My limited personal experience of the results of disincline (of all kinds) is that inconsistent or random discipline from a parent is worse than almost all others. Children who live in fear of being disciplined for what appears to them to be for no reason, or where their actual behaviour plays very little role in affecting the discipline they experience, fair far worse. It is really hard as a parent, but being consistent is critically important. No means no.
> Spanking remains a common, if controversial, childrearing practice in the United States. In this article, I pair mounting research indicating that spanking is both ineffective and harmful with professional and human rights opinions disavowing the practice. I conclude that spanking is a form of violence against children that should no longer be a part of American childrearing.
My stance is consistent with the recommendations of the American Psychological Association [2] and the American Academy of Pediatrics [3].
The issue is can we have a discussion about it without unfriending each other on Facebook building protective bubbles.
[1]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3768154/
[2]http://www.apa.org/about/policy/corporal-punishment.aspx
[3]https://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/family-d...
You always hear some fucking idiot saying "my child ran out into the street, so I hit him". Hear the useless parent put their child at risk of harm by not teaching the child about road safety, by not providing adequate supervision in a dangerous situation, and then punishing the child for the parent's lack of skill.
"I hit my children" is no different from "I hit my spouse" or "I hit my employees".
I think we can avoid false emotional comparisons between spanking a young child and beating your wife.