My parents considered that they were using smacking appropriately on my siblings and I. If one of us made too much noise in the back of the car, my dad would turn around and slap whichever bits of any person he could find. I distinctly remember feeling hatred for my parents after they hit me. I remember my dad hitting me across the back of the head for not getting a maths question right. There was an occasion when I was 15 when I confronted my mother over her leaving me to care for and make dinner for my two younger siblings and not cleaning the house (she didn't work) and instead of discussing it, she slapped me across the face for challenging her authority.

You may say that this is not smacking in your rules, but it is in the rules of other parents and by encouraging smacking you are also encouraging parents who will use hitting in the above manner, and call it smacking. I never want my son to be fearful of me. I feel once you start using smacking, it is possible that you will escalate. My parents had the idea of smacking being a whack across the bum too, but in reality it wasn't like that.