Common Saychel – it sounds like you had a terrible experience in cheder. Unless its normal. I wouldnt know. Being a girl.
Johnklets – NO IT IS NOT OK AT ALL. Who gave your parents the right to touch you in a private place?
Not tznius at all nor appropriate. Definitely lacking boundaries.
Then again, I don’t have kids of my own yet so I wouldn’t necessarily be the person to ask.
My parents did actually hit me a few times, but they were narcissistic immature people so everything they did in the name of discipline was better named as “you’re insulting my ego right now so I need to do anything I can to put you in your place as soon as possible” .
And besides for some pent-up rage that I still have they accomplished ZERO. If anything they only did the opposite of what good discipline would do for someone. And I’m not only referring to the smacks which they didn’t really do too often. But enough about that….back to your question.
A few times my mother hit me on my backside, but never without clothes.
I do know a family where one of the parents did that, and all the kids have issues.
It’s so degrading and lacks decency.
I suggest you go for therapy to talk about this.
However you should realize that most probably your parents were just copying what their parents did to them as a child, or something like that.
They probably didn’t realize the harm they were doing.
So don’t go being mad at them, but you should be aware that it was not ok at all.
Is it ok to potch in a non-degrading fashion? I’m not sure. It’s very complicated.
On the flip side you really don’t want to raise entitled kids. There are too many of them nowadays.
Maybe the answer is to first make sure you really have a strong very loving very warm relationship with the kids where they know 100% that you only want what’s best for them, then you can give them a small potch when they’re out of line (sparingly)
You definitely don’t want them to think they can get away with anything.
I have a friend like that, she is very entitled. Her mother is afraid to ever tell her what to do but now this girl mamesh has no boundaries at all. She will totally lie to people or manipulate them to get what she wants….. she doesn’t have a sense of responsibility or right and wrong….very selfish person. I know another person like that too who definitely has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Her parents are afraid of her so she never got any kind of mussar or discipline or anything. They still hold of her until today and pump up her ego…meanwhile she doing all kinds of things against halacha and against basic human decency but they will never say a thing to her….. If she would have gotten a few petch maybe she would be different.!!
It’s very hard and complicated, no one said Tzaar Gidul Banim was easy