If spanking is so effective why would you ever need to do it more than once?
See, I'm not suggesting that spanking is a good method to raise a child; what I am saying is that it is a _valid_ method. The brain of most highly-developed animals establishes a natural link between otherwise unlinked events when they happen in short sequence, and if the second event is shocking enough (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(NLP)). This works, for example, when you grab hot iron - it will for a long time get associated with pain and you would exercise caution when a hot iron is next to you. Spanking (same as angry yelling, by the way) when kid does something utterly destructive is a method to associate that behavior with unpleasant consequence. So, to address your question, oftentimes you only need to do it once, but is it _so_ effective? Sometimes, everybody is different.
I was never suggesting that spanking cannot be replaced with something else. If you have unlimited time and want to spend it on a kid alone - chances are you don't ever have to spank or yell. If you have money to buy safe equipment, get house in gated neighborhood, have areas to go with your child which are completely safe - you are good. No spanking needed. But not every parent has it. Some will work 10 hours and barely make ends meet to live in a crummy apartment in bad neighborhood, where every teenager is a gansta wannabe. You don't want your kid to learn hard way what it means - to runaway from a playground in that area.
Yeah you're right I don't have kids, I hope that isn't some disbarment to the discussion of how kids should be raised, just like not being black shouldn't be a disbarment to talking about racism towards blacks.
It kind of is... Your heart is i the right place, but there are things that kids do, which are very hard to mentally create without prior experience. They do things you can almost never expect from adult. In many ways, children are playing power games, they will constantly push the envelope. My 4 year old daughter, would demand something (watch cartoons for example), and if not given, she will stand next to you and yell very loud for half an hour, and in her age they yell really unpleasant, you cannot work, talk on the phone, it's very-very disruptive. And I believe she is very well aware how unpleasant it is for everyone else to listen to it, she just uses it as a means to get cartoon. Also, she will not sit in a timeout chair, neither stay in her room, nor she will listen to anything you try to tell her, she will walk back stand next to you and resume yelling. This is a scenario, where we have a locking room, and that saves her some swats, but what if we didn't? There are families living in 1-bedroom apartments, what you gonna do then?
If you let kids exploit your weaknesses, they will keep doing it. Children don't owe parents, I agree with that, but neither do parents owe their children anything. When such situation happens, someone must give up, by why does it have to be parent? If parent is willing to spend time and resources to sort this situation in a peaceful manner, good for him. Does he have an obligation to do so? Like Ian says, demonstrate me how was this obligation created. In example above, there is most probably some mistake on our part in bringing her up, we probably could have done something different and she would not give us such hell with her behavior. But we are not professionals, nobody is, yet children are happening
Can conflicts be handled in a calm, patient manner? Sure it can, but not every person has that much patience and/or skill. It would be a better world if only people who are really fit to be parents would be having children, but it isn't.