Evidence suggests that slapping children does not quiet them down.

On occasion we are led to believe that there was a time when flying was a glamorous way to travel.  While I am not sure that time ever existed, if it did that time is gone.  Exhibit A in support of the fact that flying has gone from glamorous to brutal might be the case of Joe Rickey Hundley.

As reported by KTVB, a Boise, Idaho TV station, Mr. Hundley was a passenger on a flight to Atlanta.  Sitting in the same row as Mr. Hunley was a 33-year-old woman and her 18-month-old son.  The boy began crying as the plane came in for a landing.  Mr. Hundley then allegedly told the mother to quiet the boy (using the n-word as an adjective in case the woman was confused as to which boy should be quieted).  When that didn't work, Mr. Hundley allegedly slapped the child.

You can read the affidavit of the FBI Special Agent who investigated the matter here.  The affidavit states that at least one other passenger on the plane saw Mr. Hundley strike the child.  As a result, Mr. Hundley has been charged with assaulting a minor on an aircraft.

It will shock no one who has ever been a parent or even around children, that slapping the child did not cause the boy to stop crying.  Instead, the boy only cried more loudly.  This is undoubtedly because in addition to whatever discomfort was causing him to cry in the first place, the boy now had the experience of being slapped by a strange man to go with it.