I am not willing to discuss any possible laws in California, but spanking is a theme which deserves some attention. In Finland, spanking is explicitly forbidden in law, but there are still many parents who practices this mistaken method. Some of them explain that they "wanted to control the situation". However, physical punishment never leads to any control, but, instead to more chaos. In some unhappy cases, parents are regularly spanking a child who has some neurological problem, e.g. ADHD syndrome, or something which reminds of it. Use of physical punishment in these cases will lead to more misery and dangerous feelings of inferiority, and worsens the initiative of the child. In Finland, some institutions are conducting regularly studies on the use of physical punishment, how widely it is practiced, and how many parents accept this practice. I am not sure that we are able to eliminate this habit with the help of psychological counseling. Counseling and education in these cases are always good things, provided there are enough resources available. Public campaigns, opinion studies, use of literature, film and tv are certainly useful, especially television, because many people do not read much in these days. A law gives a political signal of the will of nation, but law as such never stops an adverse behavior so long as some people feel that this adverse behavior is somehow useful for them. People should be educated to understand that all use of force always and unconditionally leads to more chaos and more problems, and does not solve anything.