To ask how those of us who were smacked

[ButThisIsMyHappyFace]

Feel about it now?

Apologies if this is a stupid or triggering question but I’m re-evaluating a number of things from my childhood, trying to figure out why my relationship with my DM is so difficult. One of those things is smacking. She smacked me repeatedly, in anger. I never understood what I had done that was so wrong. She has never apologised, although I know she thinks it’s wrong to smack children nowadays. I know that very many kids born in the 80s and earlier were smacked - it was normal. I’m not asking if it’s wrong to smack. I know it is wrong and I will never smack my DC. My question is: those of us on here who were smacked as kids - how do you feel about it now? Do you feel it was abusive? Or is that not really a helpful way of looking at it anyway?

I hate this. I always feel like saying well you obviously think it’s okay to smack and that’s the harm ! You can’t smack another adult if they upset you so why is okay to smack a child ! My mum used to smack us even as a teenager she would slap me or drag me by the hair she was literally crazy. She would down play this if she was asked if she smacked her kids

Not funny but kind of is... my brother is 2 years younger than me. I was a good kid, he was too but was the naughtier of us and was a biter but is still the golden child as adults. As I've said before, smacks were handed out generously.

My parents were doing something and I was told to look after him. I must have been about 6. He was doing something he shouldn't have been doing. If you're naughty you get a smack. So I smacked him and he screamed. My parents came running and smacked me because it's naughty smacking someone. Yes, that made complete sense to a 6 year old.

He realised Id been naughty so he smacked me too because thats what happens when you're naughty. So then my parents smacked him. He bit them. I laughed so they smacked me again. I hit him again. We were sent to bed.

He snuck into my room and bit my foot. I kicked him. I got another smack because I'm older so should know better (I was 6 and had just been bitten). My mum screamed how I ruined her life.

Still sobbing. I snuck into his room and poured water into his bed so that my parents thought he'd weed the bed. He got smacked. I felt bad.

I like the sound of your gran. No matter how frustrated i have got with some of the kids I’ve taught I can honestly say i have never ever wanted or needed the power to hit them. Teenagers would just hit me back, anyway!

My siblings and I were ‘smacked’ regularly (or often repeatedly hit or sometimes kicked), I have less traumatic memories about myself and more about the fear and horror of seeing my siblings hurt. As a result, the strongest attachments I have are to my siblings and I have had to block out an enormous amount to have any kind of relationship with my parents.

The long term impact of this (and the verbal abuse that went with it) is that I have suffered with cripplingly low self esteem and anxiety since I was a child. Getting therapy when my own children were babies (as it made my disbelief that anyone could hurt a child even stronger) thankfully made an enormous difference but the mental scars are still there.

There are so many varying degrees of 'smacking'... I honestly still believe that some level of corporal punishment is okay, though it's not a perfect solution. If it was a rare but effective deterrent, and if the parent(s) administering the punishment were calm at the time (not slapping to express anger or frustration), and if the home was typically a positive and loving environment, I think it unlikely to ruin familial relationships or mess up the child's psyche. When the circumstances are different, yes, it can be abusive, but as I experienced it, I wouldn't call it abuse.

I didn't like it at the time, of course, but that was kind of the point, and my relationships with my parents are fine, now, despite the few smacks they gave me when I was a child. I know they love me and were doing what they thought was right and for my own good.

I was smacked. Not often but the threat was there.

I don't regard it as abuse, did me no harm and I love my parents and have a terrific relationship with them. I was also threatened with a cane at Primary school - it was thwacked down on a chair. Scared the hell out of me. (I deserved it and I respected the telling off.)

We don't smack ours, but interestingly DP has regular play fights with the kids which involve rapid hard bursts of bum smacking which must sting way beyond the intensity of a 'punishment' smack and they laugh all the way through. So there's a massive psychological aspect - if I saw a child being 'seriously' smacked in the way they do in play fights I'd be phoning the Police!

That is terrible but hilarious at the same time.

People asking if you were smacked and don’t have any lasting impact from it then why don’t you smack your own kids, it’s because times have changed and we know it’s no longer acceptable and doesn’t solve the problem of why you’re smacking in the first place anyway.

When I was a kid we didn’t wear seat belts. I remember going on many night time drives, lying down in the back seat watching the street lights. It never did me any harm, I’m still alive. Would I have let my own kids travel without a seat belt? No. Because now we know better. There are many things that were just the norm back in the 70s and 80s that aren’t today.

I was smacked a handful of times and tbh bar once I would say I deserved it.

I was told off and if I ignored it repeatedly I got a smack. As I said, it was never hard enough to be sore, but I remember feeling embarrassed and ashamed.

I don’t see anything wrong with what happened to me, but I am only speaking for myself. Your experience sounds very different from mine.

I remember watching a programme about smacking. It was about a very religious family and it was the Dad's "duty" to punish the children (and his wife). He was very pro smacking/spanking but never wanted to act out of anger.

So at the end of every day he would have the kids stand in a line (and presumably the wife) and come into his study one at a time to be spanked for any misdeamers during the day. He had a rule book that specified how many spanks you would get depending on the crime and what you would be spanked with eg hand/belt etc.

The programme actually showed him doing the ritual with a distraught child which ended with him whiping the child with a cane. On tv.

I was smacked as a child but never thought about it-most kids were smacked so I see it as a cultural thing rather than abuse. When I say smacked, I mean on the bottom or legs with a hand. Not with objects or fists-that has always been abuse. There is a world of difference between a tap on the legs and a hard smack which leaves a mark. However, I only smacked my children twice and felt horrible afterwards-there are other ways to make your point. So I personally don’t agree with it, but it was
ar for the course in my childhood-and most of my peers. We grew up pretty happy.

I was smacked a handful of times and tbh bar once I would say I deserved it.

No child ever deserves to be smacked.

We don't resolve our differences with other adults by violence so why do we do it with children?

But why administer a physical punishment when other methods are just as effective?

For self harming? That's horrific. I was lucky, although there was DV at home towards my mum and us kids occasionally I was only ever verbally abused and threatened for self harming and having MH issues. My sister was punished with violence for suffering extreme depression as a teenager (threatened with a knife kind of thing. Being told we were able the devil's children and bringing shame on our family for being mentally ill was pretty awful but I don't remember being smacked for those things specifically .

it's shocking that you were smacked for being distressed. I'm so sorry you endured that. 💐💐

I was and I don’t have any strong feelings either way. The emotional abuse I suffered due to my mum’s untreated mental illness has caused far more scars than a spank on the bottom now and then.

I was also smacked 3 times as a child/ tween and I remember each one and the absolute humiliation very clearly. I doubt my parents remember the times I was smacked. As a result of that my teenagers have never felt that from me or their dad and are both well behaved, respectful young people. I don’t think there’s ever a time that putting hands on a child for punishment is acceptable, there is always an alternative.

I was smacked a few times as a child. My parents were very against smacking by the time I had my own dc, I think most parents did it. My school was still giving the cane whilst I was there which was around 1988 which I think is much worse.

I was smacked occasionally and I can’t say I have very given it a moments thought.

I'm sorry you felt humiliated, this wasn't my experience though and my DM does remember each of the three times as we've discussed it a few times over the years

I was smacked, as a child of the 60/70s so it wasn’t unusual. My parents were loving but the smacking achieved nothing good. I wasn’t even a naughty child, the smacks were for behaving like a child (for some reason parents thought you should act like an adult even if you were only eight). It turned me into a terrible people pleaser and afraid to have a different opinion to others. It took me decades to move away from that. My children weren't smacked and they were always allowed a voice, and the difference in their demeanour and self esteem as kids to mine at the same age was massive.

I'm sorry you went through that, I went through the same with my dad, zero contact. My heart goes out to you x

This is me. I only got smacked a few times and it was generally when I'd been naughty and I knew full well i had been 🤣🤣

It doesn't bother me in the slightest as an adult, I don't feel I was abused and have a lovely relationship with my parents who were great parents.

Me and my siblings grew up with good healthy discipline and have become happy, successful independent adults with happy families of our own.

Times and attitudes were different then.

I was smacked with hands, slippers, hair brushes, wooden spoons and sticks. It was for anything I had done to annoy them that day. I can honestly say I was not a naughty child. I talked to much but that was it.

I tapped my children’s hand - not hard to leave a mark or even that they cried when they went to touch the hob. I’m ashamed of that now.

It absolutely affects me now and is something I have spoken to a counsellor about. I could understand more if it was a slap there and then but they would go downstairs to get a cane from the garden to walk back up the stairs to hit me with. That I don’t get. That was not done in a quick fit of rage that was thought about. and that is what I can’t forgive. They consciously made a decision to cane their child.

I was smacked, fairly often, and in temperature, with objects eg rulers. But I don't feel any bitterness or anger about it because I know my mother loved me to the moon and I know she was parenting a lot better than she had been parented. I don't think it was abuse, at all, I just think life was a lot harder for a lot of people back then.
I do think authoritarian parenting has limited my self confidence - but I know they did the absolute best they could in their circumstances. I do find it very hard work though to undo that temper in me when parenting, but I'm getting better all the time - helped by my mum who, though she will never ever say it (and I would never hurt her by asking) - clearly wishes she had known a better way when we were little.

Temper lol not temperature!