>There are people that were spanked as a kid that grew up violent, despising their parents or simply engaging in more dangerous behavior due to the breakdown of

>There are people that were spanked as a kid that grew up violent, despising their parents or simply engaging in more dangerous behavior due to the breakdown of trust. My point is that negative reinforcement has its place, not that it is desirable in and of itself. My parents very seldom used it, but it wasn't completely off the table, and I am confident that I benefited from that approach. That is a fundamentally different situation than one where spankings or other physical punishment are so common as to have children lose trust in their parents. I always trusted my parents. >We also know that hitting your pets does not work either, yet for some reason we seem to believe that hitting children is effective. Speaking of pets and pain: the hotwire that I used around the horse corral kept both my dogs and the horses safe, with only an absolute minimum of actual pain. No animal needed more than one or two incidences of contact to learn to not mess with the fence, and there was no more effective solution available. Note that this isn't hitting or striking an animal out of anger- it is a very specifically directed form of negative reinforcement to prevent otherwise dangerous behaviors from spreading. It works very well, and does not cause the affected animals any long-term trauma. The just learn to respect the wire barrier. Just like they know that it will hurt if they touch it, they also know that it won't chase or bother them if they leave it alone, and that's usually how it goes, no stress beyond the first few contacts.