Visited my sister, bro-in-law and their two kids in Minnesota a few months back. The kids hadn't really shot a handgun, ever. I had a couple along on the road trip, and the b-i-l had a 9mm.
We sorta worked from the low power stuff and eventually got to this .44 Magnum 629-1. The 15-yr-old nephew got a huge grin shooting it. The big surprise was seeing my 12-yr-old niece giggling like mad and shooting up all my ammo.
Maybe they didn't know it was supposed to hurt.
That said, I'm not sure these kids are normal. They work hard, raise horses, put in fence, do other chores and have tough hands. Neither knew they were supposed to flinch at loud noises.
I flinch.
Recoil is 90% in the mind. Unless you have a bad fit on the grips or a particularly weak or soft hand, it won't make you bleed or bruise. If you bleed or bruise up, change the grips around until you don't.
The hardest part of course, is forgetting it's supposed to hurt. I haven't quite gotten there yet.
-Don
P.S. The stuff we shot up was the classic Keith load of 22 grains of 2400 under a 250-grain Keith cast bullet. That load is under the maximum for older loading manuals, but over the max shown in some newer ones. It's not a squib.