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 don't because I did always deserve it, and my parents didn't do it to hurt me, it was a punishment and I learnt after it. But don't think that's the kind of thing you're meaning really.

Yes but I think I had physical and mental abuse. I’m close-ish with my parents but don’t forget and haven’t forgiven. I’ll never make my children feel how they’ve made me feel.

Yanbu. It's a nasty thing to do to a child and is illegal in many countries now for good reason. When you have your own kids you do tend to reflect on how you were treated.

I don’t feel traumatised exactly but now that I have my own baby I truly, truly can’t understand why my parents smacked me. They didn’t do it often at all - I only recall 2 or 3 occasions. And it was a quick smack with the hand. But it is hard to understand how they could have been ok with it when I feel like I would chew my hand off before I hit my son.

I just remind myself that it was a different time with different standards. It’s not exactly an excuse, but it’s an explanation.

Now I look back I’m a bit shocked by it I suppose, not traumatised though.

My home was one were domestic violence was normal so for us kids to be hit was normal.

Child of the 70”s, it was normal, usual, no one raised an eyebrow.

It was the usual way to punish misbehaviour in the recent past - and also since time immemorial.

I think people whose parents were otherwise reasonably good parents are more able to rationalise it as just how things were then. Or of course if people have ended up doing the same to their own kids they wouldn't want to say it was harmful. If it was just one more aspect of shitty parenting and it wasn't just the occasional tap as with my parents, I'm not willing to be blasé about it

Up until secondary school, it was a single slap, no more than once or twice month, when we'd driven DM beyond endurance.

Then I was sent to boarding school. Seven years later I emerged with a hair trigger temper, a willingness to absorb and inflict pain that scared everyone around me, and of course out of control drinking. Some of my schoolmates joined the Forces and died in service, some went to prison for sex offences, most are either depressed or insouciant sociopaths. Luckily we're too old to befoul the earth much longer.

I got better, but not over it.

Yes and I'm close to my parents now, but I wouldn't leave my dad alone with my son as he pushes his buttons. I got hit with slippers, belts and on one pretty memorable occasion round the head with a hair drier. Right until I got big enough to fight back!

I get you.
It is a trauma and I'm sorry it happened to you.
I have pretty much ignored my dad for almost 30 years because of his physical and verbal abuse.

I was always very close to my mum but in recent years I feel we are drifting away from each other. She says things like "you're horrible to your dad so no wonder we don't come round" or minimises the serious physical abuse (e.g. grabbing me by hair and smashing my head repeatedly into a door/busting my nose/ punching me in the face etc). She tuts when I bring it up and says I was "difficult too". I was a fucking child.
She also refuses to believe he's said the vile things he's said to me: "I bet everyone says your ugly"/ "you're only good for a weekend not a relationship" etc. Etc. As if I'd make this stuff up.
I can't imagine ever treating my kids like this. There's just no excuse for it. You don't learn from being hit, it is just abuse.

*you're

A little. My childhood often pops into my head even though I am now 39.
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My DM would make me kneel in front of her on the floor to smack my face. I never knew the EXACT moment the face slap would land, but I remember the fear of it being on it's way.

My DC's are 16 and 21 now, and I have never and would never do that to them even if you held a gun to my head.

Yes , really affected me.

We were smacked and also 'spanked' this meant being put across father's leg, having trousers pulled down and hit repeatedly.
All in front of siblings etc.
My dad's temper was unpredictable and could erupt in a moment out of nowhere. A usual domestic scene could be occurring and my dad could decide he didn't like the way you looked at him and you were being lifted into the air.
The shock and humiliation were awful.

I remember all of us begging him not to.

The other thing which I find awful was that afterwards he would hold you against his chest arms looped around legs so you couldn't move an inch and keep you there until you stopped crying and were 'friends' with him again.
So no power even over your own natural anger/pain or need to get away.

Really wrong and totally unnecessary. I have never touched my children.
Such a shame, all about the broken adult and thier issues being taken out on little people who can't stop it.

YANBU.
Just because it was “normal” in the past doesn’t mean it wasn’t traumatic. Studies have shown that smacking negatively affects children.

My father was abusive to my mother, and while he never hit me - I am still distressed by being around angry or yelling men. The things you’re exposed to as a child can affect you for life.

YANBU I was smacked and shouted at and know I have maladapted response to conflict, shouting and the expression of emotion.

I do not believe smacking is ever acceptable. I have never smacked my children and whilst I am not perfect, try to follow strict rules about taking time out and talking through issues, rather than shouting.

Even when my older son hurts my younger son, I call it out as violence. It is not acceptable in the home or anywhere.

Depends on you as a person.
I was hit as a child, got the one hit for every word mother said eg don’t you ever do that again = 6 hits, never had a voice as it was deemed to be back chat. Mother hit my child despite me telling her there’s other ways to discipline, her response was well it’s a tap and then it’s over, better than waiting for them to stop screaming …. I cut her out of our lives and never regretted doing so

Damaged by it, definitely. My Dad was a big fan of the wooden spoon. As in, he'd make us stand with our hands out, plams up, and smack them, hard, with a wooden spoon. It was horrible. A smack out of fear (child about to run into a busy road, parent grabs them and gives them a smack on the bum) I can understand. I definitely don't condone it, but I can kind of understand it. This was different. Dad would get cross, make us stand with our hands out, go off to the kitchen to get the wooden spoon, then slap us with it. It wasn't done out of rage or fear, it was calm and calculated. And if we dared to cry from the pain he'd say 'stop that crying or I'll really give you something to cry about'.

My father refused to hit me or my sister because he always said that a man who raises his hand to a female, regardless of who she is, doesn't deserve to be called a man.
That said, I dare say there are times when he wanted to punch us into oblivion.
I can't ever remember my mum getting violent with us, she had ' the look ' except for one time when my sister was around 15 and she turned completely feral, wouldn't go to school, started smoking and drinking, not bothering to come home and not contacting our parents to say she wasn't.
After months of my parents trying everything to turn her round, my mum finally snapped and punched her round the room while me and my dad tried to get her off.
My sister underwent a personality transplant and became the fab girl / woman that we all loved.
She absolutely adores our mum and freely admits that, in her words, she was a bitch from hell who deserved it.
Neither of us, or our siblings have ever smacked our own children, though lord knows at times I've wanted to punch them to mars and back.....instead I've made do with slamming the kettle onto the hob.

I don't feel traumatised by having been smacked as a child. I think it was more a product of the time I was brought up in (late 80s/early 90s), my parents having been punished in the same way themselves and a bit of a lack of patience with young children. That said, we were very loved and smacking wasn't a regular occurance.

I don't and wouldn't smack my children because I don't think it solves anything. Discipline methods have moved on a lot since I was a child.

Age 7 I had three wooden spoons broken on me and then the belt. DM is my closest family members but minimalises what my DF would do when provoked.

*member

The slap happy culture had a bad effect on me. Some of my school teachers were prone to slapping me for making errors which increased anxiety and shut down the learning process in certain subjects. I also grew up wary of my dad: he was prone to menacing and slapping me at times for very little. He was inconsistent with it and remember thinking why did he slap me for this yesterday but not today? I still remember the last time he shoved me because I refused to accept clothing that was too short for me. By this time I was fairly tall and hit him back for bullying me. He never did it again. He resorted to ridicule and minimising instead. This cemented my thinking that he was a bully and a coward. If you met him, you would never dream he was prone to outbursts. I’m also sure he would deny that he was ever like this with me.

YANBU. I was smacked regularly. Usually slaps to the back of the legs or being put over a knee and spanked bare-bottom but sometimes we were hit on the head or other punishments such as having arms twisted behind our backs. My Dad had a stick he kept specifically for threatening and hitting us with and I would also be hit with other objects my parents had to hand such as spoons, chopping board, rolling bin, belt etc. This was in the 90s and I can still get upset about it and I believe the memories have exacerbated or even caused my mental health difficulties.

@Blackopal

Yes , really affected me.

We were smacked and also 'spanked' this meant being put across father's leg, having trousers pulled down and hit repeatedly.
All in front of siblings etc.
My dad's temper was unpredictable and could erupt in a moment out of nowhere. A usual domestic scene could be occurring and my dad could decide he didn't like the way you looked at him and you were being lifted into the air.
The shock and humiliation were awful.

I remember all of us begging him not to.

The other thing which I find awful was that afterwards he would hold you against his chest arms looped around legs so you couldn't move an inch and keep you there until you stopped crying and were 'friends' with him again.
So no power even over your own natural anger/pain or need to get away.

Really wrong and totally unnecessary. I have never touched my children.
Such a shame, all about the broken adult and thier issues being taken out on little people who can't stop it.

Some of this is very similar to what I mean. The forced affection was very confusing. I’m sorry that happened to you too

Yes and in my middle age I seem to be focusing on my childhood, a few things have happened lately that have stirred up past memories.
It's a standing joke in our family that I don't like human contact, cuddles, people touching me etc but when I was a child the only time my parents touched me was to hit or smack me, I have no memories or sitting on my mums lap being cuddled, now if people go to touch me a inwardly flinch.
My sibling had a different childhood to me, I always seemed to be the scapegoat, siblings could blame me for anything and I would be hit, they'd deny this ever happened now, embarrassed probably.
I never laid a finger on my own daughter