ok to spank your child?

I can see it as an act to quickly get your child into the right gear so to speak. Like one firm smack to the ass or something to be like "Hey, I'm being serious here!" Or when a child doesn't quite understand verbal comments and you give them a slight rap to the wrist/hand to explain that it's a no no.

I don't see smacking a child out of anger a correct form of punishment, it seems like such a last resort option, or more one exercised when you're too lazy to find an appropriate way to reach out to your child and correct his or her behavior. Oftentimes it does seem to be done out of instant anger. Has society evolved so little that we still have to resort to physicality to settle differences? It's accepted in no other form than raising a child for some reason. No longer can two men engage in fisticuffs to settle an argument, but go ahead and smack your child across the mouth to teach him a lesson? You can't even spank your dog for doing bad stuff anymore without having people all up in your ass and children tend to understand much better than animals (though you do have the excuse of children being more active members of society than a dog that is given the excuse).

I've just seen spanking and other physical punishment go way too far, both in my own experiences and others and I've never seen it work. I've heard all of the baby boomers use the excuse that they were spanked or smacked across the mouth and they turned out fine. Yeah, they also turned out having an extremely high rate of them bipolar, on mood stablizing medicines, abusing their children, killing their children, etc. I'm not saying John Doe murdered his family because he got spanked a few times from being bad, just that often times a spanking isn't necessary. Can we really not find an appropriate way to express our dissatisfaction with a child's behavior and settle them than to resort in inflicting pain on them? If not it truly is sad.

Not really, I do spank them but not that often. They usually know that I mean business. Sometimes they need a little reminder. For the most part I am calm about it and the older ones understand that it is punishment and not anger. I am not going to lie and say that I have never spanked my kids in anger, but even then, they were still only spankings.

It's funny and frustrating at the same time that whenever I go to spank one of my children and they know that it's coming, they try to shield their bottoms with their hands. Then you have to use the extra effort just to move their hands out of the way just to pop them. There is a form of comfort that I take away from them shielding their backsides though, it assures me that I am in fact spanking my kids and not beating them. If I was they beating them, they would be shielding more than their buttocks.

This is also sensible and I can follow your logic. Each person has to be viewed individually on the subject as some can dish it responsibly and some can't. I'll just likely avoid it as much as possible, but not a daddy yet so we'll see.