When I read that a Perth mum, who left her daughter with a bruise after smacking her with a wooden spoon, has been fined $750 and convicted of common assault, I had an immediate flashback to my own childhood.
According to the news, the Perth nine-year-old had behavioural problems, including an ADHD diagnosis. I was that child. I wasn’t diagnosed as having ADHD until I was an adult. There was no such diagnosis when I was a child, but I was certainly in trouble a lot, sent out of classrooms for disruptive behaviour, strapped at home and at school.
My mother used to hit me with leather straps, an electric jug cord or perhaps the fish slice that was hanging with the other cooking utensils on a rack in the kitchen.
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