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 24, I used to get smacked pretty much all the time if I did something wrong or backchatted. It never did me any harm to be honest. Never had the same effect on my brother. He still plays up now and he's 22.

I would tap my child on the hand or the bum(through clothes) if I'd told them off time and time again and they hadn't listened to me. I'm not talking smack them to within an inch of their life like a lot of people have had done to them.

You see I don’t get these otherwise ‘loving’ parents who smack their children.

That’s like an otherwise ‘loving’ husband who smacks his wife.

It’s violence. It’s showing power/control through violence.

I will never hurt a child and call it discipline.

I started hitting back when i got to 14 which put a stop to it

I will never hurt a child and call it discipline

This just about nails it.

I'm surprised at people in their 20 s who got hit. My daughter is just turning one and clearly was not hit by either one of us. I obviously don't know about her friends but I would think it far from normal for this age group.

I'm even more surprised people still do it. Hitting someone, be it your child, your spouse, your friend, your colleague or a stranger in the street is simply not acceptable. It's even worse when you do it to a child who is impotent to stop it and totally powerless in the situation.

One day they will grow up and hit you back.

I'm 50 & it was common when I was a kid.

Friends parents would give you a clip round the ear, let alone your own!

You could be sent to the Head for the Slipper any time, they only had to inform your parents beforehand if you were getting the Cane.

Personally I think it shows a lack of education. Inflicting pain as punishment is like an animal instinct. There are so many better ways to teach children to behave well so punishment is not needed and when children misbehave the punishment should be linked to consequences of their actions so that they learn from it. If someone thinks violence is a good idea they simply don’t know any better.

To add, it's had no effect on me. I certainly don't resent or hate my parents for it.

I was a child in the 1980's and people didn't bat an eyelid then.
I don't think it should ever have been acceptable.

I always remember my Mum smacked me across my shoulder blade (for answering back I imagine) when I was about nine.
This was just before my swimming lesson and she said afterwards that she felt mortified as I was sat on the side of the pool with my back to the spectator balcony where all the parents (including my mum) were sat watching.
There was a highly visible handprint on my shoulder blade!!

I started hitting back when i got to 14 which put a stop to it

I was 16. She slapped my face in front of my school friends as i waved to them at the window. I simply for thr first time in my life lost control and raised my hand to hit her back I was so angry.. My father grabbed my arm and said " I told you. I told you one day she would turn". She never hit me again.

I saw rhe shock in her eyes as we both stared at each other. And there was a power shift after it. I was basically waiting for her to do it again so I could beat the living shit out of her and she knew it. She never gave me the satisfaction. She wanted to hit me, she didn't want to fight me. That idea I think scared her.

Early 40's, smacked often by both parents, never really had a problem with it and I don't feel it's caused any lasting damage. I can't remember any specific incident if you know what I mean? They weren't vindictive with it but it was a standard form of punishment.

However, at school, aged 8... I was a bright kid, advanced for my years and I was sat doing a test. I'd finished really early, so put the exam paper down to one side. I was sat quietly but bored so I turned around and there were a couple of the old style hard back comic annuals on the shelf next to me, so I picked one up and started reading it. The teacher came over, picked up another annual and the one I was reading and crashed them both into the sides of my head with a clapping motion then threw me over the top of the desk from out of my chair.

The difference between normal and really not normal.

That one I still remember vividly. I used to see her around when I was an adult and that was the first thing that ever came to mind. I can't imagine the storm that would have happened if she did something like that today. I'm not sure I even mentioned it to my parents at the time.

My brothers and I are in our mid- to late-thirties and were smacked as children; only by our mother though, never our dad. She wore those mule slippers with the plastic sole and would whip one off to smack us on the bum. It hurt! We were never very naughty but I remember it being quite frequent. If I ran away to my room, she would chase me, then wait outside shouting till I opened the door and submitted myself to the punishment!

I don't have children, but if I ever thought about it, I was vaguely in the "never did me any harm" camp. Until my brother's first child was born. The idea of striking a child baffles me now; I don't know how people can bring themselves to do it.

Anyway if you discipline young children by just smacking them when they are bigger than you they can simply push you off, and either won't understand why their behaviour is unacceptable or don't care as they don't have respect for anything.

This is so true. My BIL and SIL used to smack their DC when they were younger, they probably still smack the youngest, who is 10. But while we were staying there a couple of years ago, I remember my SIL trying to get her oldest two boys to get themselves ready for bed. I think they were 16 and 15 then. They just ignored her, and she was clearly at a loss as to how to get them to listen to her. Because, I'm sure, they just didn't have to.

I was in primary school in the 90s and high school in 00s and it was definitely considered ok for parents to smack in the 90s. Less so in the 00s. Teachers never smacked.

I wasn't ever battered but I would get a hard slap on the back of the legs if they felt I misbehaved. Never got used anything other than hands.

I don't think it's ok to smack anybody nevermind a defenceless child. Crazy to think it was ever the done thing.

I’m 31 and was smacked but I only remember the one time.

My daughter bit me really hard a few months back and I automatically smacked her arm. I got such a fright when she done it and it was instinctive, she stopped right away, didn’t cry just pottered off but the guilt I felt was horrendous.

I grew up late 80s / early 90s and was smacked. It was horrible. Like others have said, it didn’t achieve anything and made me hate my mum at the time. Looking back I think it was loss of control and perhaps not knowing much better as she was hit by her own parents (and her brother was caned by teachers).

I hope to never smack my own children but fear I will have picked the habit up by example. I’m going to do lots of research into alternative discipline techniques for that very reason as would hate to lose control like that. I’ve never felt the urge to hit anyone ever though so hopefully I’ll be alright.

I don't think people in their 20s getting smacked is surprising . As I said it's still very much the norm with everyone I know. Theirs a mum at my kids school that's always threatening to smack her kids. I remember my mum beating my brother who is 18 when he lost his scooter, he was about 6. It was awful tbh. But I have no hard feelings towards her at all. She done her best as a single parent to 6.

Can I just say I utterly detest the way people have started using 'tap' when they mean smack (which itself if a euphemism for hit)? Hitting is hitting is hitting.

40ish. Hitting (aka 'smacking') was pretty much my parents' first resort. Never with an implement or leaving injuries, but sometimes really quite hard. I have never hit my children. MIL hit dc2 once and very, very nearly lost all contact with the dc.

Despite lurid tales, I never experienced or heard of physical punishment at school, but there was the odd bout of board rubber-throwing.

Late 30s. Started school in the final term when it was legal for teachers. It was normal and seems to have declined through the 90s.

I think the real issue on where discipline tips into abuse is fair boundaries and understanding. Any consequence can be abusive if it is completely disproportionate to the situation. Shouting is legal, but has potential to be very distressing and damaging. The same for being isolated (time out, sent to room, grounded etc) or deprived of something for excessive periods. It's the injustice and absence of autonomy that does the real damage.

I think the law on reasonable chastisment is in the right place. It is completely wrong to use an object/ cause physical damage to assault someone. But where a parent has reacted to imminent danger (e.g. smacking a hand away from electricity/ fire) or occasionally where a child is ignoring established boundaries and the usual reasonable consequences, then I don't think that's automatically abusive and being too black and white about it can increase the stresses attached to parenting as no parents or children are perfect. So many children are in fear of their parents without them ever laying a finger on them, and the violent parents go well beyond the relms of current legal boundaries anyway.

In so many of the personal accounts that are shared on threads like this, smacking was a smaller proportion of a big picture of abusive behaviour. The "never did me harm" arguements tend to come from people who experienced fairer boundaries anyway and under the social conditions of the time it was considered a fair consequence to the behaviour they did, which is why they don't feel an injustice about it.

If you lash out in anger you have uncontrolled violent anger issues. If you hit in a calm decision you are abusing and assaultingvsomone to assert dominance. There's no hiding that's how it is.

i was born late 80s, so brought up in the 90s. My mums favourite line was "wait till your stepdad gets home", where she would tell her husband to smack us. He would hit us (open handed) around our heads and torsos, not so much the bum. He would continue to smack us to the floor while screaming at us and, if we got up, smack us back down. She stood and watched.

Oddly I never disliked him for this and saw it more as her being a dick but keeping her hands clean. Shes still like this now. Likes to tell other people what to do and stands back and watches.

As a result I do not hit my children at all. It didnt make me behave and just ruined our relationship on the whole.

i think as well, with my children being 00s children, i find taking away the wifi code FAR easier than any other punishment!! Literally no arguments, I just change it and they do what I say so they get the new code. Its like magic :)

My Dad smacked us, me more. I was more annoying and less obedient than my sister. Not daily or anything though. He had and still has anger issues, he would really fly into a rage and you couldn't reason with him sometimes over tiny things or things which weren't our fault.
He chased me and slapped me across the face when I was 16 causing my head to hit a piece of wood which gave me a black eye. I composed myself and told him calmly if he ever hit me again I would phone the police. He never did.

DH's Dad would smack them but it wasn't instant. His Mum would only hit his sister not her son's so she did the "wait 'till your Dad gets home' thing, so they waited sometimes all day knowing he would get home and hit them with a slipper.

Honestly I think DH's Dad is worse. Loosing your temper in the heat of the moment seems, to me anyway, more understandable than after the incident. It seems much colder to plan to hit your child.

I'm 29. My memory is that it was frequently threatened but rarely actually done, was quite often debated and a hot topic unlike today where it is almost universally disapproved of. I never heard of or saw anyone be smacked at school but it was illegal before I was born. I do remember a particularly creepy teacher reminiscing about being able to send kids off to be caned with this horrible glint in his eye!

The unfortunate thing is that some children really were abused, thrown around and slapped awfully all the time, and despite a lot of people insisting that there was a difference between smacking and abuse, my experience was that everyone turned a blind eye to abuse and particularly as children, we saw it as just an extension of "natural" or normal smacking. That is a huge difference from how hitting children is seen today and I'm glad this has changed.

Anyone else get their mouth washed out with soap and water? That was a favourite of my mother for cheekiness or 'corny wit' she said that when i made a remark she didn't understand. Sometimes she used washing up liquid if there was no soap to hand. Barbaric bitch.