s/o: How were you punished as a child?

[MushyMushy]

I think Magpie and I were raised by the same mother. My parents yelled til they were blue in the face, and my mother called me horrible names. The yelling is still the talk of my friends and we're in our 40s! We got spanked with the belt, sometimes the soft end, sometimes the buckle. My mother bought wooden paddles and used wooden spoons or spatulas. She broke a wooden paddle on my sister once. My mother was famous for her windmill slaps. She'd chase you around the room with her arms swinging, slapping all over the face, head and shoulders. She tried to pull that one on me when I was in my 20s and I raised my hand back and told her to just try it. That was the end of that.

And oh, the shame and guilt! According to her, my sister and I were the cause of every single one of her health problems and would be the cause of her death too. My sister was stupid and lazy, and I was a lazy.... um, tramp (that was one of the nicer terms).

Her idea of "play" was to give us "indian burns" on our arms (where you grab the arm with both hands and twist the hands in different directions -- OUCH!), or she'd hold her hand over our mouths and noses til we panicked from not being able to breathe. I remember once thinking I was going to die because she sat on my chest and wouldn't get up (she weighed 300 some pounds).

Good times.

 

[emma'smom]

As a child, I got the occasional swat on the behind and was sent to my room.

When I was a bit older, my mom used to wash my mouth out with soap when I mouthed off.

I do remember sitting at the table forever one night because I wouldn't eat the cheese soup in front of me. I never ate it....and eventually it was bed time.

I think I was grounded a few times as a teenager.....but not very often and only for one evening.



**However, when I had my own children, my father did make a point of telling me that he had reflected on it and decided that he wished that he hadn't spanked us and recommended that we didn't use this as a management technique with our own children. We don't. I have never spanked our children....

Most of our discipline strategies include talking about the issue and making them apologize, sending them to their rooms and/or time out.

 

[MWDisneyFan]

My Mom was a fan of the wooden spoon. My Dad liked the belt. We were pretty good kids because we had a lot of fear. When we got older it was groundings.

I have no problem with how I was raised, it was the times. However, I choose not to raise my kids in this way. We don't discipline physically. We re-direct or take things. It has worked so far!!

Good story- DD was mad one day and said she was going to live with Grandma. I told her she should go live with the Grandma I lived with who like the wooden spoon. DD wanted to know if it was for making brownies!

 

[Jennasis]

Mom was a screamer. She would go on a tirade over the most ridiculous things, telling us (mostly me) how awful we were. Told me I was the reason she and Dad were divorcing (I wasn't and they never did). She would drag me around the house by my hair and fling me into walls and doors by my hair. And I did get a beating or two...enough to make me wet myself (I was 9, and was made to vacuum mom's car out, and I used the hose to see if I could suck up a small pile of pebbles. Stupd me. It was mom's expensive vacuum).

Dad did nothing. He threw my little sister's bottle at me once and told my sister's boyfriend that I was a "b" and he hated me sometimes (the conversation was recorded on the answering machine).

 

[Fantasmic23]

I grew up in the 1980's and my mother and stepfather were into the whole "You're grounded" thing. My "groundings" usually lasted two weeks (It really depended on the severity of my offense). I couldn't go over to friends houses, to the movies or (And this was the BIG one) rollerskating on Friday nights. That was the worst ... Knowing everyone else but me was at the local rink, couple-skating to Wham's "Careless Whisper".

Depending on what I had done, I either lost phone priviledges or my phone calls were timed (Yes, my mother the warden would always be yelling, "Your five minutes are up!"). So, so humiliating.

My mother never hit me, though (Or hair-pulled, soap-in-mouth, etc.). My stepfather would always threaten that he was going to take off his belt, but he never did.

Verbal abuse ran rampant in my household, however. A lot of name-calling.

 

[Feralpeg]

I grew up in the 50s and 60s. We got spanked on rare occasions with a bare hand or a flyswatter. For the most part, we got sent to bed without supper.

 

[minniebeth]

I can't imagine I was in trouble so much, I was such a sweet child, (seriously was) my DH would definitely ask what happened to me

I remember standing in the corner in the kitchen at times~ maybe that's why I like paisley patterns so much
My mom threatened with a wooden spoon but never remember her using it.

 

[Jennasis]

DH tells me his mother's weapon of choice...GUILT.

 

[MrsPete]

I was born in the late 60s.

Mainly we received natural consequences. You left a library book outside and it was ruined in the rain? You have to pay for it out of your allowance. You didn't wash the dishes? Everyone else'll sit down to eat, and you can't eat 'til you finish that chore. You went to school without feeding the dog, leaving mom to do that chore? Since she did your chore, you now have to do hers after school -- and you can bet hers will be a whole lot more time-consuming. You didn't turn in your homework? Obviously you aren't responsible enough to do your homework on your own, so you'll be sitting at the table doing it in front of mom.

We were never "reasoned with" or given useless time-outs. I was grounded once, and I think my mom realized that it didn't make me sorry for what I'd done. I don't think our parents ever took anything away from us as a punishment. We were just told what we had to do to make up for our lax behavior; thus, we learned that rules are in place for a reason, that other people are affected by our actions, and consequences are a sure thing.

For really bad misbehavior, we were spanked. Without exception, every time I was spanked, I knew full well that I deserved it. This was a rare thing; we were pretty good kids.

I've treated my kids the same way, and I had the same results. They're good kids and rarely require discipline.

 

[Mrs. Darcy]

I was a child in the 90s and my mother said spankings were out of style then. So I got the evil looks instead.

 

[JarethDrakul]

Spanked or hit by my Dad.
My mum mainly shouted or uses gult trips (which she still does....).

 

[DisneyNutMary]

My mom used to be big on the silent treatment- she actually used it as punishment. She would yell a bit then stone cold silence, anywhere from hours to days... that really set my sister and me off, we would cry and beg her to talk to us. My brothers never seemed to care about the silent treatment, so they got yelled at.
My sister was the bad one, or the attention hungry one really, she used to get hit with a slotted spoon, and once my mother threw a shoe at her.

When a punishment was necessary to appease someone else, like one of my aunts or a neighbor ratted us out for something (my mom was never big on rats, she figured if she didn't see it, it didn't happen) she would give us a timeout on the corner cushion of the couch..... facing the tv, in the middle of the hubbub of the house, it was the non-punishment. We were off the street, making the neighbor think we were being punished properly, but mom didn't really want to punish, so we were able to watch tv.

 

[tink1969]

I don't really remember being punished too harshly. I do remember being threatened with the "big black brush" (similar to wooden spoon idea) but I was never hit with it. I did get a few smacks to the head (nothing to cry about) and being grounded.

With my children I use grounding and taking away certain privileges. When they were very young, I used timeouts.

 

[NikitaZee]

Wow reading these replies makes me feel sad. We were raised with the belt too - 'the strap' was what my parents called it. Bare butt, over the knee spankings. Sent to our rooms when we got older. My mom really feels bad about it now, but my dad shrugs it off because everyone's folks pretty much disciplined the same way. Funny though - he loves my kids so much that he wouldn't be able to stand the thought of me punishing them like that. And I never would - I just don't have the heart to discipline like that, and wonder how my folks did.

 

[ZephyrHawk]

I grew up in the 80's. I was very rarely spanked (always with the hand) or given a time out. Grounding did not work on me. In an attempt to punish me once my mother banned me from TV for a week. I didn't watch for 2 weeks out of pure cussedness. I think my mom once washed my mouth out with soap...or maybe she just threatened to...well, I did have a dirty mouth.

I was, however, subjected to pretty near constant verbal abuse, and occasional physical abuse, from my father. It's one of the reasons I don't have a problem with spanking and don't think it's a form of abuse. I got both, at one time or another, and one I understood was just meant to embarrass me into better behavior. It didn't hurt. It wasn't done in anger, but in an attempt to improve me. I respected that.

I was actually a very good, obedient kid.

 

[indimom]

I agree it's depressing and I really wish I didn't bring it up.

I never really considered the spankings we got as kids to be abuse, but so many people on the other thread included spanking in their estimation of abuse. I was surprised. My parents were always measured and in control administering a spanking. It never went over the line, in my opinion.

That's part of the reason I started this thread. I wondered just how "out of line" my thinking was. Was the spankings we got 20 or 30 years ago abuse?

I didnt expect so many responses from people who were subjected to punishments that were over the line, done in anger, or cruel (even if it didn't physically injure them).

I should have realized that its not about differing generations. There always have been and always will be parents who lash out blindly.
It's sad.

 

[MademoiselleKel]

Child of the 90's. I was spanked a few times mostly for lying or locking myself in the bathroom and using my mothers lipstick as "crayons" on the back of the door XD

 

[disney1990]

I was born in the 50's. My Mom is from Virginia - on the North Carolina line. We were either spanked with a belt (bare bottom) or hit with a switch from a tree on our legs (until it caused cuts on our legs). I'm quite sure that today it would be classified as child abuse.

This continued into our teen years.

 

[SunnyP4Disney]

I was never spanked, my mom had a very progressive Supernanny type approach to parenting. I had lots of timeouts and groundings, privileges taken away, etc. I turned out not too shabby. I have pretty much the same approach with DS, however, I probably lose it and holler like a banshee about every two months. My kid is 12, has straight As, and is very respectful. We are very lucky.

 

[r1lissa]

Child of the late 70s here.
Leather belt, coat hanger, tree switch- that's what I got spanked with. And I always had to go retrieve it.
Standing in the corner with my nose touching the wall.
Forced to eat food that made me throw up.
Father choked me once and that was after I was married...DH wasn't there, but I called him hysterical, and he called the cops. I was 20.

My father had a terrible childhood and just didn't know how to treat a child without being mean. I understand why he did those things, but I'll never forget. And I was a good kid- Honor roll every year, special awards, never smoked, never tried drugs, didn't drink, didn't ditch school. My parents have no idea what it's like to have a "bad" or "difficult" kid, yet they treated me like one.