Whether a teacher punished a student or, if they did, how they punished them, has only a fairly casual relationship to whether or not they treated that student with respect. I’ve done my best to respect my students – I haven’t always succeeded as well as I could, but overall I think I’ve done a pretty good job of it. This is fairly separate though as to whether or not I punished them, whether or not I caned them.
I don’t think there is any respect in not doing what you believe will benefit a student. In fact I think that is very disrespectful to the student’s needs. I don’t think there’s anything respectful, either, in acting like your average student can’t deal with just and reasonable punishment when they’ve done the wrong thing, or that they will hold this against a teacher to the extent they won’t interact with that person in the future.