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Parenting

Smacking at home, how your parents carried it out

57 replies

gingerw74 · 23/01/2013 08:56

The conversation in the media yesterday about banning smacking got me thinking about how I was punished when growing up. I was a child of the 70?s/80?s, so things were quite different back then. I remember that dad use to work long hours, so mum was the one left to keep discipline at home. She had me and my two brothers to control, and I don?t think that we were ever the easiest of kids to look after on a daily basis. Mum struggled a bit and her only way was to smack us. She would take her wooden scholl sandal off (this was her house slipper) to wallop us with, it?s what she had close to hand! She also used Dad?s dad?s plimsoll (it seem so big at the time, it could be that we were small), but that was mostly given to my brothers. I never got it out but would get a good hiding when I got home. I was always trying to get them into trouble with mum by telling on them, I feel bad now! I regularly remember my brothers and I having our pants pulled down and slippered, seemed to be a daily occurrence in our house hold. Hard to believe now, but I suppose it was the norm back then and what you also received at school i.e. home from home. Classmates also seemed to get the same at home. How things have changed! We?ve all turned out well so it hasn?t had much effect on us! We never saw it as abuse. I think my Mum and Dad were good parents.

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SummerRainIsADistantMemory · 23/01/2013 09:17

My mother (and aunts) used a wooden spoon.

To this day of I'm arguing with my mother and she opens a drawer I flinch!

If she wasn't near enough the kitchen she'd use whatever came to hand, the tv remote, a tennis racquet, sticks, books.

She wasn't above chucking stuff at me either, or chucking my belongings out a window.

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TodaysAGoodDay · 23/01/2013 09:35

My dad used whatever shoe was to hand at the time. My mum used her hand to slap the back of my legs.

Not home I know, but we got caned (yes with an actual cane) at school for everything from talking in class to not doing homework, or being late. I grew up in South Africa where discipline was a bit more fierce than here. We certainly learnt to respect the teachers.

Never did me any harm.

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GooseyLoosey · 23/01/2013 09:39

Grandmother used a wooden spoon, mother used a hair brush. Didn't see it as unusual at the time.

Then, one Christmas when I was about 12, I got a cooking set with its own wooden spoon. Then when my grandmother got hers out, I got mine and we stood there like something out of High Noon. I explained if it was OK for her to hit me with the spoon, it was OK for me to defend myself with one. We must have looked ridiculous brandishing our spoons. However, she never hit me again and niether did my mother.

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MrsPresley · 23/01/2013 09:45

My mum smacked me on the bum with her hand although I think she only ever done it 2 or 3 times in my life.

My dad, never ever smacked me. He would talk to me about my what I had done/said and if he was really angry then I wouldnt be allowed out to play and my books were taken away from me, which was torture Grin

I did get the belt at school loads occasionally Grin

I did have friends that were hit with slippers, belts and sticks Sad

I would never use an object to hit my child with and I think out of 4 of them I have only smacked 1 and that was the once and she's now nearly 30 (she'd been caught stealing and I lost it) although I hve threatened it plenty of times!

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PostBellumBugsy · 23/01/2013 09:47

I was hit with any household implement that came to hand when my mother lost her temper. So, I was hit with a wooden spoon, a length of rope, a sail baton, a garden stick, a shoe, a slipper, a ruler, a hairbrush, a spatula. I think that is all I can remember. She always used to say that she used implements because otherwise it hurt her more than us.

I hated my mother for most of my childhood & during my teens and one of the reasons was hitting us.

I've never hit my children & never will. It may not be "harmful", although I'm not sure about that - but it certainly doesn't make it a good thing to do either.

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Branleuse · 23/01/2013 10:06

my mum didnt smack me, although i remember her knocking me on the head with her knuckles in frustration when i was about 11 and got caught nicking sweets with my friend in a shop. I didnt really need smacking though as i was quite eager to please and respectful.

I occasionally give my children a smack out of sheer exasperation, but its not ideal. Its usually when i just dont know what the hell else to do to get through to them

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seeker · 23/01/2013 10:08

Always makes me laugh (in a grim sort of way) when people saying that being hit as children never did them any harm.

Well, no. Except to turn them into the sort of people that think hitting children doesn't do them any harm!

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marzipananimal · 23/01/2013 10:09

My parents smacked us on the bottom with their hand if we were being persistently disobedient after fair warning. It was fairly rare and they never did it because they'd lost their temper. It was pretty effective and I don't think it did us any harm. It may not be the best form of discipline but it's better than having out of control children

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kilmuir · 23/01/2013 10:11

i was brought up in 70/80s and my parents never smacked me

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CMOTDibbler · 23/01/2013 10:17

My mum never smacked me after an incident where she smacked me as a small child, and I had a perfect hand print bruise and she had to go to school and explain it (I bruise very, very easily).

Dad would just grab the nearest thing to hand - I remember being hit with my hairbrush, and a beanpole

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fishybits · 23/01/2013 10:20

I was smacked a lot, my DB less so and my S wasn't. I think this was because my parents became better at parenting as the years went by.

It didn't do me any harm but it was also utterly ineffective which is why I will try very hard not to smack DD. There are I believe plenty of other ways to discipline a child without losing control and resorting to smacking.

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exBrightonBell · 23/01/2013 10:21

I was also brought up in the late 70s and 80s. I was not hit by my parents with implements, ever. It is not normal and it is harmful, as well as being deeply unpleasant. All hitting does is teach that the larger stronger person can dominate weaker ones and brutalise them. I would not want to teach my ds to believe this.

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CrazyOldCatLady · 23/01/2013 10:22

My mother did the 'go to your room and wait till your father gets home' thing. So I'd wait for hours till eventually I'd hear the car door slamming. He'd have his dinner, then there'd be quiet while she explained to him what I'd done. I'd heart him coming up the stairs, he'd put me across his knee and take a wooden-handled hairbrush to my bare backside.

Sometimes mum lost the plot though; she threw my stuff out my bedroom window and once she threatened to hack my teddy's head off with a kitchen knife.

What I found worst was the time my dad made me stand on a chair in the middle of the breakfast room, and everyone who came in roared laughing at me. The humiliation was far worse than being hit.

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Floralnomad · 23/01/2013 10:25

Me and my sisters were all born in the mid 60s , our parents didn't smack . My mum just shouted a lot and I do remember she threw a hairbrush at my eldest sister once . I wouldn't smack my dog let alone my children , and I've learnt that shouting doesn't help either.

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PostBellumBugsy · 23/01/2013 10:28

CMOTDibbler - I'm amazed your mum had to explain the handprint. We were hit by the teachers at school as well! No adult had to explain anything to anyone about their treatment of children in my neck of the wood in the 1970s & early 80s.

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GirlOutNumbered · 23/01/2013 10:29

My mum smacked me, I don't smack my children though. But then I was an unruly child and my children are just angels! [big grin]

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GirlOutNumbered · 23/01/2013 10:29

Grin fail!

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ethelb · 23/01/2013 10:33

I got slapped for being naughty. Particuarly for playing the piano wrong during piano practice. So I stopped playing piano. They are still cross about this Hmm.

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CMOTDibbler · 23/01/2013 10:36

Postbellum - it was the fact that it was such a livid bruise I think. Of course no one blinked at smacking at all, even though the schools I went to didn't use corporal punishment. DH was caned and slippered at school though

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TrucksAndDinosaurs · 23/01/2013 10:47

Be careful about describing specifics of physical punishment: this is the sort of thread title is exactly what pervs search for and archive.

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5dcsinneedofacleaner · 23/01/2013 12:28

I dont remember being smacked apart from once - my mum was diabetic and it was very difficult to control she often had problems with her blood sugar and often had times where it would be up/down (sorry im not really sure how it works) and she would literally not know what she was doing. Once when I was about 8 (?) I just remember walking into a room and she suddenly just came at me luckily my dad was there and stepped in but thats the ONLY time I remember violence against me at all. My mum did not remember it at all and we never told her because she would have been devastated.

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ShowOfHands · 23/01/2013 12:34

My Mum 'only' ever smacked me on the back of my calves with an open palm. It did sting but what I remember more is the way she'd push her face against mine, finger jabbing into my chest and hiss at me when she was angry. I felt so fucking small. I do love my mother but she knew exactly how to make herself bigger, bolder and more intimidating than I could ever be.

I refuse to parent by threat or intimidation. It wasn't common but I remember it vividly.

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iliketea · 23/01/2013 12:36

My parents did it mostly with a hand, and always in anger - I remember hating them for it, and heaven forbid if I slapped them back.

If it doesn't do.children any harm, then we should.implement corporal punishments for everything - if someone is rude.to.you in the street then it would be perfectly acceptable to slap them to show the error of their ways. If you're convicted of a crime, maybe regular smacking would act as a deterrent so you didn"t reoffend?

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willyoulistentome · 23/01/2013 12:41

My Mum would very occasionally smack us on the bum, not hard, and only if we had been REALLY awful. If Dad was home we would get sent to our room, made to wait for a while, then he would come and talk to us about wha twe had done, never shouted, made us feel guilty as hell, and then gave us a calm token 'tap' on the hand, which although it didn;t hurt at all left us sobbing. Then left us to think about it a bit more and came to get us..and it was all forgotten.

I think they did a really good job of disciplining us.

I do wonder why I am such a screaming ranting smacky bitch with my own kids. Sad

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RichManPoorManBeggarmanThief · 23/01/2013 12:47

I had to be pretty bad to get whacked by my parents and it was only ever open palm on the bum (and I was pretty well padded back then so it didn't even hurt). I don't hold it against them. I'm actually pretty meh about smacking tbh. Some of the parenting techniques today are so bloody convoluted I think I'd still rather just get whacked and get it over with.

Caning still existed at school and we all looked forward to it like a hanging mob (so long as it wasn't us getting caned).

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