Spare the rod and spoil the child! Was taken literally back in 50s and 60s, especially by my father. Above the mirror in our living room was a bat, a cricket bat! On it at the front was a picture of a little deer and walking behind it was a bear. The writing on it said "for the poor little deer with the bear behind"! This was bought for my dad by a 'kind' brother whom he was studying with. Whether it was a bought as a joke I do not know, but my dad took the scripture 'spare the rod and spoil the child' literally and often used this bat on our bare bottoms.
It was constantly there as a reminder of what we would get if we were naughty. My dad never stayed a witness for long but continued to physically punish us. Before we would get hit he would explain to us why we were going to be punished. He never did it in anger.
We were never hit at the meetings. My mother never hit us.
I saw a young brother at the meetings who smacked his baby in his arms on the hand for crying, I was shocked and thought he was disgusting. Many children were taken out by their parents and spanked for not being quiet.