I liked the last few posts. The word punishment is to strong a word. I consider my approach to be a combination of communication and consequence. Some young children do not respond to verbal communication, so I use physical communication. Think of the physical communication as steering the child's behavior. It does not have to be punishment.
It's true that often a two or three year olds can often only communicate their feelings using their teeth or their hands, but as adults we have a lot more tools at our disposal and violence is counterproductive. The worst thing one of my kids can do is hurt another person, so we reserve the worst consequence for it, as I imagine you do. Saying "don't hit!" followed closely by *BAM* is a hell of a confusing message for anyone, let alone a child.
