Besides the parents teaching their children the correct way to behave, there should be reinforcement from other groups of people such as teachers in schools and in other groups such as the Scouts etc. Discipline in some form is necessary of course but nowadays teachers are unable to provide it. Parents are unable to provide it. Sending a child to their room is not the answer. How do you get respect from youngsters these days when they see how easy it is to get away with offending others without being disciplined. Setting a good example is not enough in my opinion, but it seems that is what the powers that be think is the answer.

Of course when they grow older and begin to drive cars they either behave correctly in the vehicle, or they get punished the hard way. Death! Too late to teach any form of discipline then isn't it?

Spare the rod and spoil the child sounds like a good old proverb to me. There I go putting the cat among the pigeons again.

The old justification that sparing the rod and spoiling the child not 'didn't do us any harm' crops up whenever the subject of child discipline is discussed, but of course it's nonsense to generalise.

Physical punishment did (and does) a lot of children a great deal of harm. There are plenty of people who beat their children because 'it happened to me, and it didn't do me any harm' without realising that they are themselves as sadistic as their parents were. It harmed them by damaging their characters for life, but they blithely go on, perpetuating the myth that a clip around the ear is good for children. It's not, and never has been - parental violence instils fear into children. Parents who hit their children mistake fear for respect, and the children who learn that parents hit their offspring for every little transgression turn into deceivers; they lie their way out of trouble, and may continue to do it into adulthood.

Every time I hear an adult saying that it's OK to hit a child I know I've heard a bully. It's possible to bring up children to be good, honest, law abiding adults without hitting them.

FE. I would like to point out that my bad tempered father often hit me and my brothers with his belt. But I have never hit my three children. Many a time I wanted to but didn't.

By the way I blame his bad temper on the effects of his experiences during the first World War. I only came to realise this when I had grown up myself and looked back wondering why he was like that.

"parental violence instils fear into children. Parents who hit their children mistake fear for respect, and the children who learn that parents hit their offspring for every little transgression turn into deceivers; they lie their way out of trouble, and may continue to do it into adulthood."

No it doesn't, it instils respect and the rules of society.

I'm not talking about violent punishment causing injury, but the sort of discipline used in nature. A lion cub which gets a bit rough in play and nips its mother's tail may well get a cuff that will bowl them over, so will a chimp or gorilla "teenager", and there are many other examples in nature, from puppies getting nipped to lambs being butted. It is, literally, natural.

They learn to respect the other members of the peer group, and grow into normal healthy members of their society.

Please don't tell me that is what makes us separate from the animals, because at that age we are not.

As I have said before, children are like puppies, naturally mischievous, and they do need to be trained.