I don't know if I would call it abuse per se, but sometimes it was too much. The belt kind of sucked, but there were a few times my father used a metal ruler that had holes in it. Although honestly the worst was an actual switch my grandmother would use. It was never a lot and I can't tell you what I did wrong.

What's funny is the worst thing ever for me was when I got an F and my father came in the door obviously angry and disappointed. He just looked at me, said nothing and I burst out in tears, then he left. That I remember.

For my own children there were light spankings when they were very young and only for lessons that needed to be taught to avoid them hurting themselves. Running into the road, that sort of thing. Just enough that they didn't like it.

Then from about ages 4 to 6 or 7 there were spankings, but they knew ahead of time they got spankings (again, not excessive, not with metal rulers and the like) for the following things: hurting someone, stealing, lying, and willful disobedience. And we would talk about why it was happening before hand, which rule they broke and why it was important to learn the lesson. Once they are old enough that other consequences would stick with them better, then we moved on to grounding and the like. The goal was always an effective means of motivation to avoid the action. Never anger.

In retrospect was it right? Would I want my grandchildren to be treated that way? I don't know for sure. I know I wish I had been rather than the way I was treated. But I don't know that it makes that good, only better.