The type of discipline you use with your child depends on their age. We would never encourage spanking as a form of discipline. There are many alternative forms of discipline you can use in place of physical discipline that are very effective. The suggestion for the book 1-2-3 Magic is a great one. It has great ideas for disciplining young children. Behavioral techniques tend to work much better on younger children. Rewarding kids for their positive behaviors with "things" and verbal praise will go a long way in encouraging the continuance of those behaviors. Also, giving consequences such as a loss of an extra sweet treat or a privilege such as TV or phone time for negative behaviors is very effective. Time outs can be effective as long as the child is not grounded to a place that is fun for them such as giving them a time out in their room where they have video games.

As children get older they need more discussion as to why what they did was wrong and real life consequences to follow. Grounding works when the crime is related to them having the freedom to go out and about on their own. For example, if they broke the door to their room because slammed it while they were mad, grounding wouldn't be appropriate.

Each child and situation is different. You know your child the best so assess what type of discipline they respond to and continue to do that. Remember to give positive praise whenever possible.

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Personally, I think that spanking done properly and with love is fine, but since my step daughter's mother FREAKED OUT when I spanked her daughter once (she was trying to pick the lock of the gun safe ffs!), I've had to figure out other discipline techniques for both of the kids.

Now we're using what we call reward stones.  Basically, we have a bunch of those glass pebbles and when they do good things we put some in the reward jar.  For bad behavior we take some away.  When the jar gets filled, they'll get a reward (currently they're working towards some play equipment for the back yard.)  

It all goes into one jar, which creates an environment of peer pressure for the kids to do good.  It's pretty common for one of the kids to encourage the other one to act good so they will earn or not lose reward stones.

Time outs don't work for us as punishment.  We only use it as a calm-down thing.  When one of the kids is getting out of control, we send them to their room until they've calmed down and can behave, but the time that takes is pretty much up to them.