It is early Tuesday morning, and I am involved in my usual early-morning routine: waking up the kids, getting them to wash up and dressed, making breakfast and ensuring they eat it rather than decorate the kitchen with it, and getting them out the door and onto a school bus, while managing - in-between all these activities - to prepare myself for a day at work. This ultimate exercise in multitasking, so familiar to practically all mothers, must be conducted in a limited span of time, where an unexpected delay at any juncture may cause the entire system to fall apart into little pieces. In this situation, when a child is acting out in an unreasonable manner - determined, of course, by a reasonable parent - a quick and decisive punishment might be needed.

Despite various claims by psychologists and sociologists concerning the emotional trauma that physical punishment...