Aside from some rabbonim who believe/believed that corporeal punishment is not effective in our society, due to the increasingly irreverent and disrespectful nature of children who grow up in the Western world, are we to refer to chosech shivto sonei b’no as child abuse? Did Rav Wolbe and Rav Pam (the only prominent rabbonim I’m aware of who said to completely cease all patching) refer to it as such? Did they say that if you see a parent or a rebbe hitting a kid the yiddishe way, meaning not in anger, and not severely – which halacha mandates or at the very least allows – you should report them to the authorities as a child abuser?
They did not. They lived Torah. They didn’t take their attitudes and values from Western culture.