Ephesians 6:4
And, you fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Colossians 3:21
Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.
I have looked at these texts as being loving to your child and surely thinking before you strike them in anger. I was physically punished a lot growing up even though I was a good kid. My mother had some real anger issues and not many years ago she apologized to me. I only hit my oldest once as a child on the leg and felt bad about it because I was acting out of anger.
Good point. That is why I never spanked my daughter while I was mad about whatever she had done. If I was angry with her for whatever infraction she had committed, I would have her write down why she had done it and what she thought should be done about it. She told me that she would have preferred that I just spanked her because once spanked, the punishment was over. Usually, I would calm down and then, if I thought the offense deserved a spanking, I would spank her. Needless to say, she wasn't spanked with every offense.
My youngest I never hit. I found sitting them down and talking to them about their misbehavior did a lot. My youngest really hated that and would start crying right away. We did timeouts. That was sufficient. They have turned out to be very wonderful adults. I wouldn't have wanted some nut teacher hitting my kids. I don't know they would have considered my kids personality as I had and I would be concerned that the teacher would strike in anger. I am against that.
Talking to my daughter did help most of the time and sometimes was enough. Time outs never worked for my daughter and grounding rarely worked.
Like you, I didn't want a teacher spanking my daughter (to me, there's a difference between spanking and hitting).
My oldest today is an elementary school teacher. I don't know what all this all the kids today don't respect authority. Her kids love her and she never talks about how she wants or needs to hit this one or that one. I think the news blows out a few bad schools or incidents out of proportion. I think my school growing up was far worse than what she tells me her schools are like today. She has worked in 4 different ones. There was lots of violence going on in the late 60s and early 70s when I was growing up and corporal punishment was allowed in my school. I got hit with one shop teacher's "Peace Maker" broad paddle. Can't say I really respected him after that, but it was rare I misbehaved. I certainly respected and even loved a number of teachers who never used corporal punishment to discipline their class. To me corporal punishment is more about fear than respect.
Well, I would like to congratulate you on raising your children well. Different methods of discipline work for different people. Sometimes, all it takes is telling the child that you're disappointed in them for doing something they knew was wrong. Sometimes, it takes a timeout or grounding, and sometimes it takes a spanking to get them to realize that they did something wrong.
I don't think that anyone should physically punish a child but their parents. And, I don't think that anyone who has anger problems should physically punish their children (they can find other methods that would work).