How did being smacked as a child affect your life?

[Roxietrees]

Just interested in whether those who were smacked as children suffered any lasting damage/trauma from it? I was a very young child in the early 90s and clearly remember being 4 and extremely shy (undiagnosed selective mutism with hindsight) and being pretty violently smacked by my mum for not speaking to her friends/teachers when I was asked a question. Although I was also smacked when I was older for “being naughty” it’s the vicious smacking for being unable to speak when I was so young that has stayed with me and has honestly caused some lasting trauma. It wasn’t just the pain & viciousness of it, it was the humiliation (pants down, bare bum, over the knee style) and it never being explained to me why I was being punished so harshly for something I couldn’t control or apologised to. It obviously didn’t work - I wasn’t even scared into speaking, I physically couldn’t. It just made me more scared and anxious than I already was. Now having a 4 yo DC myself, who, I admit I’ve totally lost my shit at at times and have even screamed at, I’ve always apologised to her, and no matter how angry I get I could never physically hit her. She’s so small and helpless. I can’t get my head round how my mum (a good mum overall and pretty reasonable person) could have ever done that when I was that tiny. I don’t buy these boomer excuses of “we didn’t know any better” or “it was what was done to us as children” - well it was done to me and I know better.

It definetly affected me when I was a younger adult, I just didn't realise it. I don't feel like it affects me now... not the memory of the physical violence..... but the emotional side ( or lack of ) has had a profound affect on me. My mum never told us she loved us or hugged us, I never felt liked by her. Even the age I am now, a small part of me worries people don't like me... I have to have real strong words with myself sometimes 😅

Both of my parents were violent to each other, my dad only punched me once but my mum had a terrible temper snd was violent frequently. She chased me around the house with a hammer once 🤦‍♀️

I think growing up with things like that going on and parents not loving each other, definetly had a little to do with the reason I ended up in a DV relationship. You think it's normal don't you 🤦‍♀️

But.... I've spent many years healing... plus been diagnosed with autism and adhd as an adult and I can see that both my parents are undiagnosed and both could not regulate their emotions.

All those times my mum had a fit and smashed the house up or was violent ect.... it was all adult meltdowns.... I don't think I can blame them for not having the tools to be able to regulate themselves. But it does hurt that they didn't even try and have never apologised, I was the scapegoat as a child and it hurts that they can never look at their own behaviour and blame a child instead

I was a child in the 1950s when children were routinely smacked, so no one thought anything of it. Children were to be "seen and not heard". I was a cheeky child who answered back and my father had a bad temper. It was a good day when I escaped a smack. If both my sibling and myself had been smacked I could have looked back and accepted it as a feature of th times. What I do remember is that my younger sister was never touched. She was the golden princess and I the black sheep. She used her power to whine and snitch and get me into trouble, When we were older my parents announced they were leaving 2/3 of the estate to the golden daughter who had given them grandchildren. My parents taught me to think little of myself. My subsequent life in pursuing a professional career and academic success has been a quest to prove to myself that I was not "of little account".

When my parents became needy I stood back and remained low contact. As the unmarried child free daughter I had no intention of becoming the default carer. My sister had been the golden princess so let her become the golden carer. Even today there is a coldness between my sister and I.

I was smacked with the hand, wooden spoon or slipper in the 90s.

I learnt from a young age that if someone didn't listen to me or do what i said, i could smack them as that was what my parents taught me by hitting me.

As a result i hit my younger brother if he didn't do what i said and my parents had to come into school as i was biting and hitting other children (again if they didn't do what i said).

My parents always told me how bad i was. Looking back now i think it was just poor/lazy parenting.

I would never hit my 3 year old daughter based on my childhood experiences

Not just smacking but generally an abusive attitude from my dad and if say I'm a massive people pleaser yet struggle with authority. I have feelings of blame and shame over things that aren't my fault, and I mean minor things like errors on documents and major things like my child being ill in hospital through a virus all feel like my fault. Anxiety, recurring migraines, IBS, cyclical vomiting syndrome at one point. Also hyper awareness of my surroundings. And I'm 42 years old so all of that has been worked on with counselling and self help, I'm very very self aware and talking therapies help massively. I've also been through pretty significant bereavement which adds to it and compounds it.

I'm an emotional eater, I don't seek help in times of emotional upheaval, instead I withdraw and try desperately not to be a pest. I make myself small. My sense of identity is never going to be complete. I put a lot of effort into ensuring my children don't suffer because of it but I get overwhelmed and shout too easily.

I'm lucky, I was academically gifted so despite poverty and abuse I was able to get into university and get the heck out of town at 18 and an now a well educated professional with a wonderful and loving husband of 19 years and a good and happy life but it's taken effort and self improvement and basically parenting myself out of it.

I too had to reparent myself from scratch before having dc of my own. I could have continued the cycle by not questioning the hitting and abuse, but I challenged every part of my childhood. Researched the parent/child relationship to an inch of its life before learning how to parent correctly. It took a very long time.

I have cPTSD and sometimes the issues rise to the surface, or something bubbles up from nowhere. I am triggered by something unexpectedly, and use the internal equivalent of a medical crash team.

I am also a professional against all the odds, happily married for 22 years with a wealth of friends and a really authentic and decent life. It is possible if you put the work in, be honest about how your childhood has impacted you, and be courageous and ambitious with decision for the future. You do not need to live in the shadow of just one part of your life.

It was not your fault. No child should ever be hit or harmed. You deserved gentle love and guidance.

Another 70’s child that was smacked. Didn’t affect me either. I once read it’s good if children are just a tiny little bit afraid of their parents and I’m inclined to agree.

Yep, and don’t believe it was an issue for me. I grew up in the era of being hit with a belt at home and there was the cane at school. It really taught you to think twice and mostly kids behaved a lot better for it.

As kids we still did naughty things BUT you learnt to toss it up and make the decision whether being potentially caught, and therefore punished, was worth it or not. So good assessment of risk and executive decision making skills which I believed have carried me well throughout a career.

I think the other thing that factors in, was that I was never punished out of anger, it was more like a judge that would pass sentence after considering it all, be it at home or school. It was never out of control. It was always considered and then happened later as had been prescribed when you had been caught and told what the punishment would be. That’s very different to cases where parents have lost control in the immediate moment or bashed a child, which never happened in our home but unfortunately was the case in some other households.

I do agree with the current no physical interaction policy, as otherwise there would be no ‘policing’ possible as to genuine deserved punishment versus parents losing their temper or children being bashed to death. This distinction was not an issue per se when I was a child as family domestic violence was not punishable but thankfully that has changed so you then needed clear rules so someone untoward cannot obfuscate behind ‘accepted’ punishment as it would then make actual abuse difficult to prove. I have complete respect for this and abided by it with my kids.

I was hit. It didn’t cause me any lasting damage. My parents were quite strict in many ways, but fair.
I respected my parents and behaved myself. I was a well behaved kid in school as a result, because the thought of letting my parents down was incentive to keep my head down and not misbehave.

I’m not suggesting we hit children, but I do believe that stricter parenting in general would reduce a lot of the problems we see in schools.
If school had had to ring home about my behaviour, my life wouldn’t have been worth living!

Hasn’t impacted me in the slightest. Probably only happened 5-6 times.

The smacking was the least of it - the emotional abuse and manipulation, the overbearing demands to know what I thought and felt, the emotional manipulation, the narsisstic need to never be criticised - all far far far more damaging

Also agree. I mean, not terrified, but scared enough to be respectful.

So on that basis…. If you did something that annoyed your partner/friend it would be alright if they hit you.
You would feel totally fine about it. And move on.
Maybe you would be happy to hit them too if the need arose?
Or is it only adults hitting children you are ok with?

It didn’t affect me but it wasn’t a regular thing. I grew up in the era of smacks rather than belts or canes. I actually can’t give examples of when it happened even though I know that it did. My parents were quite relaxed compared to my friends’ parents so if it was enough for my mum to smack me, I was probably being an unreasonable arsehole.

I was. It means I didn't learn other tools to deal with difficult children. So when my kids are being very difficult I find it very hard not to be aggressive. I'm working on that, but I wish I had learned other ways to deal with difficulties when I was growing up.

I grew up in a DV household so what was meted out wasn't a tap on the back of the hand and did affect me later in life.
What I saw and heard and what happened to me shouldn't happen to any child.

Not at all. Born in the 70s smacked rarely and only with good reason. It emphasised how naughty I’d been if I was ever smacked

I was smacked as a child. I was actively scared of my mum at times.

But the smacking has had no lasting effect. Words now. Some of the stuff that was said to me as a child continues to haunt me.

No trauma. I've never hit my kids though and never will. The upside to a smack is that it was over quickly. Being grounded and having privileges removed was more upsetting to me at the time.