Call it the discipline wars. On one side stand no-nonsense parents, as firm as Patton, refusing to excuse misbehavior as child's play, and meting out punishment from an arsenal that includes grounding, curtailment of privileges, additional chores, even a good spanking.

The traditionalists, as they like to call themselves, rail against parents such as Karen Gatewood of Bucks County, Pa., who has twin 3-year-old girls.

Gatewood, 30, once spanked and called "time out." Now, she talks about her children's feelings. When the girls act up, she calmly suggests alternative activities and offers support ("I know you're sad") in the midst of tantrums -- a touchy-feely technique called "time-in."

To the traditionalists, this is all baloney.

And they make up a growing chorus contending that American parents, in the name of nurturing self-esteem, are so permissive that they're rearing out-of-control, self-centered brats.

"It's wimp parenting," says John Rosemond, guru of the moment to the traditional camp, what with his proclamations on toilet training (by age 2), TV (eliminate it 100 percent), and misbehavior (punish even slight infractions).

Lately, the battle of words is sounding particularly shrill: "We're punishment junkies," says Jordan Riak, the executive director of Parents and Teachers Against Violence in Education, but better known as the guy who recently proposed that Oakland, Calif., become a No-Spanking Zone.

Even though the Oakland City Council defeated the No-Spanking Zone by one vote in January, Riak says he plans to reintroduce the idea there and take his message nationwide. In Europe, he notes, several countries, including Sweden, Norway and Finland, have outlawed corporal punishment (spanking) of children.

"A responsible, competent parent promotes a relationship built on trust and nurturing, and not on violence and punishment," Riak says.

"The adult has to look at himself or herself as the source of the problem. What are the adults doing that's wrong? What's making the kid act that way?" he asks.

Whatever one's politics on parenthood, this much is clear: We're an insecure lot, and we're hungry for answers.

Television dramas tackle the issue (Tony Soprano, the lead character on HBO's "The Sopranos," on a recent Sunday bemoaned the fact that society had made it unacceptable to smack his wayward son). Ten million books on child care and family life are sold each year. Workshops abound. Rosemond travels the country, preaching his style of raising children, a back-to-the-'50s style heavy on punishment.

The clock may be running out on time-out. That staple of discipline, in which a child must sit alone in a chair, came into vogue in the early 1990s, following a drop in the popularity of spanking.

The buzzword now is time-in, a process of reasoning with a misbehaving child.

"Time-in helps children build stronger connections with parents," says Jean Illsley Clarke, author of "Time-In: When Time-Out Doesn't Work" (Parenting Press Inc., $9.95). "The child feels like the parent is there to guide. 'No matter what I do, the parent's on my team.' "

She and other authorities on child-rearing contend that time-out only brands a child as bad and ostracizes him from the group, even if only for a few minutes.

Gatewood, a medical technologist who is now a stay-at-home mother, changed her ways after a hair-pulling day. Her daughters, 18 months old then, defied over and over her entreaties to stay clear of a bookshelf. She finally spanked one child. It was only a pat, but she felt bad about it.

So Gatewood turned to the Internet parent resource -- www.parentsplace.com/ for help. She read that the girls were too young to control their impulses, that spanking, or anything else short of removing the bookshelf, would make no difference. She discovered the gospel of what is billed as "positive parenting."

Since then, Gatewood has assumed the role of "teacher advocate," offering support even in the heat of tantrums. "I'm respectful to them," she says one afternoon as Amanda and Rebecca play in the yard. "They know I'm for them."

Amanda recently wanted to take a favorite piece of string on an outing. Gatewood warned that she might lose it, but Gatewood didn't argue with the child. She allowed the natural and logical consequences to unfold.

Sure enough, Amanda lost the string and sobbed.

Gatewood didn't ignore Amanda's feelings, as some pediatricians suggest in the face of a tantrum. "I said, 'That is sad. It's horrible,' because to her, it was horrible. She said, 'I won't bring my toys next time.' "

It was discipline, Gatewood insists, but it was delivered without a spank or a time-out.

To Frank Farley, a Temple University psychologist and father of two girls, "discipline is structure, an order to things and limits."

He sounds as if he is more rigid than Gatewood. But he isn't.

Farley says yes to a lot in his household -- behavior that might make another parent furious.

Take the scribble on the off-white walls of the family room.

"I have said, 'Don't draw on the walls,' " says Farley. But he has never punished his daughters -- Frankee, 4, and Annee, 3 -- for scribbling.

"I can paint it," he says. (The girls did stop writing on the walls after nearly two years.)

Farley does acknowledge, however, that "Let us reason together" doesn't always work.

"Find your own way," he says. "There's no one best way."

In other words, buy a book. Take a workshop. But discipline in America is a parent's choice -- at least for now.