I thank you to you all and I am sorry if I got personal. My trauma (scared for children) that got in remission and in last 2 years I have gotten only chronic depression and anxiety was again reactivated. It's very hard for me to write and worse to make it short:

Special thanks to Tishie, farmergirl, Rainbowzz, Rhapsody and Perna and who ever thinks outside the box and is not afraid to talk, who listen carefully to a request and answer thinking at all the situations, conditions, getting out from the “inside box” thinking, with honesty and integrity, as anyone who cares for his/her children and for this society, humanity should do.
“No - I do not feel that a "mild slap" as described by you in your first post is child abuse nor do I feel that it will cause any emotional damage to the child... I used hand taps on my children, my nieces, my nephews and now my own granddaughter and there has never been any harm done by it - they are now between ages 25 and 1 and they obey, respect and still love me - all very well behaved kids” (after I put the links regarding the new law!!)
I thank them for their courageous sincerity in a world in which exists a DUTY TO REPORT (that usually leads to extremist regimes, in history!) and the machine of social services created for the protection, welfare, development and whatever else they will invent anymore… in order to pressure you for years because of a SLAP! The humanity probably solved already the other types of abuse and eradicated violence and we reached so advanced that soon will have children’s factories with professional supervisors instead of parents. No one could ask the supervisors to be as perfect as they ask us, parents, to be! I don’t think a supervisor who usually respects instructions and wants just to “cover his/her butt” would risk something for the children “well being” or the child “best-interest” as about abuses they have NO LIABILITIES but only GOOD FAITH when is to judge their acts!
I do consider too that you would be better scaring on the moment your child to avoid see him/her learning bad habits or injured or dead! It’s easy to see if a child is well average developed and functioning, nurtured, clothed, without many absences at school and visiting a physician and taken care by an average normal parent and no one should give lessons to such parent as each child is unique and no one could know so well a child. What’s the purpose of putting under pressure a parent and a family for a slap or light hit, till the broken point? Just for having more objects-subjects of work? Waiting for who knows maybe the parent without authority, rights to guide a child anymore but still responsible for that child will do abuse or commit suicide or the child like any teenager push the limits over any limit and so some people from social services got more work to do, when they do not have enough)

Of course that the above women have nice educated children; children who are independent thinkers, who have good reports in school while doing probably some extra curriculum activities, too. On short; children with moms (mums) that really spend quality time with them! And, like my daughter, their children trust them and talk more with them than talk with friends in school! We all know that genetics could affect different the children and society too. That’s why a parent needs sometime a huge patience and love to address problems like ADHD, ODD, or other disorders who affects a child decisions and possibility to think on long term at consequences no matter that it could reason over his/her age. If other authorities will dictate and imply all the time that a parent might abuse the child when teenager the child could use that as a weapon to push the limits not even realizing what is doing and what happens.
AShadow721 has an interesting position: “I would say it's abuse if your daughter felt that it was” – Wonder how many adults know! (I will right more on therapist threads and give specific examples of what can a therapist instil in a child’s head!)
You wrote an emergency situation that could be practically the same for a child in any crisis! “my ex slapped me in the face. I was very angry with him, but I understood he was trying to "slap some sense" into me so I wouldn't commit SU. I wouldn't consider that abuse.” -

““Anything you do that instills fear can be construed as abuse.”
Is it so? WE might fear God or Allah or a divine power or the Law or the school code but none of them considered till now a slap, light hit an ABUSE. Have all the parents to be put on "PROCUST'S BED" and raise their children in fear? What logic is this?
Araya “As for your other point, I do of course think that spanking a child is the lesser of two evils between it and the scenarios you presented. However, I don't see how lack of spanking automatically leads to those conditions?”
I beg your pardon? I knew that my logic (reasoning) it was over average –no chance to still be emotional of 5. I Make genuine mistakes and that’s why I asked people to stop till they read the new law that dictates a DUTY TO REPORT “any suspicious…even of a risk” of some mental disease of parent or child … only fascist, communists, dictatorial regime did that, not trusting the citizens because some groups gathered more power over POLICE and JUSTICE and LEGISLATORS!

I might make mistakes thinking that having a civic sense (honesty, integrity and real interest for the evolution of my society! ) and nothing to be afraid or ashamed to ask help from professionals when having problems with a child:
I might let, without knowing that not all professional are tested, an narcissist omnipotent person like you in my house (without asking of warrant or charges) not imagining that a professional could do a sloppy work and even lie because they got “prescribed” by law NO LIABILITY and all is GOOD FAITH and no judge and jury could appreciate an offence (in law too!) “If your child really requires that level of physical force to discipline, it might even be beneficial to get a professional in the household to assess it and see why that might be”
Are you an investigator from the Frozen North where the abuses and youth offence greatly increased (at least 25%) after social services multiplied as personal many time in time…no matter the youth population decrease 10% with all the immigration? Araya “As for your other point, I do of course think that spanking a child is the lesser of two evils between it and the scenarios you presented. However, I don't see how lack of spanking automatically leads to those conditions?”
I beg your pardon? I knew that my logic (reasoning) it was over average but I do not make sense of your question and I am not used to see bad intention around; It may be my “mental illness”! You wrote that discipline must be “more difficult for a parent with a mental illness, but you still think it's important for the child's well being” … referring to my question about slapping once a child? No offence, but you might know better!
When someone, even a child, kills, hits or harms (physically, emotionally) people around, snapping out or harming himself or be under an angry crisis you may need to stop that person by maybe harming, hitting, or even killing thinking of the best of all including that person too; instead of just looking at how others are killed off or abused or in case of our children putting their life in danger or ruining it before they understand that reasoning it’s not enough for taking a decision when not able to appreciate the context and being able to see the consequences on longer term! Who said that the lack of spanking a child automatically leads to spanking, killing, hitting,? For me is sincerely hard to follow up this reasoning.
But probably you can’t overcome the childhood problems and you are still in need “to please” “ I was just willing to say whatever I needed to in order to avoid more pain. Later, when I was a teenager, I didn't tell my mother things it really would have benefited me to share, because I didn't have that trust in her. I had learned to get around authority and be sneaky about something they'd consider bad, because I was afraid” I was beaten when a child but that didn’t teach me to please, to lie and to be sneaky!
“When you spank, you're teaching your child that if they're bad enough, it's okay to be hurt.”

My child, knowing that I don’t like to hit (and I am convinced that the majority of parents, don’t normally enjoy that!!) told me at one moment that better slap her than to abuse her emotionally, psychologically… taking her computer! The family therapist said in front of my child “that was an extreme punishment; You should not use it!” and demanded to give back the computer to my child because she needs that for school! Actually in her idea you should never double a punishment or increase it no matter the child is not respecting any! Same logic like yours!
What’s more harmful for a child when you have to choose what it’s better to do and to le the child know about life? Should I teach my child that is okay to do any bad to her or to others because she will never be … hurt? Hm… Any punishment-consequence hurts! But some hurts on moment … while people like you could hurt more much. Do I have to teach my child that he/she could, harm physically and mentally other people or himself … and in life nothing bad could happen to him/her?
There are innocent, not guilty, parents who have done prison or are in prison, not only because one Dr. Smith in Canada or another doctor P in U.K! Hitler or Stalin didn’t create a system alone!