Well you know what I got punished for?

Endangering myself or others.
Endangering the life of an animal.
Destroying something valuable, important, or needlessly.

Now, a child who breaks one of these rules in my house will be punished. Not with a belt, not with a spoon, not with exessive force. But a few spankings on the rear. And when that is done, and they've cried it out, then and only then will I talk to them about it. You cant reason with a child who's rebeling or who's upset. They wont hear you. Slapping them will only make it worse.

Let me tell you something, when I was little, I was afraid of my dad. By and large thanks to my mother who was abusing me metally, and using my father as an object of fear. He came home, and would imediately punish me (even after my mother would already have punished me) and she deliberately forgot to tell him that she had, so it was an "unfair" beating. But the thing is, when you get older you come to an understanding as to why you were "beaten".

If your father/mother was a cruel person then yes your going to resent them, and if they beat you unfairly then by all means you shouldnt forgive them until they ask for it. I think that a smacking a kid on/around the crainium is also wrong. When I was living with my aunt, after my parents were both arrested. I'd been living with her over a month, and she was a cruel woman who allowed her daughters to torment me, locked me up in a room for an entire day, without anything to do. After she told me that I was to brush my teeth she (and this was her habbit) murmured that I could play my Nintendo after I was done for an hour. After brushing my teeth, I ran over to her, and made sure because I'd been punished several times before. Instead a simple yes or no, she grabbed me and started shaking violently screaming at me. To this day, I still have type 3 dyslexia that thankfully I've been mainly able to over come.

But see, punishing people for "smacking" their children, and then real abuse are two different things that should be defined. For example, smacking a child on the rear could be placed under and punish parents who dont smack children unfairly and across the cheek with the back of their hand. People like my aunt should be punished for what they do. But people like my father who do it as a corrective messure shouldnt.