I think it's interesting that in the 50s, 95% of parents supported spanking their children as a means of discipline. Today, that number is around 50%. I'm actually surprised it's as high as 50% today.

I think one of the problems is not that 50% do or do not believe in spanking, but rather effective means of discipline have not replaced spanking globally. In many cases, little or no discipline is used at all. The behavior of kids today is so unbelievable compared to past generations. Perhaps effective means of training and disciplining kids should be taught in school whether or not those kids grow up to have their own kids. I know parenting and childhood development is an elective in most schools and many kids take that course for the easy grade. I know my daughter did. They did not teach corporal punishment.

When they asked the kids in the class how many had been spanked by their parents, almost every hand went up. My daughter didn't raise her hand because she didn't remember ever being spanked. She was too young the two times I did spank her to recall it. That doesn't mean it didn't have an effect on her. Funny that she remembers the timeouts though. I guess those were more frequent.