Parents do not discipline children today. They are simply NOT ALLOWED. Small Children who misbehave are put in a "time out" chair(what a pile of crap). No longer is a swat on the ass acceptable, just try sending a child to bed without supper, nowadays.
While you make excellent points about truths here, I don't see the parental problem here being something based in society. The things you've listed look like a performance and skill deficit to me. I think that the problem is knowledge of effective behavioral techniques. In truth, a threat of my Dad's belt as a child was enough to keep me in line in most cases, but research has shown that non violent behavioral techniques are far more effective. It is also a common misconception that modern behavioral techniques are effectively bribing children.
Research-based techniques like "time out" often don't work because they are not implemented effectively. Parents have to look for the function of a child's behavior rather than using a blanket discipline. Functions of behavior are generally broken down in to 4 parts:
Attention: the child wants peer or adult attention.
Escape/Avoidance- the child wants to escape/avoid an undesired activity or task.
Tangibles- the child wants a certain item or to do a certain task.
Sensory- the child wants certain sensory stimulation.
Here is an example of a scenario using the above concept. You ask your child to clean their room. The child is currently playing video games. The child is non-compliant, and continues to play games. You could threaten you kid or spank them, basically coercion and fear. Or you could TRAIN your kid to WANT to clean their room. This is what I would suggest using behavior shaping techniques:
1. Tell the child that he must clean his room. I would let him know that I will be taking the video game until his room is cleaned. I will say that he cannot return to the game until I check his room and approve it. If he throws a temper tantrum or begins to argue, I will ignore his behavior.
2. If his behavior escalates after I take the game, I will continue to ignore him. Escalation is common especially if throwing a tantrum in the past would have gotten him back his game. The child is behaving that way because he wants access to tangibles, therefore, I would continue to make it clear that a clean room is the only way for him to get what he wants. I would then hold firm to my decision.
3. I would inspect the clean room, and make him meet all standards by continuing to withhold his game. Once he finished cleaning, I would give him back his game and praise him for calming down and complying with my demand.
So what happened here? Function is desire for tangible-->desired activity is taken away until compliance--> undesired behavior (tantrum) is not reinforced-->preferred behavior (compliance) is reinforced--> child is rewarded with desired activity for demonstrating the correct behavior.
Unfortunately, many parents break down and don't stick to their guns, they use the wrong discipline for the behavior, or they forget to reinforce the child when they perform as they are expected. This doesn't mean giving them something every time, but can take the form of verbal praise or shared time with the parent. Liken child behavior to training a dog. If you beat (old punishment method) the dog you will get poor results. Maybe quick compliance, but not the same result. This is the reason why my dog for example, will come to me when he's done something wrong and my dad's will cower and run if she is in trouble. My dog doesn't fear me, he is trained to obey.
Wow, tangent. Sorry folks haha!