@Ani:

So you equate children to animals who have no brain capacity to know what they're doing and must be violently conditioned against "bad" behaviors like your dog. This reasoning doesn't make it OK to hit them.

How many children have you even seen? I deal with 3-4+ year olds for my work. Regardless of what you want to think, they aren't that stupid. Treating them like idiots who have to be hit to "get the point" doesn't help their intellectual growth or ability to distinguish "right from wrong," only making them understand with their mind helps.

If you already think a child is an idiot who won't get it unless you hit them, it makes me wonder how much you'd even bother reasoning with a child before hitting him in the first place. I often just see DO WHAT I SAY, YOU'RE NOT DOING IT? *SMACK*.