[Jiggly]

Facts of life: Children under a certain age will not necessarily respond to verbal explanations. Their mental learning and development at that stage is through sight and touch and taste. They respond more to physical stimuli than mental.

I was smacked on the bottom if I did wrong. When I had child-minders look after me, my parents would slap the back of my hand. The reason for this is that the child minder is obviously unable to slap a childs hand, so they would tap the back of their hand and I understood that meant I'd done wrong as I associated it with the slap on the hand from my parents.

It was never to abuse or hurt me. It was a sharp sensation that I understood better than a bunch of words at that point in my life. I am now one of the most polite people you will meet and it definitely helped me understand discipline and how to respect my parents. You don't have to beat your child and there are definitely differences about where you hit your child as to whether it's appropriate. A small slap on the hand is VERY different from a full force slap to the face. It's about getting their attention and understanding, it's not about teaching them pain.