Jesus Christ, it's not sitting them down and just punching and kicking them over and over again. I think you have the wrong view and I think that you believe kids can't fathom the concept of "If I do something wrong it will have consequences."

Whenever I got in trouble my mother, or grandma, or aunt, or whoever was watching me used a belt when I or any of my cousins misbehaved. The adults who did this weren't bursting over with anger either. If they were getting the belt in the first place then it was because they had already told us once before not to "try to flush the cat down the toilet" or "eat in the living room because we'll spill the food on the carpet" or "throw rocks at cars passing by in the street."

They'd pull us aside and calmly tell us that because of our behavior we were getting a whoopin' and let us live in agony until the time of the event. This was really effective because as a child there's no way to enjoy the time before you actually get a whoopin' because you know that in some amount of time you'll be receiving a whoopin'.

By the time we matured into our teens we were mature and very respectful of those around us. And it wasn't because we were afraid of adults or anything like that, we just realized and came to accept that adults probably knew more than us and we should probably listen to them. In the time growing up with my cousins, I never remember any of them getting into any fights whatsoever.

Of course, this won't work for every kid because sometimes people just turn out bad, but it's much more effective then just telling the kid to go sit in the corner for an hour doing nothing.

I think belt whoopins are fine, as long as the adult does not do it out of anger, but to discipline the child. This is very different from using your fists and feet to physically harm the child on a monumental scale.