Smacking children, when we were young

[Flatpackjackie]

Wasn't it normal to smack children until recent years?

As a child I was smacked every day. On the bottom, legs and head (on occasion the face).

I think it's absolutely right that it's no longer acceptable, but weren't we all smacked back then, by both parents?

I'm 29 and was never smacked, my DH is 34 and was smacked regularly with a slipper by his DF. I think it depended on your parents in the 80s and 90s. If they were more 'old school' they thought smacking was still acceptable.

I grew up with the odd smack around the legs, didn’t really think anything of it. I think, while this form of discipline is unacceptable it isn’t at all comparable to getting beaten by a parent.

And just to add, my mother told me that my grandfather only ever smacked her once and she was about 13 and had stayed out very very late. So it's not like it was a learned behaviour from her own parents.
I honestly think she had mental health problems and still has.

I'm 39 and was smacked, as were the majority of my friends. You saw kids being slapped in the street, in the shops. Smacking was normal in the late 70's, certainly in the area of the country I lived anyway. Smacking at school stopped when I was in the second year of primary I think.

I very, very rarely got smacked (my hubby says he can tell!) and I was a brat who deserved one!

I have smacked my children, when they've been really playing up but I don't have a habit of it.

Maybe if more little brats got smacked, or if teachers were actually allowed to discipline children instead of taking away their stickers or detention (which the kids can choose if the time isn't convenient - I kid you not) then maybe the teenagers wouldn't be like they are today.

If you need to smack your children to discipline them you have lost the argument.

I'm about the same age as you. I grew up in a very violent household - smacking became thumping became punching became hitting with objects became flying around, fists-flailing in a total rage.

All my friends were smacked too, and this helped to normalise what was happening at home as 'just some of the same' (even though it wasn't). My Mum would say that I made her do it, that she couldn't help it, etc. - other parents would say the same thing about lighter punishment.

It's good that times have changed.

Smacking in schools in England ended in the latter part of the 80s.

My children were all born in the 80s I never once smacked any of them, but then I wasn't smacked either and I was born at the end of the 40s.

I am mid twenties and remember being smacked once but my mother still feels guilty about it to this day!!!

I'm 37 and was smacked a fair number of times, never on the face though. I'm sure it was pretty standard.

I'm in my 40s and my dad used to take his belt to me. It wasn't discipline, it was venting. One day what I was doing was fine, the next day I'd get the strap. It just taught me to fear him.

I was born in the 1960s and can only remember my dad smacking me once , mum more often but still not regularly, usually when I'd hurt my sister.

I tried not to snack mine but occasionally did. Once I smacked my daughter and she really belted me back ( older teen) since then we talk through issues rather than argue

26 and I was smacked as a child.
My mother wasn't out of control. There was a line and I had crossed it.
I grew up with a very healthy respect for my mother and don't feel that her smacks across the back of the legs were anything less than what I needed at the time.
Children these days are growing up with no respect at all... I can only think it relates to the complete lack of consequences that society is providing them with now.

I was smacked, sometimes by my dad but mostly my mum. Sadly I didn't even have to be naughty, she'd hit me if something or someone had annoyed her. I don't think she ever hit my dad but she certainly hit my stepfather.
A year or so before his death dad brought up the fact that he'd smacked me, told how ashamed and sorry he was.
DH and I do not smack or physically punish our DC.

I'm 29 and was never hit as a child. My dad was hit though and vowed he would never lay a hand on his children. He never shouted but had a very good "you've crossed the line" voice and the disappointment was awful.

My mum is in her sixties and was never hit. She wasn't raised in the U.K. though.

I never understood the supposed connection between smacking and parental authority. When my dc were young, it was very common to see parents smacking their children and screaming at them in public. But they were very often the same parents who would totally ignore the fact that their children were making a nuisance of themselves in the first place, who would do nothing to pre-empt it, and whose children would often go back to misbehaving directly after they had received the smack.

Other parents seemed to get far better results and be far more on the ball without smacking.

I grew up in a culture where smacking didn't happen, or only very rarely, but where it was expected that you could take your children to a formal occasion like a wedding because children knew how to behave.

Still remember a cousin's young child, at the buffet meal served after a distant relative's doctoral dinner, looking at her plate and then round at the hundreds of guests hovering and chatting round the buffet table and whispering to her mum "Is it ok to start before everybody's been served?" (she was told that yes, if there are more than 10 people at the table, you can). This was not about smacking, it was about endless patient training and high expectations. It worked.

Everyone I know irl smacks their kids. And I'm not exaggerating they are ve ry vocal about it. It's only on the internet that I see people so against it. I was smacked growing up and I'm in my 20s my mum even smacked my son once and never apologised. She couldn't see anything wrong with it.

I'm 34 my mom smacked me a fair few times, think I was 14 last time my mom hit me but that was when I hit her back. We got into a massive fight and my dad had to pull us apart.

I've only smacked my kids a handful of times and it's been as a last resort. I've always felt awful afterwards and apologized and had a chat telling them I was wrong.

The trouble is @Cory is that an awful lot if children can't behave at weddings any more. Their parents let them do as they please and don't smack them or tell them off - then moan when other adults tell them off.
Is it because they themselves weren't smacked by their parents? Each generation of parents seem to be getting softer and softer.

Thinking about it more my baby did something the other day can't even remember what it was and my sister said she "would have hit her" she's 12 months old!! for the record I don't smack but as I said very much the norm with the people I know.

Not condoning smacking, but when it was usual to do so, I think there's a huge difference between smacking a child for disobedience, and for making mistakes. This is rarely mentioned in these debates.

I was smacked in the 80's - I think my parents (born in the 50's) were of a time when it was considered parental "duty" to smack children for making mistakes. A lesson about not running into the road was not complete without a smacked bottom.

Result? Fear of going out. Days out were ruined in this way. My parents don't remember these moments, but I do. It taught me to hide my mistakes, I'd lie about them, I'd cover things up, I didn't tell my parents things, because I might be smacked.

I am still bearing grudges about the way it was used to punish me for childish mistakes, rather than disobedience. For instance, as a child I once bumped into a blind man because I wasn't expecting him to stop walking. My mum carefully explained why I shouldn't have bumped into him, then she smacked me. So I was crying in public over something I didn't know was wrong. All this gave me a great fear of trying anything new, taking initiative, thinking outside the box, because I'd be punished for it. I'd tremble whenever my parents came off the phone, because they'd smack if I was being too noisy.

I agree that it was more common even 30 years ago. I've said it before but I do think that most kids even today know what a smacked bottom feels like. It may not be a common or effective form of discipline but parents are still human and prone to making mistakes and losing control.

@SweetCheeks1980 - smacking doesn't discipline. At any of the toddler groups I went to in recent years, it was the little ones who WERE being slapped that were running about hitting others and generally being the ones "misbehaving " the most. The parents slapped and yelled at them so that was obviously the behaviours they knew.

I've never hit my DC but do have firm boundaries and there are consequences for not keeping to them. I hate the argument that children are naughtier because they're not smacked - all around me every day I see the kids who are smacked at home being the worst behaved. It's just not necessary and worse, is nothing more than violence towards children. Nobody advocates hitting a dog to train them, or smacking your elderly parent when they don't "obey". But it's ok for kids?

I'm 26 and was never smacked. My mum slapped me once when I was a teen (going through that horrible rebellious stage, I don't blame her for losing her shit!) and she still apologises for it now.

My DH however is 33 and he was smacked regularly as a child. He's no contact with his family anymore and I think their attitude to parenting has a lot to do with it.

I am 38 and was smacked as a child - probably only a few times. My brother was naughtier and smacked more frequently. Whilst I wouldn't smack now, I thought it was the norm back then and cannot say it caused any lasting damage to me or my relationship with my parents. I don't suppose it was that effective, though, so a waste of time.