I have to say that I am very pleased with the response that this article has received. When I read the heading, I was afraid that I would find a majority of readers agreeing with the author. Thankfully, that was not the case.

I am the father of two children - a three-year-old girl and a newborn son. I do not spank my son - yet. My daughter certainly gets spanked. She gets spanked by me, my wife, her grandparents and her aunts and uncles, but only when she deserves it. She also says please, thank you, sir and ma'am.

I am the youngest of five children, all of whom were spanked as children. Three of us have our doctorates, one is an accountant for a lucrative firm and one is a school counselor. We were spanked with hands, belts, spoons and switches, but only on the backside. Now, four of us have children and are all rearing our children with the aide of spankings. One of us tried the time-out route initially, but quickly learned that a swift hand to the rear was a much more effective way to teach her children right from wrong.

We are all also registered Democrats, proving that not all "left wingers" are liberal nuts.

A major problem with society today is that many parents do not understand the difference between spanking and beating. Parents who do not have the same affection and love for their children as I do or my parents did choose to "hit" not "spank" and the parents who insist that time-outs are the only way cannot make the distinction.

I am glad that my parents chose to spank me. It helped me understand right from wrong and has helped me grow into a respectful young adult.

Thanks, Mom and Dad.

In my experience as a preschool teacher, I have seen both the positive and the negative effects of spanking. Spanking can work, but only in certain circumstances. If spanking a child is to be effective, it is crucial that the parent/guardian is very calm, collected, and rational. If the child senses the parent's anger and/or frustration, then the child will associate that as an appropriate response when someone is frustrating him or her. I am not opposed to spanking (many children could use one every now and then!), however I personally could never use it as a punishment because my fiery personality would make it impossible for me to clearly communicate to the child that a spanking is punishment and not "hitting" because I was ticked.

Sorry, spanking is NEVER deserved and does nothing to teach a child "right from wrong". Spanking and beating both operate on the same principal - that of a parent being out of control of both the situation and their own emotions. And their goal is also the same - to use force to cause compliance by the child. IE might makes right.

Timeouts are different. The purpose of a timeout is to break the pattern of the exisiting/immediate behaviour and to give the target of the timeout time to change their emotional state.

You cite the societal accomplishments of you and your siblings as evidence that there is no harm from spanking - yet the two have no relationship. Many who have been truly abused in life have gone on to have doctorates etc.

The harm caused to you by spanking is twofold:

1. The very belief that some form of violence is acceptable in solving conflict. Spanking to make YOUR life easier
2. that compliance with the behaviour adults want of a child is the same as healthy emotional development of the child.

It is clearly the case of the 'cycle of violence' where being exposed to violence as a child (spanking) you then accept that level of violence as acceptable for you to commit against others.

Frankly, if you put YOURSELF in timeout everytime you felt the need to spank your daughter, YOU would have a much better outcome in the long run.

And yes, I am a parent, yes I am equally succesful to what you cite, and no, I have never spanked either of my children.

Thanking your parents for teaching you to be violent is about as sick as it gets.

blah blah blah. Buddy...get a grip. The bottom line is your verbal reasoning worked for you. But it doesn't work for all kids. So, good for you, you have perfectly agreeable children. And it ain't violence. It's people like you that create this uproar that spanking children is abuse. I was spanked alot as a kid. Looking back, I was pretty much a terror. Do I hit people now? No. Do I the kids now? No. Do I think violence is a good thing? No. But the useless ungrateful children coming out of our society today make me wish their parents were more firm and disciplined them better. And by discipline I mean spanking, grounding, making sure they know there are consequences for their behavior. Every child is different buddy. And I've met some that deserve it, and good. So, you know what, be realistic and realize that not everyone has darling deary children.

Bottom line is that if you as a 150#+ adult have to hit a kid to make them comply with you, its YOUR incompetence at handling the situation that's on display. Do you "spank" other adults that don't act agreeably? Of course not.

so what's the difference? The difference is that you can hit a child and they won't hit back. And that's a crap reason to hit someone.

Ever consider that perhaps you were a 'terror' precisely BECAUSE you were being spanked? BECAUSE your emotional needs weren't being met?

But the useless ungrateful children coming out of our society today

And the children of today are worse than before? Unless you have clear objective evidence of this, you are just bullshitting. And there is no evidence that current behaviour of children is any worse than ever before - your own description of your behaviour as a child underscores this.

And while the personalities of children are very different, and there is a range of how neurophysiological development occurs, NO CHILD develops the cognitive brain function to be able to associate action and consequence until well into their teens.

Yes, if you have them reason through the process of what happens they can come up with the linkages, but it isn't something that is inately understood. There is no emotional context for that association because the brain structures are not there to make that association. And since we are largely emotional creatures only rarely acting from a reasoned prespective (its YOU who is in the lab asserting anything different), the lack of emotional connection means they don't really understand consequences.

Degsme, you speak in absolutes and repeat ad infinitum of undeveloped cortexes and violence begetting violence.

Time Outs work in such an insulated environment in the home. My experience with friends who are parents and using this discipline have the most difficult to be around children I have ever encountered. This becomes most apparent on trips outside the home whether the store, a family eatery, the movies, When the child becomes cross, the emotional reaction skips 10 fold......and since spanking not permitted I have had my share of meals and store visits that have turned into living Hell experiences with the parents admonishing verbally to quiet, begging with rewards to be quiet, until the parents give up and tell the waitress to wrap up food to go, leaving the movie theatre (thankfully immediately for the rest of the patrons) or stopping well before shopping completed. Why? No corner to send them to no immediate consequence to their behavior. And as article states, punishing well after the fact is like disciplining a dog for puddling hours later. The concept of zero tolerance for spanking as I am weekly witnessing, creates controling kids. Further when I was a child I knew exactly when I was going to get a spanking. You speak ignorantly that children can't absorb as to when their action will result in discipline and when they don't. Screw your cortex KIDS KNOW WHEN AND WHY and you are an idiot to think otherwise.

Your post is so full of non sequiturs and outright illogic it's actually a thing of beauty. First assertion to be skewered: other adults are not spanked not because they can "hit back", but because it is not a parents' place to teach them appropriate behavior. Plain and simple. It IS a parent's place to teach and discipline children, and yes, with spanking at times. Your agreement or approval is neither required nor desired. And even your original assertion is false, because when an adult really behaves badly they certainly ARE "spanked", either by bystanders or police ie. physically restrained. Try acting like a rowdy 3 year old around me and see how quickly you get "spanked". Next. "You were rowdy because your emotional needs were unmet". How do you spout such rubbish with a straight face in public? Where do you get such pseudoscientific claptrap? Children are naturally rowdy and ungovernable, as they have not yet been socialized. Sure they get rowdier if abused - but that is irrelevant to the simple point that they are rowdy regardless. They're CHILDREN. Ok. Next demolition. You want objective evidence that children/people today are growing up worse behaved than ever? Are crime rates higher or lower now than in 1950? Teen pregnancies? Drug abuse? A hundred other indicators of social malaise? How do childrens' crime rates compare? End of story. Finally, the most laughable evidence against your viewpoint: "we are largely emotional creatures". No, YOU are largely an emotional creature. Proof: your hysterical diatribe. We are largely rational creatures - when healthy, well socialized and intellectually and physically disciplined. Who says so? All the seminal thinkers of our civilization. Man is the rational animal. I think Aristotle might be just a tiny bit smarter than you on this. What do you think?

Well I'm not sure when talking back, refusing to do what you are told to do, doing what you aren't supposed to do, throwing food, lying, spitting up food etc became a crime. Because kids typically get spanked for those sorts of things and adults do NOT get spanked. In fact, just read any "awful coworker stories" and the common theme are co-workers acting like they are two but because that person isn't a child, they can't be hit.

So its not a non-sequitor to ask why its ok to hit a child because YOU are upset but not ok to hit an adult for similar offenses. In fact if I act like a rowdy 3yo around me and you hit me, I'm going to cry all the way to the bank as the judge hands me the key to your house.

As for the OFC, that's basic neruophysiology. What IS pseudoscience is the belief that "discipline" (which actually comes from disciple or "adherent, follower") and socialization needs violence to occur.

As for the data you cite, I recommend you read the very well researched and documented The Way We Never Were. Teen pregnancy, drug abuse and child crime rates are roughly the same as they were 50 years ago and crime rates are actually lower than 100 years ago. But hey as you said, why not just rely on pseudoscience...

As for Aristotle being smarter - hmm, Aristotle believed that Zeus sat on top of a mountain resolving disputes between his wife Hera and his various paramours including the ones he impregnated while in the form of a swan. Yeah I'd say I, and anyone with a decent modern education has a touch more knowledge of how the world works than Aristotle.

The research from Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) tells us that we are NOT rational creatures. Instead we are driven by statistical choruses that drive all sorts of irrational behaviour . We are anything BUT rational creatures. That is invariably the point of all the dramas that show the clash between humanity and hyper-rationality, be it the original Star Trek, Le Etranger, or the James Bond series.

Please read up on facts before you start name calling people on subjects you primarily deal with emotionally and irrationally.

..it's like talking to a brick, only the brick is smarter. Try this on for size.

The instant you raise your hand to a child, the child wins. Every time. Here is what kids learn from being spanked:

1. You have taught them just how bad they have to be to get hit.

2. You have taught them what they can get away with.

3. You have trained them to sneak around behind your back and lie to you so they won't get caught. By the time they're teenagers, they'll be experts and not only will you not "have to" hit them any more, you won't be able to help them, either.

4. You have taught them that talking accomplishes nothing.

5. You have taught them that hitting is a good thing to do to get their way.

6. You have taught them that adults are violent.

7. You have taught them that adults are never to be trusted.

8. You have taught them that sometimes, doing something bad and getting hit is all right, if the "crime" in question is enough fun.

9. You have taught them that they are smarter than you.

10 You have earned their contempt, because only a true coward hits someone smaller than they are, and don't think they don't know it.

They may indeed become accomplished adults, but that's in spite of you, not because of you.

For those of you who think hitting kids is a good thing, please get spayed or neutered now. We don't need to deal with any more of your problems when they move out of your house.

So let's say that your child has just engaged in some behavior that deserves a time out. What do you do if the child refuses to cooperate? Do you force the child into accepting the punishment? How do you accomplish this without any physical contact?

You should know that if you advocate any form of spanking as a means of child behavior modification on this forum, then you will be attacked by many who equate spanking with beating. My guess is that they only have their own experience as a basis by which to form their opinions.

There are psychological studies that may be referenced to support both sides of the argument -- if you find that sort of thing enlightening. Different approaches work ( or fail to work) for different families.

I'd say it depends on you. Are you pissed? Frustrated? Angry? if yes, its time to put yourself in timeout. Then re-engage with the kid when you both have calmed down. Remember the TimeOut isn't about "deserved behaviour" - its about taking a break from the existing circumstance to allow everyone to calm down enough to talk more openly.

I see, so the goal isn't to raise emotionally open and healthy children. The goal isn't to take responsibility for raising the most solid individuals possible. No, the goal is to have children that are compliant, willing to surrender to authority with no protest and who supporess their feelings and don't believe in their right to speak up.

OK. That's one view of children and their role - to be seen, not heard. to be the ideal heir apparraent.

Note,that the kind of behaviour you describe is actually based more as a result of parents that lack consistency in their expectations, don't preload and don't negotiate (negotiation isn't begging).

PUNISHING may feel good to the parent but as you point out, it doesn't connect with cause in a child's mind. You attribute this to the delay in consequence, but the realtiy is that punishment is an arbitrary and disconnected outside force that does not link causally with the childs choice.

And your "screw your cortext - kids know" simply demonstrates your ignorance and your projection of adult expectations onto children who's brains simply don't function the way you want them to.

Okay, I've "put myself in timeout". Now what do I do in the meantime with the five year old that wants to play in the street or hit his cousin over the head with the baseball bat? Check back later -- when I'm no longer angry?

Not quite. Psych studies of spanking show that getting spanked once or twice in the raising of a child has no more negative impact than any of the other dissappointments and emotional bruising that kids get from their parents simply because parents are human and imperfect.

But spanking as a regular means of punishment and more importantly punishment based child rearing, DOES result in individuals more likely to find violence as an acceptable means of settling interpersonal conflict.