Spanking is a form of punishment meant to keep children in line when they act up or misbehave. Excessive or obserd punishment is not constituted as spanking. A swat or two on the butt is acceptable.

Some kids just don't respond to anything else.

Should they be allowed, as in, not punished if they do spank their kids? Humm, to forbid would be just to pass on the "spanking" from the parents' hands to someone else's. Just that this time, the spanked one would be the parent...

Now I will disregard the "allowed" and take the question as Should parents spank their children?.

No, they shouldn't, for the kid's own good. You don't want your kid to grow up doing the right thing just because they are afraid of punishment. Instigating fear is not educating, just conditioning. You condition your kids to depend on fear to behave. To educate would be to make them understand they should do certain things for their own good and everybody else's.

Conclusion: To forbid spanking is the wrong way to make parents understand they shouldn't beat up their kids, as spanking is the wrong way to educate kids.

It is also a helpful disciplinary tool that increases things like the child's optimism, academic achievement, and self-esteem and actually decreases anxiety,substance abuse and aggression.

if a parent who can't control there kids has to resort to physical pain to keep them in line, what message will that reverberate in the adult that come next, maybe violence is an answer to qural. I do not agree, although i accept that it is not excessive and that some parents need to spank,But it is not the way to deal. kids are not born to misbehave, they learn these things from adult, if a kid act's up he/she wants attention and a good parent should nurture there kid by giving time to them.

It seems to me: that the "Pure Idealist" (if there is such a creature) would rarely accomplish much - Utopia only exists in our minds, and the "Pure Pragmatist" represents a potential drastic threat - the ends do NOT always justify the means.

It does not benefit the child,and encourages problems like anxiety, alcohol abuse, or dependence and externalizing problems.