To spank or not to spank

I'm certainly not a "child expert," so I'd never give another parent my opinion on how they should discipline their child (and, if they begged me, I'd share only with great reluctance); if there's one thing parents generally don't appreciate, it's unsolicited advice on how to raise their kids.

And in that, Strother, you have wisdom beyond your years.

If a child can be effectively disciplined without being hit, then I would imagine that most reasonable parents would prefer to do so. Reasonable people do not value physical force over mental force.

I agree for the most part. Reasonable people do not preclude the use of physical force in favor of mental force where necessary, though. Attempting to "reason" with a three-year-old in the middle of a tantrum is a fool's errand.

Further, if you must constantly spank your child... well, it isn't really working, is it?

True enough, but the problem isn't the spankings. In general, my observation of people who must constantly use corporal punishment is that they lack consistency in their overall application of discipline, corporal or not. You mentioned that you figured out what would get you a spanking. You were able to do that because your parents consistently applied spankings across a set of predictable behaviors. The poor kid who gets spanked for one behavior on Tuesday and ignored for the same behavior on Wednesday has no frame for learning. As well, I see so many parents who threaten and threaten, but who never carry through and fall back on bribery and cajolery. And then they wonder why they have a discipline problem. Their discipline problem is a complete lack of discipline. Their kids have learned that the limits of their behavior are defined by some completely random set of circumstances. The only way to know is to test it empirically and even then, it must constantly be re-tested.

And to the original point, if so many parents can't get it right, imagine the insanity of getting the government to do it at all.