Indeed. There were no school shootings when we were kids.
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I would say mostly a sign of the times. Me and my sisters went through the same thing in the sixties and seventies. We would have to pull down our pants and get over my dads knee and get about 4 or 5 good whacks with my dads belt. Surely even back then, not every parent thought a spanking was OK, but in those times it wasnāt looked upon as it is now. I mean even back then some parents overdid the spanking and it was abuse and of course some parents were just violent angry people who took out their anger by beating their family. All they needed was any little excuse and just beat their kids for every small thing.
But when I first got sick when I was 19 and I was living in my first group home my dad would visit me a lot and we would sit in his car and just talk, sometimes for an hour or longer. Schizophrenia was new to us both at that time and we talked about my illness but he also used to tell me about his life and he told me stories of when him and my mom first got married and started having us kids and he talked about his dad. His dad, was an alcoholic, and he was a violent person. My dad told me his father worked in a prison for 11 years and got attacked 11 times which he mostly won.
But my dad used to fondly tell the story of when my grandfather took my dad and a friend of my dads to the state fair when they were kids. My grandfather let them walk away by themselves to the merry-go-around and told them sternly to meet him as soon as they took one ride. My dad and his friend got off though and started fooling around somewhere else and were late. My grandfather was pissed and when the boys finally got there, my grandfather punched my dad in the head knocking him down and punched his friend too! A cop was walking by and he didnāt know the story, all he saw was some old man beating up two kids. So the cop grabbed my grandfather and tried to wrestle him to the ground and my dad jumped on the cops back to get him to let go. Now, when my dad told me this story he would laugh, because it was a different time. My grandfather would be arrested if he did that today but back then my dad didnāt call it child abuse. His father just had a bad temper and was a strict disciplinarian. It didnāt scar my dad or mess him up psychologically.
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I got one spanking and my dad felt so sorry about it I never got another one. Mostly I was a quirky but good kid until my teen years.
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I donāt have any kids, but do have nephews and a niece. My sister would slowly count to five in an increasingly menacing voice. The kids knew what happened if they didnāt stop the problematic behaviour and she got to five. One or two sharp smacks on the rear and no phone/tablet/computer time for a while.
Worked very well when I was around.
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There was no internet either 
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Yes and no? 
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In Sweden it is illegal to hit children even spanking them is illegal.
I grew up in Australia and Sweden.
In Australia it was legal and they even cained children at school when I was young.
My parents were against hitting but I got hit a few times anyway so they went against their own beliefs.
I hit my mum back once when I was a teenager she slapped me across the face and I slapped her back.
She let my step dad I had lick my face and he tried to kill me and suffocated me with a pillow n strangled me etc and she looked the other way despite that she always spoke up against child abuse etc
He said the only reason he didnāt kill me was because he didnāt want to go to jail.
I couldnāt breath.
My friend reported my step father to the police but he never got charged and we went to a psychologist and they all hanged up on me and blamed me all of them against me.
Iām really thankful for my parents though our relationship has been complicated and I used to feel unloved and unwanted because we moved etc
My parents kindof raised me that I have no superiors and I believe that I donāt but although Iāve had grandeur I donāt think I am either as such.
It was definitely not sir this n that thankfully I never addressed my parents like that.
I hope to change my name back to my family name soon.
I am not really keen on hitting and nasty punishments etc
Children can be treated so badly and be so misunderstood and suffer so much.
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I once had a friend and her dad said she is not aloud to buy ice cream so she told me to buy ice cream.
Reluctantly I did and her dad who is a friend of my dad was furious when he saw me with ice cream.
He lifted me up in the air and hit me.
I ran home and he chased me.
It was so funny because my dad didnāt understand a word of what he was saying and my dad told me that Iām not in trouble and that his friend should not have hit me.
My dad told me he thought his friend did wrong and that that may be how he raised his daughter but itās not how my dad raised me.
Iām so proud of my dad for that.
My dad kicked me in to my room once when I was behaving soooo badly to my step mum who was perfect to me (she did homework with me, loved me etc but I was very hurt after my mum )but apart from that my dad never hit me.never.
Iām really proud of my father and he is a Australian champion in a sport.i will not say in what though but Iām so proud of him.
He is liberal but does not believe in hitting children.
He is pretty right winged but he is so cool in not being for hitting and violent and not believing this dad was my superior who had a right to hit me.he said he was wrong and had no right to hit me.
My mum is probably greens now and she was left winged but went right winged when she was with my step dad but now they are divorced sheās swung to the left.
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yes - that is abuse
my father also, and it turns out he was pretty sadistic and showed it in so many ways
he would make up the punishment - knowing that i had not done the accused thing - even if he asked me to do it or whatever, he would use that as a reason
he dragged me accross the room to do it and then became ritualistic and S&M about the whole thing
yes it was just a few slaps but it would make me scream inside.
my mum smacked us appropriately - just no warning i guess and just when we were actually doing something naughty
just a tiny shock rather than pain or humiliation,
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What hurt me more than physical abuse was emotional such as my stepdad used to say Iām not a member of their family and that Iām not aloud to play with my brother.
My mum said things like I ruined her life and she wishes she never gave birth to me and she said awful things to me that truly broke my heart and depressed me even as a young child.
I would cry why does no one love me.
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You are loved @Truemist8 
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Wow!
Thank you so much!!!
Very precious to read such words.
Back at ya.
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I was smacked as a child. When i was particularly naughty, i got the wooden spoon. When i was really bad, i got the belt. I used to think it was okay, because hey, i turned out alright didnāt i? Now days though, iām 100% against it. You could dismiss the behaviour as a āsign of the timesā, but even if that were the case, i would still consider spanking a form of child abuse. You, as the parent, are supposed to display emotional control. Your child will mirror what you do when they are an adult. If you show them nothing but physical violence, an out of control temper and possibly even verbal abuse, then how could you expect them to turn out better. I speak from experience here. My mother had a wicked temper when i was a child. I grew up with the same temper. My temper is really something iām ashamed of, as it demonstrates a lack of emotional control. There are many ways to discipline a child. One good way is to take away their favourite toy for a while. That tends to be just as good a punishment as any.
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Thatās so sad @Truemist8. Iām sorry that stuff happened to you.
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Thanks for reactivating my PTSD.
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Itās abuse and itās downright ignorant.
It teaches nothing except itās like a way of asserting dominance for people who think children are āpropertyā.
My grandma did some extreme forms of abuse to her children that has had noticeable lasting effects on her children.
People may mean well and may do what they āthinkā is best, but it doesnāt mean that kind of ignorance should be left unchecked.
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Back at ya, d00d.
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I think the main thing is consistency. If you yell at a kid in an unpredictable way it can hurt them. As for the physical spanking - I got spanked when I did something bad. I wouldnāt call it traumatic, but it did cause resentment in me. One time my dad got a board and beat my brother with it hard. My parents were at a loss as to what to do about my brotherās drug use. My dad, when it was serious, and he didnāt know what to do, he resorted to the heavy use of force. That probably was traumatic for my brother.
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I regret having spanked my kids. We never pulled down their pants or bent them over, but we would open-hand swat their behinds until they were around the age of 7. I wish we hadnāt. Itās a great regret of mine. I hope I havenāt caused them any harm or issues because of it.
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I tend to agree that it was just a sign of the times too. My father spoke of his horrific childhood and how he was sent away as a small boy during the war, separated from his family and forced to live with abusive strangers. I remember my mum saying that the war did terrible things to the minds of all those involved. She told me of the time her father, on coming home from the war, tried to attack her on the stairs with a knife. She said it was up to us as the new generation to forgive, and to break the abusive cycle with our own children. I find it very to hard to forgive my father. I will call him on the phone to see how he is going, but will not visit him as it brings on psychosis. Thanks for your story @77nick77.
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