My husband was beaten as a child and well into school age. He refuses to believe he was abused, but I think if you can't go to school the next day because of how hard you were punished, you're past the point of swats. There's a lot of weird violence in the stories he tells me of when he was a kid, and he shrugs them off as his mother not having any other way to control three obnoxious kids while their father was off on deployment, but the stories make me nauseous.

It's another reason I'm glad we don't have kids, because I would not have been able to let it lie if he'd behaved in a way that still does not ping him as excessive.

Oh, another time I was spanked was when my brother and I were hitting small stones with tennis racquets into cars as they went passed on the highway in front of our farm.

Damn, we did some dumb things....

That is a tough one Connie. As a kid, if you are told something is normal, you have no real reason to doubt it. Plus, as an adult, acknowledging wrong-doing involves some internal work that may seem unnecessary or even scary.

Even though it is my business to guide people through journeys like that, sometimes it really isn't practical. If no blood is being let, that wound may not need healing.

You've clearly made a good choice.

I was spanked. It doesn't seem to have any long term ramifications. no kids, but I come down on the no side. Mostly because I don't think I learned anything from it. I can't even tell you why I was spanked.

Oh, another time I was spanked was when my brother and I were hitting small stones with tennis racquets into cars as they went passed on the highway in front of our farm

My friends and I spent an afternoon throwing snoballs with stones in them at cars on our street. I don't know how old I was, probably 9 or 10. My parents never found out or I would have been smacked probably (my mom smacked me like three times and I deserved it every time).

I don't think I learned anything from it.

This is the part that makes me come down on the no side. There is no real learning in fear and pain. Avoidance, sure, but not constructive alternatives.

My dad told us about the time he and some friends decided to spend their after-school hours collecting rotting pumpkins in the fields and then, after dark, headed over to the nearest overpass to drop them on cars passing beneath. They did this to a few cars until one of them turned on the flashing lights on top of his police car after getting hit with a pumpkin. Dad and his buddies bolted, and he managed to get his brand new jeans ripped in a barbed wire fence while running home. He got scolded by Grandma for ripping his pants but neither she nor Grandpa ever heard about the cop car.

As someone whose parents were fond of grounding as punishment, I can say it was quite effective. There were times I wished they'd just spank me and it'd be over!

As someone whose parents were fond of grounding as punishment, I can say it was quite effective.

My parents never grounded me. Also, we didn't really have a curfew. Of course, my best friend in high school had a curfew and was frequently grounded and I think my folks figured her being punished punished me also. So they let her folks be the bad guys.

I was spanked, and I tend not to do it myself because my mother spanked in anger. And I remember even as a kid feeling that that was unfair and wrong.

I've spanked Emeline for doing things like running out in traffic. But that was when she was smaller and I didn't think having an extended discussion with her about it would have driven home the very necessary point, which was: You DO NOT DO THAT EVER EVER EVER!!

Since she's older I haven't felt the need to spank her. A stern word or tone usually does it and she hasn't done anything dangerously stupid lately. Though I always watch to see if she does.