Do you not see that's using violence to counter act violence? And damage to counter act damage? You may not get that point across the best way if you hit a child for hitting. It's punishing them for doing something that you're doing to punish them. If the adult hits them, than why would they think it's so wrong to hit the dogs? And hitting them doesn't really teach them to respect all living things, because it's not very respectful to them. The parents are doing what they are punishing for, what they are trying to teach the child is wrong and disrespectful. And for them doing something dangerous, it's hurting them so they don't hurt themselves. It just doesn't really make sense. Maybe spanking them doesn't do as much harm as these serious things could, but there are other ways to discipline and teach them those things are wrong or dangerous. I know it's probably a spurt of the moment thing where you get scared and freak out, because you don't want your child to get hurt. It sounds ilike you don't like it or want to spank your kids. You know what? You don't have to. You can discipline them in other ways. I'm not trying to judge anyone, I just want to explain that the things that were taught to us as children, may not make much sense. A lot of people think that they have to spank their children, because that the way they grew up and they don't understand that you can do other things, because their parents didn't do other things. It's thousands of years of bad information, now we know it's effects and that it doesn't make much sense to do this. Just a couple decades ago, nearly all parents thought that spanking was a good way to parent, now half of the parents in the United States don't believe in it. And more and more countries are outlawing it.