Agreed, also Kali.
Ovr's mom ditched his real dad when he was 2ish and his sister was about 4. Their step dad started beating the ***out of them basically right away, and a few years later their mom started to do it too. Alcoholic and abuse seem to go hand in hand, really. Anyway, because they'd get the crap knocked out of them on the regular, his sister's like terrified of laying a hand on her 4 kids because she doesn't want to end up like her mom was to her. Because of this, her kids pretty much run her *** because they know nothing is gonna happen to them.
People just need to realize that discipline is not a bad thing, both to the people dealing it out and taking it. It's purpose is to correct disobedience, and to follows the rule of the household and behave accordingly.
People practice self discipline all the time, being able to control yourself is a must and that comes from learning what discipline is to begin with.
The problem I see is some people just don't know how to discipline their children, so the resort to extremes that really don't even help. If you believe hitting your child will stop their behavior, doing it too much will result in very negative side effects over their lifetime. Not disciplining them when they should will result in them doing w/e they please in life, no matter what the consequence is. This could even be the result of too severe discipline as well, the child no longer understand the discipline so they find a way to get around getting punished.
I took some severe verbal abuse from my mother when I was young after my father died, she didn't know how to cope with it and used me as a release from her anger and grief. I think that made me be very closed in and keeping everything to myself, not talking to kids at school and listening to what every teach had to say, and making sure I never made a mistake so I didn't have to deal with her even more.
I don't think parents really think about what their actions will result in for their children. It doesn't really apply here, but "for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction" I feel is true. If you sit your child in time out, then confront them afterwards and have them explain what they did wrong and why it was wrong, then you forgive them and make up with them, you are giving a punishment but you're comforting them afterwards. I think that's important, to show that you care for them after punishing them. I think too many parents just hand out punishments without showing their children that they are doing it because they love them and that they don't want them to grow up thinking that behavior is okay. Whether it be from the overload of stress from work and raising a child, and they are trying to take an easy way out, I still don't think it's okay to punish your child w/o following up with it.