feather duster.

I didn't think I deserved it then - and nor do I now.

WmTrevor, I have on occasion had people verbally tell my children off for misbehaving they behave themselves for the rest of the day. I think it is good for them to be told by members of the public that their behaviour is unacceptable.
When my children are at somebody's house they must obey by that persons rules, or receive the punishment that I and that person believe is fair.

Bec,

There's a bit of difference between someone ticking your child off - and someone physically smacking them.

I'm sure you'd be mightily inflamed if someone out of the blue sought to discipline your child physically.

Which leads us to the question of the fundamental ethics of physical assault as discipline - for a species which supposedly has the verbal dexterity and creative attributes to offer an alternative.

(Btw - we do seek to inflict "pain" when we smack. That's why we do it. And that pain is supposedly dished out to act as a deterrent to behaviour we see as unacceptable)