Quote Originally Posted by Dan View Post
Not at all. I only ever got a smack when I did something that deserved punishment. My point though is that my old man could've easily substituted respect and teaching for a quick klap.

Exhibit A: Growing up, we had a lemon tree in the garden. One day I decided to chuck a lemon at my neighbour's house and it smashed one of the windows. Guess what happened? I got hit as punishment.

However, that's not the way it went, and I learned nothing valuable from the experience.
I dispute the bold part above. Did you break another window after that or where you more careful? I'm sure you were more careful so it did have an effect.

Quote Originally Posted by Dan View Post
In my opinion, if you're smart about it, you can make the exact same idea work for corporal punishment. And again, I don't have kids yet so this is nothing but a theory, but if and when I do I'll be damned sure to at least try something like this before going full caveman on a small child.
Of course that is the natural human thing to do, but this is not the government's place to meddle.

Kids don't yet have the mental ability to reason with an adult, and I've seen it happen countless times where parents try to reason with their children (which is the correct thing to do) but then as soon as the child sees that he won't be getting his way he throws a massive tantrum / scene. This is where the child should get a smack.