United Kingdom, May 1 -- Michelle Obama felt "embarrassed" whenever she spanked her children.

The 61-year-old former First Lady - has who has Malia, 26, and Sasha, 23 with her husband Barack Obama - admitted that it didn't take long after she became a mother to realise that she just "felt silly" whenever she would physically punish her daughters so decided to stop doing it altogether.

Speaking on her 'IMO' podcast, she explained: "I felt silly. It took a couple of spankings for me to be like, yeah, you know what, this is a little kid and the fact that I can't think of any better way to get my point across than to smack somebody on the butt, I felt embarrassed."

The 'Becoming' author also opined that that parents are "too afraid to set ...