I don't think anyone should ever be allowed to hit their children. I was never hit when I was young, and I'm still not now, but that doesn't mean I was so good I was never punished. But think about it - being sent to your room on a nice day, often without your favourite toys and not being allowed to use your laptop and having to stay there until dinner time, is so boooring! It is one of the worst punishments - even worse than being grounded. Then there's the usual little lecture when you come down about thinking about what you did - and saying you won't do it again - blech!
So yeh, there's lots of way to punish kids which doesn't involve beating them.
I like this bit of a poem by a Khalil Gibran.
'Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.'
Parents should remember that children are not property.