Smacking - anyone get the slipper growing up?

[dglondon]

How times change! Was all the rage in the 70s, with Beano characters being whacked on a weekly basis. My wife got it at school and my mum kept a slipper just for smacking (yes, social services have been informed!). Has slippering died a death or just gone underground like dog fighting?

[samuelcat]

Morning.
My mum also used a slipper also a wooden spoon.
It was harsh and cruel.
Yes it did keep us under control but only by fear.
When I see kids now acting up I think its ok for their parent to give them a slap on the bum or legs but they should never use anything else.

[Mully79]

Aye, back in the 80s when I was a kid I got the exercise sandal (wooden Scholl slipper). Either on my bum and legs or thrown at me if I tried to run away from my mother mid-punishment - and then the leather belt if I was really, really bad. Very harsh and cruel I thought, even now. I think this method has died a death, things seem a lot more liberal these days and people are frightened of Social Services turning up on their doorstep (when I was a bit older, I used to tell my mother I would phone Childline if she hurt me again!) Yes I was a model child compared to others, but when you know you're going to get beaten if you step out of line it tends to make you live in fear and not put a foot wrong! Personally I wish I didn't have those kind of childhood memories of getting hit, throttled and allsorts - and I may have been a bit more confident and outgoing if I wasn't so worried of how my parents would react if I did something a little bit naughty. All kids have their off days and will be naughty no matter what you do and I think there are other ways of dealing with it without having to hit a child.

Having said that, I've been close to smacking my little one's bum when she's turned into Devil Child but I choose to walk away and take a deep breath - it's really tough to keep your cool. She gets punished with the usual "time out" and having toys / treats taken away. That tends to work but at her age she'll have her moments where she'll just scream but we don't relent to her tantrums and the moment passes.

[4getmenot]

I often ran up the stairs backwards to hide my tiny bum from dad. lol

[NoMercy]

My mum used smacking as a first, second, and third resort. I was often given the slipper. Once it was a spatula, and on another occasion, she dragged me up the stairs by my hair, whilst thumping me on the back at the same time. Oftentimes, I would get a hiding purely because she was in a bad mood, and not because I had been naughty. Sure, I would have to do something to trigger it, but many times I got a good pounding purely for answering her back. This destroyed my relationship with her and we have only got back on track in the last couple of years. We are really still getting to know and like each other. I have always loved my mother, but haven't always liked her. I'm fairly sure that if she could have her time over again, she wouldn't have treated me like that.

[Mully79]

LOL 4Get, I wish I'd thought of running upstairs backwards! Although my mum would probably have thrown it at me anyway - she'd have to work hard explaining my black eye and bruises to schoolteachers!

NoMercy - about 10 years ago I was on the verge of cutting ties with my parents, I didn't have a good relationship with them all. We've built it back up over the years and now she's a model parent / grandparent - a proper softie with my daughter, she'd never lay a hand on her. I think retrospectively she'd also do it all again differently if she had the chance.