Abuse....lol. Give me a break, sissification is right. It's not the punishment that effect the child, it's a situation where there is a lack of love and encouragement that does the damage. You can get fired up at a kid, sauce him and shower him and he'll understand but if when he isn't being bad, you don't give him/her love and encouragement, that's when they get emotionally f'd up. Punish them but love them too. Gotta show the love. This might seem like it's so bad because of the child reaction but give me a break, my buddy tells his daughter to get off the counter, takes her down off and she lays on the ground crying bloody murder...if anything she was just a bit too fired up....kids need punishing though.