A few observations

I appreciate Manstuprator's ideas on this more than others here, and I fear saying so is going to provoke anger. Still, I'll face that. I don't have strong ideas either way on spanking, and I tend to think it's none of my bloody business to sit in judgement on how other people raise their children. My main criticism of what is being said here would therefore be that too many people have very strong opinions on something that I suspect in many cases they have little practical knowledge or experience of. I also cannot help wondering if boy-lovers in general are likely to be the fairest judges with their entirely understandable emotional need to demonstrate to themselves and others their extra-special sympathy for the child. Long ago when I was soon to become a father, I read volumes of ideas on how to be a good one, desperate to get it right. My knowledge of spanking being then essentially theoretical, I had vaguely adhered to the fashionable anti-spanking crowd, but I remember well one article that gave me pause for thought. The clearly experienced writer was convinced that most little children can far better understand and come to terms with a sudden short demonstration of anger (such as a slap) by a parent, something that the child himself is capable of, than any kind of organised cold punishment, such as an interdiction lasting days. He felt that cold-blooded punishment was much crueller and harder for the child to understand as coming from someone who loved him. He also went on to lament that fathers were tending to be so old compared to before - he found old fathers with their interminable efforts at reasoning with very young children bumbling and ineffectual compared with more natural and impulsive young fathers. This article having made such an impression on me, I have ever since thought about it when observing children with their parents, and I have to say I think it's generally true. Turning to the personal, I just once resorted to "violence" with just one of the four children I had. We had a small dinner party, and an agreeable dinner together has always been the central social focus of my family's life, one my children were brought up to join in as soon as they physically could. My then youngest was two and uncharacteristically worked himself up into a terrible tantrum, bawling loudly and threatening to spoil the evening for everyone. Listen he would not. So I took his hand, turned it palm upwards and slapped him firmly on the wrist, hard enough for it to sting for several seconds. He immediately fell silent and looked at me in astonishment for a few long moments. Then he started eating his food as if nothing had happened, and I was unable to detect any sign that he thought further about it. Everyone at the table laughed with surprise and relief. I felt that I had said to him, "This won't do" in a non-verbal way that was the only one he was then ready to listen to, and he had replied, after a moment's thought, "OK. I understand. Let's forget it." At any rate, I don't regret it. www.amazon.com/dp/1481222112