My parents were old school as well.
The worst case scenario was when we had to go ourselves to get the very switch we would be whipped with!
My mom was telling the story once of them having to go get the switch so their dad could lay into them.
She said her brother Ken showed her how to ‘twist the switch’ so it’d break soon after the switching began.
She also said that she’d never ask us now to get our own switch after that. We had a couple of old maples in the front yard. They were far too close to the house. :>)