Another thing is that parents need to have a balance. Every little thing I did that was bad didn't result in an ass whoopin, most of the time my father would sit me down, talk to me, reason with me, and outline a better method of behavior. If I was a knuckle head and kept fukking up THEN it was time for the ass whooping. In this way I had nobody to blame for myself at this form of physical punishment .
Yes children can be smart, but they can also be STUPID at times or think that they are more clever than they are. The guy who said that Cac kids have so much leverage that they can do whatever has a point, because it applies to black kids as well. Black kids without proper parental discipline don't understand that their skin color already gives them two strikes, they have LESS opportunity to learn from "teenage Mistakes" as Cacs. A black kid selling weed or committing small petty crimes like shop lifting at the mall will NOT be given leniency to "learn" from that dumb mistake so it is up to the parent to enforce that. shyt like stealing would have been an absolute "don't pass Go, head DIRECTLY for that ass whoopin" situation in my household because of the seriousness of checking that kind of behavior.
When I look back on my childhood, I was actually spared quite a few ass whooping a that I deserved by my Father doing his BEST to show us another way. If the easy way didn't work then we had to learn the "hard" way and that kept me on the straight and narrow. Never been arrested, Never done any drugs outside of smoking weed twice, Always kept a decent job, etc. same thing for my 4 other siblings.