[skedaddle]

My dad grew up in Shanghai and often made a point of emphasizing how lucky we were to be children in America. We were spanked and occasionally slapped in the face, sometimes for small acts of disobedience or unhappiness. Though I suppose it could have just felt that way from our perspective.

I can tell you though that getting hit didn't teach me anything useful at all. Certainly not about reason. It taught me that when reason fails you just rely on your temper. We weren't "corrected" by the punishment in a long term sense, both of my brothers and I just emulated it (to varying degrees).

If you have boys, be careful about modeling physical aggression for them as a norm. You might, say, hit the oldest one as punishment and then weeks later the younger one somehow has a broken arm. Or something happens at school.

We weren't exposed to the world that my dad was growing up in WWII China -- an occupying army, nearby factories blowing up, etc. That doesn't make it a luxury belief that you shouldn't hit your kids. There are consequences to it that go beyond the lessons you want to teach them.