Traumatised by being smacked

[Babyparrotdog]

Sounds dramatic to some maybe but am I the only one who feels they are genuinely traumatised from being ‘smacked’ as a child? I feel so much worse about it since having my own child.

[quote LizzieW1969]@CurryLover55

I was smacked in primary school, in the mid 1970s. Only with a hand, not a ruler or any other implement. One teacher smacked children a lot. Late 70s and early 80s, it was just the fact that there was a cane in the headteacher’s office, I think,

Then corporal punishment was banned. I remember hearing that it was, I don’t remember exactly when.[/quote]
In the 70s at primary class teachers would smack children on the bottom in a fairly casual way. Formal smacking by the head teacher was either hand or slipper, at times the slipper was given in assembly in front of everyone. I remember towards the end of my primary school they stopped snacking girls. In secondary school the cane was around until early 80s I think. It was usually on the palm though there were rumours of boys being caned on the legs/bottom, but never girls. Female teachers caned girls on the hands.
PE teachers were a law onto themselves and would hit students with table tennis bats, wet towels, ropes. Male games teachers would often come into the changing room to 'hurry the girls up' out of the showers and would slap us as we passed. We used to call them 'pervs' for it but in a resigned eye rolling way, not traumatised. This would gave been around 1982 I think.
So shocking to look back on.

Yes, although it wasn’t as bad as some,-and what I feel is mainly a grey that a child was made to bear the brunt of adult failings.
To those posters who say ‘it was a different time’: my ggd was physically abused by his mum as a child, grew up away from family. He had 4 rowdy boys in the 50s/60s.
Didn’t once lay a finger on any of them- bc he decided not to. Regardless of culture and context it is ALWAYS a choice.

Didn’t once lay a finger on any of them- bc he decided not to. Regardless of culture and context it is ALWAYS a choice. It is always a choice - but it's much easier to choose to go with the prevailing culture than against it.

In the 1960s, the idea of bringing up a "spoilt" child was a very big fear, and parents who didn't give a "good slap" when behaviour "merited" it were criticised.

@Peppaismyrolemodel well said. It absolutely is a choice.

Funnily enough I was talking to db last week and we were saying we would have preferred smacking/consistent physical abuser to the severe emotional abuse we suffered plus odd occasions of physical abuse but few and far between yet often enough for us to be on edge constantly. How said that we fee now all this time later we wished to have been beaten as the better option . Both of us suffere severely with issues now

@cushioncovers

I was smacked as a last resort when my mum who was one of the most patient people I knew had lost her temper. This was because I had ignored her and continued to be a pain in the butt. I'm not scarred by it at all. My father didn't smack but used hurtful words instead. 40 years later I can still remember them and his words deeply affected me. Given the choice I would rather have been smacked.

This, except it was my mum who would say hurtful things and my dad who was more likely to smack. Have no feelings whatsoever about the occasional smack that I received but some of the hurtful words really stuck with me.

@Babyparrotdog

Sounds dramatic to some maybe but am I the only one who feels they are genuinely traumatised from being ‘smacked’ as a child? I feel so much worse about it since having my own child.

I don’t think it’s dramatic whatsoever. It’s awful being hit as a child, children can’t remove themselves or leave the situation. I think, having my own, made me realise how bad some things were growing up.

Punishing another adult physically would be abuse and I’m all for physical punishments to children being made illegal too.

Violence, shouting, hateful words to a child are terrible.

I wouldn't say traumatized - given the time and place, it was pretty much "the norm" and parents just didn't know any better.
But I do feel resentful. There were a couple of times where I actually deserved it (stealing, tormenting animals), but most of the time it was for not wanting to eat, not wanting to sleep, not sitting still, doing things too slowly - meaningless shit like that. My mother was quite a cow.

That said, at the time smacking was actually a more preferrable punishment than grounding.

Smacking is assault no matter how you dress it up. Its shit lazy parenting. I can see how parents when pushed to the edge sometimes strike out and while its not okay its sometimes understandable when parents have nothing left.
Its never okay in my opinion.

@DaraTheTeapot It's funny you say that. I was severly beaten as a child. My mum would walk into a room and strangle me in a fit of rage until I blacked out for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Any object within reaching distance was used as a weapon to her. But its the emotional abuse that scars me more than anything. It hurts my stomach to think of anyone ever speaking my child the way I was spoken to.

[quote NewFlav]@DaraTheTeapot It's funny you say that. I was severly beaten as a child. My mum would walk into a room and strangle me in a fit of rage until I blacked out for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Any object within reaching distance was used as a weapon to her. But its the emotional abuse that scars me more than anything. It hurts my stomach to think of anyone ever speaking my child the way I was spoken to. [/quote]
I’m sorry you also experienced abuse 😞

The times we were hurt obviously it was awful but it was to me as a child on one level, physical hurt that was always the same unlike as you say emotionally abusing which would feel like my mind was being twisted and my heart ripped up and the fear all the time and living on edge and in a constant state of anxiety humiliation jealousy (of favoured and well treated sibling) and high alert

The posters saying they "deserved it" have also been damaged, they just don't realise it.

I would never hurt my children. I have never physically or emotionally abused them and they are well-behaved and kind.

I was also well-behaved and kind as a child, but my parents hurt me at every opportunity they got.

I would 100% report any child abuse I saw, including 'smacking'. It kills me to think of lovely little children and poor teenagers being hurt by the people who are meant to love and protect them.

I would like to see really tough sentences for physically abusive parents. We are too lenient as a society.

Parents who hurt their kids are scum.

Same, I still flinch when someone touches my hair. I don’t like anyone touching me and I hate raised voices. 20 years later I flinch if someone waves their arms or moves quickly near me. My patents had a stick they’d use and I often had striped bruises over me. It never leaves you yet I have such a close relationship with my remaining parent. Both were very violent yet I wasn’t a naughty child.

I am so sorry that happened to you. The cruel words often very sweaty and adult terms were used almost out of nowhere

I was traumatised by my sister being beaten, regularly, in front of me. However, she is unfazed. I cannot understand it. I am not close to my family because of it. She visits often.

I was rarely smacked and only ever by my DM when we really pushed/scared her. Never marked.
My Dad used to shout "get out of my sight" so he could restrain himself from smacking us.
He went to a Christian Brothers School where being hit with a leather strap with coins in was not an unusual punishment. If you complained at home you'd be hit again for getting in trouble.
In fairness to him despite that upbringing he didn't perpetuate it with us.
Like pp the hurt that has stayed with me are the words.
It is a world of difference though to what pp have gone through, that's not smacking that's abuse.
I think that is the best part of smacking becoming socially unacceptable, children who talk of being smacked are not just shrugged off.
There were definitely children I went to school with who meant beaten when they said smacked.

Not by the smacking (although that did happen from time to time and was not great) as by the volatility of the adults I grew up with. I realize more and more how damaged I am as I get older and since having my kids. Anger terrifies me; if I hear a raised male voice I flinch inside, even if it's not aimed at me. I have memories of of listening to my dad and stepmum fighting (just verbally afaik) and just crying with terror. I remember trying to get my little brother away from them when they were fighting. I remember feeling a holy terror of angering my dad, but he rarely hit so not sure what I was so frightened of. I wonder now if it was referred fear as he was verbally abusive to both my mum and my stepmum - I'm wondering if I picked up on their trepidation?

I don't know if I was just born sensitive or if I am that way due to the dysfunctional family. Certainly my sisters and brother seem more well balanced than me so maybe it's just my nature.

Not my own smacking, which was bad but my brother's - it was particularly bad, a one off and involved a belt - I still remember the day, the weather, the fear. I don't forgive my dad for it - I know it came from a place of desperation but it was hideous.

@Fatya

Just to add that by most people's standards I was a very well-behaved child. Top grades in school for every subject and very conscientious. Never got into trouble at school and always has glowing reports.

Didn't save me from being smacked about at home, though.

This is just how I was, and seems to be a common theme on this thread. I think many of us who were badly smacked or beaten at home grew up to be people-pleasers.

Never saw a teenage tearaway whose home was a calm haven where the parent/s consistently modelled self control and good methods of conflict defusement and resolution.

I was the one who copped for most of the smacking at home and I was a 'model student'. My younger sister got some, but not as much as me. Interestingly, as soon as I'd swotted myself into university and left, my sister turned into the archetypal teenage tearaway.

I'm happy to say it was just a phase and she's now a very responsible adult. But I remember speaking to my mum on the payphone at university and she was lamenting about my sister bringing 'mates' home to drink Special Brew in her bedroom ... I made sympathetic noises but was thinking 'ha - you haven't a clue what to do about this now they're all too big and strong for you to whack the living daylights out of'.

*The posters saying they "deserved it" have also been damaged, they just don't realise it.

Possibly. Or else, they’ve still got a relationship with their parents and their DC with their DGC. For that reason, they justify their parents’ actions whilst in reality knowing that they were wrong. (Note the fact that they’re saying that they themselves don’t smack their DC.)

Possibly. Or else, they’ve still got a relationship with their parents and their DC with their DGC

Oh dear. That was meant to say, ‘their DC with their ‘DGPs’. They don’t want to rock the boat by confronting head on what happened to them as children. (I’ve been there.)