So do animals. I not only study cat behavior but train my own and know for a fact they know what they've done wrong when they do it. Hitting my cat, however, would not solve the problem but rather make the cat see me as a predator or associate me with pain.
The same can apply to children. Perhaps this is just where most people from either side are missing each others' points, but when I was hit for saying a word I didn't even know was a "bad word", I stopped wanting to speak to my parents altogther.
Also, as a Brit, I know most of these off-the-rail hooligan kids that hang around to cause trouble often have extremely abusive parents, as opposed to not being hit at all.
See below and my previous post.
Any punishment doesn't work if the kid (though it applies to animals as well) doesn't feel it deserved it and/or if it's more severe that earned. Abused people mostly fight back or break. With a kid who's psyche is only forming, neither is good.
But used reasonably, spanking most likely is the most effective countermeasure against unwanted behaviour, until the kid grows up enough to reason for itself.
Though I won't say it's totally neccesary. My cousing and her husband rised their kids to be absolutely obidient to them, so they don't have to punish them. Just being angry or dissapointed is enough to make them feel bad about what they did (though it also has it's drawbacks - if you're just angry and snap at your kid, it then falls under 'undeserved punishment' and makes it either rebelous or depressed)
Of course as always it's fun and dandy in theory. I guess any parent will say that theories are worth shit and you just have to rise a kid as you can. Even experience can fail. My parents had my two brothers before and managed to rised them normally, and yet they failed at rising me in certian ways.
i simply have to raise my hand and my dog will know INSTANTLY not to shit on the fucking carpet. i can say the words "did you shit on the carpet?" and he hids under my bed. now she knows and will bark and whine at me to let her outside
Well, that's called conditioning. But I just meant that in overall it's not a good method of rising a dog, because while you can explain to a kid what it has done wrong, a dog will just form a pattern 'object-action-your anger' without understanding it. And if the pattern doesn't add up, the dog can grow paranoid.
I guess the same goes for kids if you DON'T explain, but that is not what I'm talking about.