What was your worst/standard punishment as a child?

Coincidentally, it was when I finally snapped and punched my dad right back (I was 15), that my mum must've put her foot down and demanded that he stopped lashing out.

I'm not glorifying the event - it was fucking horrible.

And like you say, it was the emotional and psychological maltreatment that fucked me up for years thereafter. Similarly to NurseHolliday's experiences, I was a 'high achiever' who was constantly made to feel invalidated… by a pair of emotional invalids, who probably ended up that way due to their own upbringings.

It's the cycle of neverdidmeanyharm.

When I did teacher training (English as foreign language), the only negative feedback from classroom practice was that I didn't give enough praise. It was a real eye-opener for me. I made an effort to change, it felt weird at first, but then became a more habitual behaviour, and everyone benefitted.

I still need to work at praising the good rather than criticising the bad when it comes to my relationship with my nearly 4-year-old son :/

I think my dad only gave up hitting me when he realised I'd got to the age where I could most probably hit him back and knock him out.

My mum kept going with the verbal abuse for at least another year until a very strained family holiday when I responded to her torrent by calling her the bastard child of a sister fucker.

There's no way I'm going to hit my child, I remember how much I hated it and I'm definitely not one to say that I 'turned out alright'.