To ask how those of us who were smacked

Almost never smacked but often threatened with the belt and it used to frustrate me at the time because I was a very reasonable child you could simply talk to! But my parents were quite stressed a lot of the time. No anger towards them because I appreciated their boundaries. My best friend walked all over her mum and made her cry and that made me feel a LOT worse.

I've never had a need to smack my girls - it would feel weird and counter-productive to hit them.

❤️❤️

I was a child in the 60’s and this is exactly how I feel. I think I was only actually smacked about twice and then only a tap on the legs.
However the thought of it kept me from being naughty.

I do find it interesting that we have a specific word for 'hitting a child' that's used to frame it as a practice. I don't hear 'smacking' used in any other context.

'Disciplinary assault' is a bit of a mouthful, I suppose...

I don't know if I was smacked or not – my mother punched me in the face a few times. Does that count, or is it only with an open hand?

I was smacked and my mum now regrets it as she acknowledges it was done in anger/frustration to make herself feel better, not as a lesson for me.

As a kid I would hit my sister as subconsciously I believed that if someone annoyed you then the answer was to hit them. I was still angry into my teens, it took a while to ‘unlearn’ this.

I agree 💯.

I assume they were terrified that they’d lost you and of what could have happened to you walking off with someone you didn’t know?

I was smacked and grew up with the flying slipper. (not UK)
I have no hard feelings about it at all. I always knew what it was for and there is world of difference between smack and beating. Couple of my friends had the latter sadly.
I would most likely feel differently if like pps I had no idea what I got smacked for. I always had plenty of warnings.

Yes the fear of knowing I could get the stick was massive

I was smacked anytime my mother was frustrated. I clearly recall being 6 telling her I was hungry and she turned around and smacked me right on the face.

She later found it funny. I've never understood why it was funny to her.

I do not think behaving out of fear is a good way to raise your children. I feel one of my biggest achievements in life is that my children are not fearful of me. They know I will listen. I may not agree but I will listen.

I chose to not smacked edit to "not hit as that's what it is" my children as I knew I would not have a concept of when to stop.

Yes I think it was abusive
Yes I think It did me harm
No I do not agree with it at all

My brother and sister who grew up with our father was not smacked/hit. They both have a close relationship with him now.

This was my experience too, but I was only ever tapped on the bottom when I really persisted in crossing lines and it didn’t hurt.

My friend was repeatedly walloped, often for the flimsiest of reasons, and it’s done significant psychological damage.

My Dad used to hit me with a stick when I was a child. Probably did it 6 times in total. Old school parenting. Spare the rod, spoil the child. I so wish I’d taken that stick and smacked him back while he was sleeping but I never did. As a child I knew it was a wrong, totally pointless and damaging punishment. Each time it happened I stopped speaking to him. It damaged our relationship and I held it against him for years.

He has selective memory, I asked him about it 30 years later and he couldn’t for the life of him remember hitting me with a stick. I suspect he actually does remember but is too embarrassed.

I’ve never smacked my own kids.

Ive forgiven him now, I think he was trying to parent in a way he thought was right but got it totally wrong.

I remember when I was on holiday with my parents (probably around 3-5 years). I walked off with a person (to see some cows being milked). When they found me and bought me home, I was hit so hard on my bum/legs that I had to lay on my stomach. I remember crying my heart out and them saying for other people not to comfort me.

I am now a parent and I can’t make sense of it. Both are now dead so can’t ask them.

I do have issues around abandonment, which might have been triggered by it.

I was smacked and it doesn't really bother me now.

There were other punishments, like being sent to my room, that upset me more because I hated hearing everyone else having fun downstairs without me.

At least with a smack it was over with quickly and I could move on!

I wasn't a naughty kid, I mostly got into trouble for giddiness and giggling at the dinner table.

I was spanked on the bum by my dad when I was naughty - I always knew the reason I was in trouble even if I didn't agree with it or didn't actually do it (like you drew on the wall when I actually didnt) my mum on the other hand used to grab myself and my sisters by the hair and bang our heads into each other or into a wall if just one of us. Her favourite warning was 'do you want me to knock your heads together' - I don't particularly give much thought to my dad's punishment style or consider it hugely damaging (although I have never laid a hand on any of my children) my mother however I view as incredibly abusive and my relationship with her is almost non-existant.

I was smacked just like OP where the majority of the time I had no idea of the reason behind it other than my mother doing it out of frustration of her crap marriage.
I know all of her siblings also smacked their children and thought it must have been normalised by their parents. But to my shock, as an adult, I found out that my grandparents (mum side) never smacked their children which totally floored me because I could not understand why ALL of their 5 children smacked their own! It must of been an 80s thing to do?? I don’t understand it.

Smacked, hit with a wooden spoon or a metal spoon my mother has anger issues, I can be short of temper but o would never hurt my children as a form of punishment. Yes it affected me. I feared her and my dad but his abuse was something else. I’ve managed to raise 4 boys without smacking them using consistency and boundaries there is never a reason to physically harm your child to teach them they’ve done wrong. I didn’t deserve it, ever no child does.

I was born in the 60s, I suppose I was lucky not to be smacked. However, there was a certain amount of emotional abuse which has permanently affected my relationship with my parents. I suspect it probably fucked me up more than being smacked would've done.

If it had had no adverse effect on you there is no way that you would think a child somehow deserved it.

That isn't a fair conclusion.

It depends very much on multiple factors. Some were raised by smacking parents who would be absolutely terrifying and behave in ways that were also psychologically damaging.

Smacking is in every example I ever saw nothing but lack of control. It's absolutely terrifying that teachers had power to do this.

If I saw a dad say, grab a son who refused to listen and was hurting another. You know, I could think well maybe that was needed. If it was controlled. But it rarely is.

Dh and I have had many disagreements over this. His father was a big believer in corporal punishment and he was hit a lot (with a slipper, switch and belt). My parents were the opposite. I was repeatedly told how worthless and useless I was. That my imperfections made me unlovable but they never hit me. In fact when my dad's commanding officer smacked me (both my parents were out of the country and he was looking after me), they were both absolutely furious.

In my eyes, dh's parents were obviously damaging and abusive. In his, he was a feral nightmare and that being hit never damaged him emotionally. He is definitely closer to his parents than I am/was to mine. Whereas he thinks my parents obviously did a total number on me and therefore I'd have been better off if they'd hit me instead.

I imagine the circumstances matter a lot. Dh was hit for various "crimes" including trashing a greenhouse, climbing on a roof and generally running wild. He thinks he was never hit in anger and it was always something that deserved punishment.

I'm not bothered about it. It happened and I'm OK. I understand that it was a response from being overwhelmed with negative emotion, mostly frustration. I know that my parents didn't set out to hurt me, nor did they get any kind of pleasure from smacking me. They caused no physical damage beyond a red mark that soon faded. They never hit me with anything other than an open hand.

I'm not saying that it was OK to smack.

I did not like it. It brought fear into the loving relationship between my parents and me. Although being smacked was never a surprise. I did not fear a random blow. I did fear an angry parent.

I have chosen not to smack my children, because I see it as my loss of control, an expression of my anger/frustration/fear, rather than something beneficial to my child. But I have often wondered: would one sharp smack and done with it have been better than me screaming at my children? I still lost control and expressed my feelings in a way that was not beneficial to them.

My brother hit me. I don't think my children have ever hit each other.

I have to say it hasn't affected me in any way, but then I wasn't smacked very regularly, DF would usually do the smacking if he was pushed too far, it was never severe and I was never afraid of him, I think most kids were smacked in the 80s

Born in the 70s, was smacked by parents, went to a school you got the cane or whacked with a ruler for minor wrong doing.

I don't feel personally damaged by it but going by how many times I got hit it wasn't a very effective way of controlling my behaviour.

We don't have children and I think that people hitting kids as punishment is wrong.

I was smacked occasionally by my mum. Not super hard. I think she had undiagnosed adhd and she struggled with emotional dysregulation. She was always mortified afterwards, though, and she would apologise profusely. I was never in any doubt that it was wrong, and that it was down to her own lack of self control rather than any sense that I had "deserved" it - she made very sure that I knew that. Perhaps because of that, I didn't ever feel particularly damaged by it.