Is Spanking A Safe And Effective Way To Get Children To Behave? Most parents want to raise thoughtful, responsible and obedient children. There are many discipline options used to obtain this goal. Now more parents are questioning the saftey and effectiveness of spanking to teach children to behave. To understand and answer our question we need to define spanking. Spanking is a form of corporal punishment that can range from a pat on a childs hand or bottom to severs use of a belt or other objects(Straus, 1994). The intent of corporal punishment is to inflict pain but not to infl