There are many ‘actual punishment’ that don’t involve smacking. As I said, the only thing that came from my mum smacking me was that I lost every ounce of respect for her. It just meant she’d lost control. I wasn’t even badly behaved, but I’d have responded far better to the loss of privileges, for example, than a slap round the face.
Same. Although I got the “loss of privileges thing” as well, which just made me stop wanting, asking, or getting attached to anything as it would just be taken off me.
I never even did anything “bad”. It was just kid
tit where I didn’t think things through, and it was more my mums frustration that she’d have to stop what she was doing and come and deal with me.
What would have worked with me is actually talking to me. I was a fairly clever kid, type A, and I just learned mistakes were bad and people would get angry with me. It would have been better to explain that yes, people make mistakes, but that’s how we learn, and it will be forgiven and forgotten by them long before you do.
I remember being slapped hard, on many occasions. I do not recall what any one of those slaps were for. My mum used to treat us as a funny anecdote- ooh yes, I slapped you so hard I left handprints on your leg!