My first reaction to reading the title:

Seriously, though, what's the point? Everything is an illness of some kind these days. Besides, who can prove what is or isn't sane? Or that those doing the judging are not insane themselves?

While positive reinforcement works for most children some of the time and for some children most of the time, teaching what is not acceptable using whatever will work must be one of parents' main jobs.

It seems that there are some people who would not have children punished at all for their bad deeds. They would prevent parents from using discipline.

Then, at age 16 or 18 or some other arbitrary age, they believe that the state can step in, put these ex-children into court and punish them far more severely for things that the child never had a sufficient chance to understand were not acceptable. It suddenly becomes OK for society to punish harshly and at great expense, when a loving smacking on the bottom many years before might have been all that was needed.

"Spanking may be linked to mental disorders" is a dead give-away of a group with an agenda based on unprovable data. Lack of spanking is much more likely to be linked to mental and social disorders.

If its ok to hit kids, then its OK to hit women too in my book.. Or anyone else for that matter who needs "correction"..

Time to ditch spanking law, say Canadian doctors, calling it excuse for poor parenting

OTTAWA - The Canadian Medical Association Journal says it's time to do away with the Criminal Code's so-called spanking law.
A strongly worded editorial in the journal Tuesday calls for the repeal of Section 43 of the Criminal Code, which gives parents and teachers a legal defence when they physically discipline children.
"It is time for Canada to remove this anachronistic excuse for poor parenting from the statute book," editor-in-chief John Fletcher wrote in a signed editorial.

Read more: Time to ditch spanking law, say Canadian doctors, calling it excuse for poor parenting