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.

I wouldn’t say traumatised but looking back, I realise that some of what my DF did was actually really full on. DM used to smack me but she got nowhere near as physical as my Dad. He used to hit me round the head sometimes, which could have been really dangerous, & I remember a diary entry where I wrote that he had grabbed me by the scruff of the neck & yelled at me. Oddly, he is the loveliest kindest man you could meet but that anger was scary. I used to smack DD when she was little but am so ashamed I ever lost control like that.

Yep, recently had therapy for it and feel much better about it. My father was quick to anger and very aggressive and I was terrified of him when I was little.
I really can’t understand how you could hit a small child like that now I have my own.

Yes, very psychologically damaging. Me being hit. Including seeming my brother being whacked and bruised. Then he became my abuser. More than just physical, also psychological. Violence begets violence.

Yes for me. I wasn't beaten by my mother but I was slapped, had arms and legs pulled, chased through the house in fear until she caught us. She would slap us on whatever bit of body she could get her hands on - legs, arms, bottom. Her favourite was to slap us repeatedly around the head.

I raised the issue of DM smacking me in conversation when I last visited. She stood by it, said she would do it all again too under the same circumstances. She thinks kids today are too soft and don't have adequate discipline.

Needless to say, I don't chastise my DD with physical violence in any form.

You’re not alone, OP. I think a lot of parents were repeating methods dealt by their own parents without stopping to think ‘just because I can does it mean I should?’ Smacking and menacing a young child can be harmful and they won’t necessarily understand why they’re being smacked.

I don’t think it matters how other people view it, if you feel traumatised that’s how you feel and your feelings are valid 💐

Genuinely, no. I was smacked by my mum (in temper too at times) and by teachers at school but it didn't bother me then and doesn't now. I had a lovely relationship with my mum as a child and an adult. I am far more effected by things I remember being said to me, like verbal humiliation from teachers.

SquirryTheSquirrel

I could have written your post. I had some therapy to help me deal with the emotions that came up after having my first child, which definitely helped.

I don't feel traumatised, but it has had a long lasting impact on me. When my kids play up I feel a really strong urge to hit them and it's very upsetting. Also my brother in his late teens and early twenties physically attacked me a number of times, following the example set by our parents.

I think isolated incidents of smacking within an otherwise loving home environment make dealing with the enabling much easier. For me definitely. However if I’d been in a generally abusive environment where I’d also been snacked then I think I’d feel the same.

Strugglingtodomybest

I'm glad therapy helped you - it's something I have considered myself. I'm childfree by choice, so thankfully I have been able to distance myself from many situations that would trigger memories. I usually 'change the subject' in my head to avoid it.

Sometimes if I see an adult shouting at a small child, my old emotions rise up and I want to rush over and 'protect' the random child, because in my mind that kind of shouting precedes being beaten, although I know rationally most parents would never hit their children nowadays and all I'm doing is projecting my own memories.

Not at all, but a wet tea towel does sting.

I was smacked a lot as a child, as were my siblings. My DM has always admitted that our F smacked us too hard, but used to put it down to him ‘not knowing his own strength’.) She used to smack us as well too.

It’s hard to say whether I was traumatised by it, as far worse things happened to my DSis and me; my F used to sexually abuse us as well. I would say, though, that it partly explains why we didn’t say anything to my DM about what was happening to us. We had no reason to think that she would take our side against our F, as she never had before with regards to the smacking.

Yes, I was smacked as child and a teenager and I still think about it. The kind of smack I would get varied. Sometimes it was round the head and other times it was round the face.

My dad punched me in the face because I got drunk when I was 15 and it was so hard that my braces went through my top lip. When I mentioned it to my mum a few years ago she said it wasn't a punch it was a back hand, like that made it ok.

I think for me, smacking was part of the whole abuse package. ‘Smacked’, kicked, verbally abused, and other psychological abuse of various types.

Yes I was traumatised, it shaped my whole life but I am in my late 50s now and have to live with it.

I hate my parents. My violent drunk of a father died when I was 17. The abuse from my mother continued into adulthood. I remember seeing her raise her hand to threaten me when I was 35 and 8 months pregnant with DD2, when I told her to get lost about something.

My Mum is 86 now and I see her although I was no contact for several years. I can never forgive her and won’t mourn her when she dies.

I was occasionally smacked for bad behaviour. I am not traumatised.

Yes I do, I’m 53 and memories of being smacked (often by my mum, and also by teachers), have affected me all my life.

No two adults would smack with the same force, frequency, reason, violence etc. And of course no two children are the same. I was probably smacked lightly a few times, and can’t remember it at all. But I was smacked very hard once. It achieved nothing but create a bad memory. A stern telling off and explanation would have achieved the same result without the violence and associated bad memory.

I don’t think about it as traumatising but it definitely affects how I parent my children hugely. I never smack/shout or punish them in a way that will make them feel bad about themselves. I was lucky enough to access a parenting course at my sure start center (when those were still about, less common now) and it really helped me think about teaching my children rather than punishing them.

People defend smacking by saying it’s just a ‘tap’ and doesn’t hurt, but if that was true then it would be an ineffective punishment. A literal tap - like what I do to someone’s shoulder when I want them to notice something - is unlikely to deter a child from a behaviour as it wouldn’t hurt.

I also would say I struggle to understand why smacking a child’s hand/bottom/legs is acceptable to some but most people would agree slapping their face (no matter how hard) is abusive.

Not at all. 3 times I remember being smacked - late primary/early secondary - I bloody well deserved it

I grew up in the era of children being smacked (1940's) I remember my late Mum smacking my bare legs a few times when I was about 7 or 8.. It has never had any lasting effect in my life. But the smack on the legs. did have the desired outcome, if it was something naughty I might have done, after she had given me plenty of warning what she would do if I kept doing something she didn't approve of.

I dare say my late Mum was frazzled and bothered about some things in the war years, and things would get on her nerves, and wear her down, so a child misbehaving would make her lose her cool.

Some police men who walked the streets, were known to give a wayward child a clip around the ears, if they caught them fighting with other children, or trying to steal anything. it usually had the desired effect, as the kids would have been in trouble at home as well for misbehaving in the streets.

I do know a few people who were badly treated at home as kids then, those with Fathers who were heavy drinkers, always at the pub after work, and couldn't cope with noisy and unruly children when they got home, so smacking and other punishments were then dished out to the children, and sometimes the wife.

Im still afraid to be in the house with just my dad. I'm nearly 40.

@Kanaloa

I also would say I struggle to understand why smacking a child’s hand/bottom/legs is acceptable to some but most people would agree slapping their face (no matter how hard) is abusive.

The cynic in me would say slapping in the face is more likely to show obvious bruising that can't be otherwise explained so that's why it's avoided, with the 'less abusive to slap on legs/bottom' being a myth peddled so the people doing it feel OK about it .

I'm currently seeing a therapist to try to unpack the trauma from childhood abuse. My parents considered it discipline. I was hit on the bum, legs, arms, face head etc. Both of them would chase me round the house/pull me out of the shower and rain down blows. It finally stopped when I was almost as tall as my dad and hit him back. It has affected all my relationships, and has very much made me determined to parent my own DCs differently. I confronted them about it and they denied it all, except for one incident that happened in front of family friends. I guess they couldn't deny something that happened in front of witnesses.
Sometimes I wonder if I could tell the police about it but it's a 'my word against theirs' scenario