My way of thinking says that too much permissiveness and leniency in only talking runs the risk of other damages. A child raise this way could and often does believe he can do anything he wants and get away with it. That to my way of thinking is also damage.
Yes, I agree if we're talking about too much permissiveness and leniency. That however was not my point. I'm all for setting boundaries and having the child face consequences when overstepping the line. I just disagree on the means to use for punishment or discipline. There's other ways than physical punishment, like taking away privileges for a certain amount of time, having the child apologize and find a way to make up for whatever happened...the possibilities are endless. And I've always found that punishment should be linked directly to the situation that went bad - I'm not sure that's possible with a spanking.