Some may believe that it has been "scientifically proven" that spanking doesn't work, but not this little girl. I am exhibit A... When I was young, I got spanked a couple times and smacked in the mouth one time when I talked back to my mother. Let me tell you what... that was enough for me. I was a good child all the way through my teenage years because of it. When I say good child, I mean I didn't drink underage, I got good grades in school, I have always been respectful to my parents and elders, I had a job, I paid my own bills, etc. My younger sister, on the other hand, did not receive the same punishment that I did. She is seven years younger than me and was being raised in a time when "time outs" were starting to show up in many parents' punishment regimes. She is now 17, smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, is failing every class she is taking in high school and will not graduate, has stolen almost $1500 from my parents and grandparents in the last three months, calls my parents vulgar names to their faces, can't keep a job, doesn't pay any of her own bills... Now, you tell me what went wrong. I will swear to this day that if she had just been swatted on the rear end when she needed it or smacked in the mouth when she talked back all those times, things would be different today. I am now 24 and have a 13-month-old daughter and she is exploring and learning, but she sometimes explores beyond her boundaries. A couple times, she did not listen to my many "no-nos" and I gave her a very gentle but stern swat on the hand. Not hard enough to make her cry, but stern enough as I was doing it to make her realize that I mean business. There is a difference between beating your child and spanking them. Maybe it's just me, but it seems as if children were much better behaved a few decades ago when punishment was actually dreaded. Now that parents give their kids time-outs as punishment, I feel like the adolescents of today are becoming more and more misbehaved.