To ask how those of us who were smacked

You present this as if the parents have just randomly come up and slapped their child for no reason. If you use the definition of smack that some of us understand and experience - a single smack open hand no mark to arm or leg to designate a totally unacceptable behaviour then the answer might be different. Using this definition (which was my experience) would I smack someone who came up to me in the street and bit me or hit me or called me an extremely offense name ….. quite probably …. And most would think I’d be completely justified

I don’t think that most people that have posted here who have suffered after being hit have a victim mindset. If a person in the street came up and slapped someone’s face so hard it left red marks, that would be ok? I don’t think so. It’s even worse for parents to do this to their children.

If my colleague bit me, I’d smack her

I was smacked but it was purely symbolic and I was always given the chance to say sorry / correct my wrong first. If I refused I'd get a tap on the hand. I found it very shameful to do something deserving of a smack and it was a rare event. I don't feel abused and think I probably deserved it!

I only remember my parent smacking one of my siblings once in anger and I remember my sibling's cry of fear as parent stormed towards them. I don't remember what they'd done but I do think that was wrong. I've never asked parent or sibling if they remember it. I think they were smacked quite hard on the bottom with a hand.

I was hit by my dad and have zero respect. I grew up with a terror of authority that's very different from respect.

Your story is scary.

My parents did and so did I.
I was smacked twice as a child by my mother ….. I can tell you in detail what I did to deserve it both times and even though I was very young at the time 6 and 8 I’m still actually mortified at what I did both times. It brought home to me that some behaviours are absolutely beyond what is acceptable and I never repeated them - not through fear but because I knew what I’d done must be awful by the fact that my parents had smacked me.

I have smack my child once. A single smack open hand no mark. Once on the arm. I have absolutely no regrets. He bit another child when he didn’t get his own way. He’d been warned once not to bite when frustrated or not getting his own way, the second time he did it he got a smack. Guess what, he never bit anyone again. Did I “terrify” him into not biting - I don’t think so but I also don’t care if I did. Biting people (or any other form of physical violence when you don’t get your own way) is an absolute no in my book.
If you regularly smack a child, it has no effect because it’s fleeting and the child forgets it and it has less impact, a bit like if you always shout. If you are repeatedly hitting a child in one episode that’s not snacking, that’s beating a child up and that’s abuse. I think it’s quite easy to differentiate but like most things, we’ve taken the extreme view “all snacking is bad” because some is.
But the 1000’s of posts on here from parents at their wits and because their 5 years old is being bitten, kicked and punched by other children in reception or from teachers and TAs experiencing the same tells me that “natural consequence” or talking it through sometimes doesn’t work.

Thanks @PyongyangKipperbang

There a lots of people on this thread who see a distinction between smacking and beating a child. And they don't categorise smacking as abusive behaviour. I was really asking those people to answer my question about how they define a smack that is not abusive behaviour. Sorry I thought you were one of those posters.

I didnt say it achieved anything. Someone asked for a description of a smack and I gave one I read once.

It was in a book written in the 30's when physical punishment was consider the best way to discipline a child.

I grew up abroad in the 80s and early 90s in a very conservative country. My mum smacked me a couple times with a hairbrush or slipper. Same with my dad but he would smack you with hands (never belt). I grew up in quite a regimented and disciplined household and 99% of the time the threat of a hiding would be sufficient for us to listen. Family friends, grandparents, uncles and aunts, vicars, Sunday school teachers would also smack you if needed. In schools teachers would smack (ruler on hands) you or whole class and if you were really bad you would be caned by the headmaster.

It hadn't affected me negativity at all and it was a good thing. Children showed respect, had manners, took pride in themselves and would do as they are told. If my kids could grow up in that era I would absolutely agree with the punishment.

I don't smack my own children but I'm strict and my kids have mentioned in the past that they sometimes wish they had an English mum 🤣

And god; reading some of the abuse suffered by other posters on here is shocking.

I'm 57 and was smacked reasonably often by both parents and only with an open hand. I think they were always done there and then, rather than "come and see me for a smack". It's weird because a delayed smack seems cold & calculated. But in the heat of the moment just seems like frustration & anger. Neither of which is good obviously.

I don't think it's affected me and I still have a very good relationship with my parents. I do think a lot of it was because it was (largely) acceptable punishment at the time. But having had 2 dc of my own I find it interesting that I never felt the need to smack or physically punish them. I'm sure they were equally "naughty" as I was. And my parents and I would have had similar stressors etc. it just didn't occur to me to do it. Although I got verbally cross with them.

But what does a single sharp blow to the hand achieve? If it causes a child pain then the child will have conflicting feelings about the parent. Hang on this is the person who is supposed to protect me from harm and here they are harming me. If it doesn't hurt very much then is the ritual meant to humiliate and cause shame? And as we read in this thread - the calm and ritualistic aspect of some smacking actually caused some children more harm before they felt it was more deliberate and calculated than the frazzled single mother chasing them with a spoon.

Would it be ok for your boss to give you one sharp smack to the hand when you did something she didn't approve of? If not why not?

I was also hit by my older brother and once by my uncle. I was about six and repeated a swear word I'd heard another kid saying. My uncle put me across his knee and slapped my arse. He was 30 years older than me. It was at my grandma's house and I can't remember who else was there but nobody stopped him. I think he relished the power.

I don't recall my mum doing much when I was whacked and belted by my dad or brother. She only ever hit me once and it was a slap.

I've grown up with muddled ideas about my self worth and never made a connection.

I was smacked occasionally for being naughty or cheeky, and I knew at the time that was the reason. I barely remember it and have a very close relationship with my parents as an adult. I have always felt totally loved and secure, as they showed me much more affection and validation than anything else. The odd smack in that context is very different than bullying by a cruel/aggressive/cold parent.

Yes, I remember it being out of anger and I mainly remember the humiliation I felt afterwards. But then I see my grandad and realise the apple doesn’t fall from far the tree and that was the discipline my dad knew growing up. I wish I could tell him that I really wish he didn’t do it as my memory of it is surprisingly vivid and it certainly taints my relationship with him, not that I show it. But I’d never tell him all these years later - just try to do a lot better with my own DC.

I was smacked what I would call an excessive amount, it was always for really trivial things like not being able to sit still (kind of difficult when you’re neurodivergent…).

The worst occurrence was after I had a dismantled a watch out of curiosity, my ‘father’ smacked me no less than 50 times.

It haunts me to this day, for a very specific reason - he’s a convicted paedophile (for offences not even related to me).

There is a lot of detail I’m choosing not to add, but I vowed never to let my own children near him, ever.

I ran away from home aged 12, it was the best decision I could have made. It terrifies me how different my life might have been…

I was smacked, my mum even kept a birch rod to smack us with. Otherwise it was her slipper, I remember trying to outrun her reach up the stairs. I was born in 1975 so this was in the 80s. I can't speak for all but my friends mums weren't the same and they have good relationships now but me and my mum are no contact. I've never hit my own child..

I was hit, various objects were thrown at me, and I was frequently cursed. Living on a farm, I remember once having to climb a tree to avoid a severe beating. Another instance, which I vividly recall, occurred when I was about 10. I jumped on my bicycle, rode to the park, sat alone on a bench, and contemplated taking my own life, as I felt no love from my mum. For a very long time, I didn't understand why, even as an adult, I couldn't hug her when we met. It was through accidentally coming across various articles about abuse that it dawned on me I might have suffered the same. We speak regularly now, but our conversations is formal. At the end of each conversation, she always says, "I love you," but no matter how much I want to say "I love you, too," I simply can't.

I understand that she had a difficult life as a single parent with four children, and it wasn't easy. However, I can't comprehend how being cruel to her children made her life easier. I know I misbehaved and was often a difficult child, but in hindsight, I misbehaved because I craved love, the parental love she didn't provide. She never sat down with me and lovingly explained that something I was doing was wrong and shouldn't be repeated. All of this still affects me today; I'm very introverted, and cold towards others as a result."

I agree. Which is why I tend to roll my eyes when people like my parent defend [what they did] as normal and what everyone did as it was a different time.

I was smacked. Hit with a wooden spoon, slapped around the face, held down and hit with a slipper. Teachers could also hit you with a ruler (1970’s). My brothers would get smacked on the bottom with a green flash plimsole by the teacher. If you didn’t cry you’d get a polo. Thank goodness we now know this is not the best way to behave towards children! Yes definitely affected me as a child - I left home as soon as I could.

This is really interesting. I’m very anti-smacking and would never smack my children. However, I would not feel so strongly about the issue if it were really just a question of a single tap on the hand and not done in anger.

However, I suspect only a minuscule proportion of smacking parents actually adhere to this definition.

Yes, was smacked as a kid like most others in those days (60s/early 70s). It has never caused me any problem or made me think I was hard done by. I do think things have gone way too far the other way now, as has much else. If anything I am glad I was not mollycoddled and overindulged like many kids are now ('gentle' parenting, AKA lazy parenting). We had to eat (only) what we were given, mind our manners and generally obey our parents - as it should be IMO.

Smacking from the 80s cannot be easily put into one box or another.

On the one hand, it was completely normal and a very stressed and frazzled mother might have slapped a child on the bum/legs for doing something dangerous or deliberately very naughty. This, I don't think, was in any way abusive or problematic at that time and I don't think people in their 40s/50s generally resent being smacked in this way. My mum did this, I have no problem with it and she is someone who did everything in her power to give me a good life.

On the other hand, the smacking could have been done by an abusive parent who hurt children to control them or terrorise them or for their own enjoyment. This could have been done with all sorts of painful objects - very often a belt - and could have been accompanied by exceptionally abusive and frightening threats (such as beating them with the buckle of the belt instead/until bones were broken/bleeding/dead). My father did this. I don't talk to him. Luckily my parents have been divorced for decades.

"Smacking" can mean all sorts - it isn't really useful for analysis unless you have the context. If you have a difficult relationship with your mum, she could quite simply be a horrible person. Reasonable 80s smacking alone wouldn't cause a bad relationship IMO.

It was merely didactic in our family. You knew you'd crossed a line, it was the rarely applied sanction for very bad behaviour. It wasn't abusive in most families.

Times changed, appr methods of parenting changed.

I was smacked. Quite often but never hard, never without warning, never without reason. It's just how it was then, instead of time out or naughty step. Hasn't changed me in the slightest.