Did anyone Used to Get Smacked as a Child?

donnap83

Read something in another thread and made me wonder. I'm 28 now, but when i was younger if I was naughty my mum used to wallop me. Used to have a red raw !!!!! on several occasions.

No one ever seems to smack their kids now?! Is it now classed as child abuse or something?!

I don't have children yet, by the way!

Did anyone else used to get a whack for being naughty??

polejunkie

Yes I did, no harm done to me but if your a parent now you cant even breathe on your child without some busy body accusing you of attempted murder and child abuse.

Children and teens appear to be untouchable now.

Alizarin

I certainly did, but only as the last resort when I was REALLY naughty.

OH likes to tell people how his mum chased him round the house trying to smack him with a big wooden spoon when he said a very bad word once! :rotfl:

We're both 27 so similar in age to you.

I think it's silly when I hear about parents being frowned upon for smacking their children. It never did me or OH any harm, and helped us learn that some things are not ok to do/say!

System

I used to dread a left handed wallop from Mum - those rings hurt like h**l.

Dad stuck to the 2 inch belt

Tropez

Since 2005, smacking a child so hard that it leaves a mark is a criminal offence carrying a potential prison sentence. A "reasonable" smack or chastisement is still legal.

I think it is less common these days due to the fact that studies have overwhelmingly shown that smacking has no long-term positive effect. While the undesired behaviour may cease in the short-term, the only reason for the child to completely cease such behaviour in future is if the threat of violence and harm is considered severe enough for it to stop. You're not teaching the child anything other than violence being an adequate solution to minor problems and you are instead conditioning a child to fear violent attacks from its family, particularly in cases where a child is physically admonished on a frequent basis.

tiamai_d

Oh yes! Slipper across my backside many a time!

Didn't happen much after I was about 8 years old though but I was better behaved than my kids are now. Then again, my parents could smack my bum in Tesco (or Presto as it was then) without anyone calling the police. Nowerdays you have to calmly explain to the child just why emptying out your handbag and throwing the contents at people is unnacceptable in order to divert a tantrum, back in the day you got your hand smacked and you didn't dare touch it again!

Make-it-3

I think pretty much most of us over a certain age would have been. It was an acceptable means of discipline back then.

It hasn't done me any harm, but doesn't mean I think we should follow in the same footsteps.

RacyRed

Tropez wrote: »

Since 2005, smacking a child so hard that it leaves a mark is a criminal offence carrying a potential prison sentence. A "reasonable" smack or chastisement is still legal.

I think it is less common these days due to the fact that studies have overwhelmingly shown that smacking has no long-term positive effect. While the undesired behaviour may cease in the short-term, the only reason for the child to completely cease such behaviour in future is if the threat of violence and harm is considered severe enough for it to stop. You're not teaching the child anything other than violence being an adequate solution to minor problems and you are instead conditioning a child to fear violent attacks from its family, particularly in cases where a child is physically admonished on a frequent basis.

I think it is less common these days due to the fact that parents don't want to end up in prison!

To be honest, how reliable is that research? We are only just beginning to experience the long term effects of the no smacking ethos. And to be honest we seem to be bringing up a generation of kids who think they can get away with anything because current disipline methods do not teach them self control.

I was smacked when I really deserved it. It taught me about limits I should think carefully about crossing, not to fear violent attacks from my family.

As with anything, if smacking is used properly then it isn't necessarily a bad thing.

JodyBPM

I'm 38, and I must admit, I don't ever remember being smacked. I do remember it there as the ultimate threat though. I'm sure I must have got smacked once or twice, but since I don't remember it, I guess it wasn't hard or regular.

Logic says that smacking isn't a good method of discipline. It's not acceptable for adults to cause bodily harm/physical pain to another adult because they don't like their behaviour, so why should it be acceptable for adults to do that to children.

Just because people don't smack their children, it doesn't mean that we don't discipline them. There are other, more effective forms of discipline than corporal punishment.

Tropez

RacyRed wrote: »

I think it is less common these days due to the fact that parents don't want to end up in prison!

To be honest, how reliable is that research? We are only just beginning to experience the long term effects of the no smacking ethos. And to be honest we seem to be bringing up a generation of kids who think they can get away with anything because current disipline methods do not teach them self control.

I was smacked when I really deserved it. It taught me about limits I should think carefully about crossing, not to fear violent attacks from my family.

As with anything, if smacking is used properly then it isn't necessarily a bad thing.

But parents won't end up in prison if they smack their child, only if the force they use is excessive.

As for how reliable the research is, well there will always be detractors, but there is plenty of research on the effects of smacking and the conclusions are the same. The vast majority of serious, violent offenders, including serial killers, were subjected to physical violence as a child, just as an alarming numbers of sex offenders were subjected to sexual abuse as a child.

As for teenagers - they've always believed they can do what they want. People can talk about chavs and teenage crime but it has always existed - mods and rockers in the 60s, punks and pretty much everyone in the 70s etc. Teenagers committing violent crimes is not a new thing, the only real change is that we have a sophisticated communications network that allows information about crimes to be proliferated worldwide in a matter of minutes. The recent riots in London are hardly new - what about Broadwater Farm and the murder of Keith Blakelock back in the 80s when smacking was still widely perceived as acceptable? What about the LA Riots in 1992?

Nothing has changed except the way the media is able to pounce upon incidents and present it to the world with much greater effect.

nicolax

Tropez wrote: »

Since 2005, smacking a child so hard that it leaves a mark is a criminal offence carrying a potential prison sentence. A "reasonable" smack or chastisement is still legal.

I think it is less common these days due to the fact that studies have overwhelmingly shown that smacking has no long-term positive effect. While the undesired behaviour may cease in the short-term, the only reason for the child to completely cease such behaviour in future is if the threat of violence and harm is considered severe enough for it to stop. You're not teaching the child anything other than violence being an adequate solution to minor problems and you are instead conditioning a child to fear violent attacks from its family, particularly in cases where a child is physically admonished on a frequent basis.

having looked critically at studies there are often so many other factors which produce these results.

from what ive read, the cases where smacking was purely short term was when children were just smacked, but were not told/did not know what they were being smacked for. the smacking does give a short term stop to behaviour but it is the explanation that goes with it (what they did wrong, and why it is wrong to do this) that brings about long term changes in behaviour.
same as how supernanny always tells parents to explain why the child is being placed on the 'naughty step' and not merely place them on there with no explanation. children sometimes dont know what theyre doing is wrong

i remember from being a kid that just the threat of one would be enough to stop me! just remember dad saying "im counting to three ....1 ...2..." then i knew i was in trouble - he never got to three, id always stopped what i was doing before then!