Every spanking I ever received, between the ages of three and 11, followed the same formula, and I thought your readers would enjoy reading about it. It certainly proved very effective in discipling both myself and my big sister.
Firstly, we were sent to the family’s ‘naughty step’, where we would be required to sit for a number of minutes equal to our age in years. The purpose of this was to give both the child and parent time to calm down from whatever had happened which necessitated a smacked bottom. If the child hadn’t calmed down by that point, we’d be left on the step for a little longer.
Once we were calm, Mum or Dad would escort us to our bedroom, where the door would be closed behind us. They would then calmly explain what we had done wrong, and why they believed corporal punishment was necessary.
Then I would be told to take down my jeans (in my sister’s case, she would be required to lift her skirt) and we would go over the parental knee. When we were little, we were put there by Mum or Dad but once we got to about seven, we were expected to lie across their knee obediently ourselves to take our punishment.
Then the spanking was given across the seat of our underwear. We were given one smack for every year of our age.
When it was over, we would be asked to apologise for our misbehaviour. If we did, we would be let up and allowed to replace our clothing, and would be given a hug to show that all was forgiven.
If the child was stubborn and refused to say sorry, however, we would get our age again in further smacks. This cycle would continue until we finally said sorry.
We generally only got spanked for some very specific misbehaviour – outright disobedience or lying, and for getting into trouble at school. These punishments were fairly infrequent – I got about 20 smacked bottoms across my entire childhood, and my sister probably half as many as that.
I can only remember one occasion when I didn’t immediately apologise and decided to hold out. I was eight or so and got about four sets of smacks before I finally broke down and said I was sorry.
After a smacking my bottom would be warm and pink, but the colour would fade quickly. Once I got to about nine or 10, time on the naughty step became more embarrassing and onerous than the actual spanking, especially if there were guests around to see me sitting there who knew exactly what was going to happen to me next! Once I turned 11, smacked bottoms stopped and I started to be kept in instead, sometimes for a week or more.
I don’t have children, and likely wouldn’t smack their bottoms if I did. However, if someone is considering smacking, I feel the method my parents used allowed us dignity and respect while still teaching us a lesson and providing real feedback for misbehaviour. Neither myself nor my sister were particularly naughty, and so the method might not work with a really stubborn child, but for a normal, occasionally-naughty child, it should be very effective.
Contributor: Anonymous