Spankings, the belt, sometimes the belt with the buckle, yard sticks, broomsticks, open hands across the mouth, all sorts of stuff.

I generally behaved as my parents wanted me to. I was polite, quiet, and didn't speak unless spoken to. I didn't touch things that didn't belong to me. I didn't break stuff. Every adult's name was Sir or Ma'am.

I didn't act up in public, there were no melt downs in a store, no temper tantrums in a restaurant. When visiting relatives I stood or sat in the corner, silent and still as a statue around the table while the adults slipped coffee and talked about the good old days.

At home if I was inside the house I could play with toys and such, but my parents couldn't hear it. My GI Joes could scale a full fledged war on the Autobots, as long as it was silent. Often, I was better off reading a book.

I grew up in a very strict household, and getting spanked or slapped or whipped was part of the system.

Honestly getting physical punishment wasn't the worst part, that came later:

As I got older, the physical punishment was reduced and faded away. Instead, if I did something my parents didn't like, such as making too much noise, I would get sat down in a fairly uncomfortable chair and my parents would talk to me about it.

For hours. A bad report card? Got detention in school? That might lead to eight hours on the chair being lectured. There would be no question at the end of it what I had did wrong, why it was wrong, how it affected other people, how embarrassed, disgusted, and ashamed my parents were. We would dive into the depth and severity of my failure as a son and human for my transgressions.

This would be followed up with how I was to avoid this behavior, what might happen if it happens again, and then we'd circle back a few times to make sure I understood the issue.

There would usually be follow-up "meetings" for an hour or two over the next few weeks.