Personally I advocate a mutli-tiered approach whereby for most indiscretions, the punishment is no worse than ritual humiliation (standing in a corner for young children, grounding of some sort for teens, especially where they are forced to admit to their friends that they can't participate in an activity, because they are being punished for their behavior).
It turns out that that it's not the pain that does it, it's the emotions that get associated to the forbidden behavior. Strong emotions have a powerful effect on our habits. This is called (no pun intended) "bottom-up learning"--it means that the learning starts in a primitive, and highly reliable, part of our brain such as the limbic system (I think that's where the emotions are), and works its way UP to the highly advanced frontal lobe, which is rational but always loses when it's pitted against the lower parts of the brain.
Imagine for example that someone decides that she needs to lose some weight...and her sister has just showed up at her door with a present consisting of her very favorite freshly home-baked dessert.
Now, sister has to run along, but she drops off the dessert with an invitation to enjoy it, and leaves promptly to run some important errands.
At first, the would-be dieter thinks that she'll save it for her family, none of whom have the weight issue, for a treat after dinner. She sets it out on the table and puts a cover over it.
But she just CAN'T get her mind off that dessert! The more she tries to STOP thinking about it--the more she thinks about it.
Eventually, oh like bloody hell she's going to leave it alone! At first she thinks she'll just have "a bite". Before she knows it, she's eaten the whole darn thing!
What happened? Easy. Only her neocortex was on-board for NOT eating the dessert. The rest of her brain, which not only isn't rational, but doesn't really understand nuances like the differences between "good fats" and "bad fats", was determined to carry out the "must supply body with necessary calories" program. It was just doing its job!
The subconscious ALWAYS wins these tugs-of-war.
That's why just "talking about what happened" doesn't work, UNLESS there are strong emotions attached one way or another. You can talk a kid out of bad behavior, but only by talking to them in such a way that you associate strong, negative emotions to the behavior. Some folks are very good at this, and some aren't.
A typical teenaged boy isn't all that fragile, and he only got two swats, one on each "cheek". The pastor said they both cried over it. I would guess for the boy it was the shame of the experience more than anything else. For the pastor, it was probably feeling like he had to share an unpleasant experience when he would rather have shared a pleasant experience, but saw no alternative course of action.
As far as talking goes, it's important to use any talking that goes on to connect the strong emotion to the behavior.
This will never work:
"DO YOU WANT A SPANKING?! JUST LOOK WHAT YOU DID YOU NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY CHILD!"
The answer is "no". The parent has just emphasized that this is a contest of wills. And the parent has just told the child that (s)he is fundamentally "naughty", which does not suggest a change in behavior, or that one is even possible. It suggests, on the the contrary, that the child is fundamentally incorrigible.
I've heard this type of language many times; I think it's a fairly common mental habit. This works better:
"You need to go sit on the naughty-stool there facing the corner BECAUSE you pulled your sister's hair."
"WAH! WAH! I DON'T WANT TO SIT IN THE CORNER!" (stomps feet)
"THAT'S RIGHT, YOU DON'T want to sit in the corner, do you? So maybe next time you'll use your words to resolve your differences with your sister."
No more discussion. Disengage during the punishment; for some reason disengagement is actually MORE irritating to the child than negative attention. Parent calmly escorts or if necessary picks up and puts child on naughty stool, facing corner. No brutality necessary, but child soon realizes that clock does not start ticking until (s)he resigns self to sit and conform to the program. Clock starts over again all the way back to the beginning if (s)he gets off stool before parent gives explicit permission.
Oddly enough...
The reason physical punishment does not usually work--in fact, usually backfires--is because the child is associating it with parent losing her (his) temper, and not with the behavior.
This has been realized for some time by a certain "alternative psychology" crowd, but the mainstream missed it until a study came out that showed that while white American children who are physically punished tend to behave worse, Afroamerican children who receive physical punishment tend to behave BETTER.
Needless to say it created an uproar, and most of the mainstream community rejected it without consideration. But the mainstream community was failing to make the connection to what the difference was. When asked, the Afroamerican children connected the punishment with their behavior. "I got whupped for playing hooky from school". That's because the connection is widely-understood in their culture, and expected. If you ask the parents (or don't--it's not a secret) they are very up-front and unapologetic about it: "ya gotta whup 'em when they do bad stuff".
White parents are more likely to smack if and only if they lose their tempers. They usually try the talking approach first, which, as noted, does not usually work because they're not doing it correctly, and they eventually lose their tempers and start smacking. The child correctly observes that "I got smacked because Mom is in a bad mood."
