Why I support corporal punishment
Christians should not be afraid to cite Holy Scripture in our defense of corporal punishment.
Every now and then, you see some good news: The New York Post reports that a "shocking number of millennial and Gen Z parents spank their kids." Yes. The world is healing. The wisdom of centuries past is being restored.
Christians have known the wisdom of spanking for two thousand years. Scripture instructs fathers to use corporal punishment in Proverbs 13:24 and Proverbs 23:12-14. This is not strictly an Old Testament teaching, as the Holy Spirit informs us in Hebrews 12:5-8 that if we are not disciplined, we are bastards instead of sons. In the 20th Century, we started rejecting the authority of Scripture in favor of psychobabble. Christians should not be afraid to cite Holy Scripture in our defense of corporal punishment. This is something that, to my shame, I have failed to do.
Children do not have (nor should they have) complete, inalienable "security of the person" that can never be violated. There are all kinds of rights adults have that we do not give to children (like the right to vote, drive or drink alcohol) because we as a society have determined that children, before a certain age, are not ready to handle those rights and the responsibility that comes with them. That is also why we have restricted child labor and restricted what jobs teenagers are permitted to do - to protect them from being exploited and to protect their physical safety.
Here is an example. If a child is about to touch a hot stove, the parent, if he/she is a responsible parent, must violate the child's "security of the person" by using physical force to keep the child from doing so, if the parent is physically able to prevent it. No sane person would suggest that a fourteen-month-old child just learning how to walk should not be physically restrained in that case. This also applies to running out into a busy street or any number of other things.
This is not an "all or nothing" issue where children either have "security of the person" or they do not. It is a scale of when that right kicks in. This is why many legal codes allow parents to use reasonable physical force in disciplining their children that you could not do to an adult. That same system of laws would not allow a parent to do things that would be defined as child abuse. Children do (and should) have "security of the person" to protect them from being abused, by parents or anyone else. There is more leeway for parents (or others entrusted with the care of the child, to some extent) to use corporal punishment on their own child than for someone else to use physical force on an adult.
It is within parental rights (or should be) to discipline their children in a way they see fit. This also falls under parental authority, as God gave the parents authority that does not belong to either the church or the civil magistrate. Unfortunately, some want to take away that right and proper authority though legislation.
I do not believe that a parent who never uses corporal punishment is somehow deficient. There are lots of ways to discipline a child, and some methods work better with some children than others. In addition, some parents are more comfortable with some disciplinary measures than others. There is a wide array of diverse ways parents discipline their children in attempting to raise them to be the best adults they can. The difference between me and the advocates of the Nanny State is that I am not willing to, by force of government intervention, take away one option from millions of families by assuming that I know better than they do how to raise their own children.