[alien_at_work]

>never seek out advice from reliable resources.

What reliable resources would those be? Poorly defined, crap studies done by people who've never had children and the study was never independantly reproduced by anyone?

In the beginning, pain is the only means of communication (although we didn't actually spank, a little tug on the side burns did the trick). In my experience, once a child is old enough to understand time-based punishment (e.g. you don't get to watch TV tomorrow) a little and what it will mean, that becomes more effective.