coffee addict,
“Are you saying that the gaonim tannaim and amaroaim who spanked their kids had their kids turn out violent?”
There is a world of difference between “100 years ago” per your OP and the way chazal lived and did things. They are not interchangeable. Don’t look at the early 20th Century or the 1950s as some sort of gold standard.
“I understand that there is a way it should be done, with love and respect but it’s not the spanking it’s the way it’s done”
The problem is, there is almost nobody on this planet who will spank a child for the “right reasons” and in the “right way.” Spanking is almost always the last resort of impatience and frustration with a child, because it yields the “results” of submission and obedience quite effectively. The problem is, while the parent wins the short game, in the long run, submission and obedience aren’t the true results we seek. It’s proper chinuch that we want, and spanking is more often a short circuit than a shortcut to that end. A child spanked by a rageful or frustrated parent, or one embarrassed by his child’s behavior in public, will submit, will cry, and may even apologize for his behavior when that is demanded of him, but he won’t be feeling regret over his actions and a desire to do better. He will be feeling rage towards the parent, or his own humiliation and embarrassment over the spanking, not the behavior.