Reasonable is indeed very difficult to define. But we can agree can we not with utmost certainty that the Lillybings and Kahuis were never subjected to reasonable force.
And none of the Bradford-inspired sophistries that (in summary) attempt to convince us all that there is an inevitable and irresistible continuum from smacking your child for playing with matches or running across the street and risking their death (to illustrate two common uses of the palm of the parental hand to canalise the cortex of the child of the 50s for the child's own protection and benefit), to murdering your child as per the above examples, have any basis in fact or logic.
Pain is an effective way of learning. If you don't know it hurts - it you don't feel it hurt / learn that it hurts - you leave your skin in the sun till it turns red and your fingers in the fire till they char.
What I think is not as relevant here, as are the facts of neurophysiology and behaviour modification. Pain (as in developing a reflex aversive / avoidance response to stimuli previously experienced to be unpleasant, noxious and therefore worth avoiding) is indeed an effective teacher. Now people may reasonably disagree about whether pain should be administered by parents, as a way to develop risk aversion in children; but one surely cannot ignore the fact that the experience of pain is an effective modifier of future behaviour.
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