A Wonderful Critique of the Supernanny…
Couldn’t have said it better myself…read and enjoy (thanks Lara!)
You Have Been Very, Very, Naughty by Decca Aitkenhead
Moral correction is a strong theme of Supernanny. After Frost has observed children running riot at the start of each show, she delivers her analysis of what is going wrong. Often she is really quite angry with the parents, and will use words like “disgusting” and “outrageous” to describe their children’s behaviour. “They don’t show you no respect!” is a recurring diagnosis. “They’re running rings round you,” she will say.
In the moral universe of Supernanny, if children spit or fight or swear it is basically because they can. The only difference between them and good children is that they have been allowed to get away with it. In this Hobbesian understanding of childhood, discipline is logically of paramount importance, and the only measure of a corrective technique seems to be whether or not it works. Frost’s techniques certainly appear to “work”. But they also imply that what she calls “unacceptable behaviour” could never be a legitimate protest. She often describes raging children as “having a laugh”, but they seldom look very happy to me. Isn’t she curious about the reasons why?
“But I am,” she says indignantly. “I am. It goes without saying. I don’t just want to know on the surface why. I need to know and find out exactly where the root of that lies. So in retrospective [sic] of that I do that mandatorially [sic] with the families.”
Love,
Heather
Mama Bear said,
September 30, 2007 @ 1:41 pm
I skimmed the article and this is an interesting quote, “…Supernanny offers off-the-peg answers, abstracted from any individual context. Even when families are manifesting serious systemic problems, all that Supernanny seems to offer are behavioural strategies.”
*sigh*
It’s more of the same fast-food mentality: a quick-fix answer instead of examining really why the problem exists in the first place. I love how Aitkenhead aptly makes the argument that children “behaving badly” might actually have a good reason behind doing so (the implication being that we as the responsible adults should try to figure out what that is instead of “blaming the victim,” so to speak).
In case you can’t tell, I’m a fan of the book _Unconditional Parenting_. Natch.
janaki said,
September 30, 2007 @ 7:00 pm
The sad part is, now I realize where the family I baby-sat for was getting their punishments from. They were having their toddler sit on the step for time out for two minutes (his age) until he apologized. It was from after watching Supernanny. His father always quoted things he saw on that show. Geez! Well they’ve since altered their time-out techniques to make him stand up and face the corner and not look at anybody.
juliepie said,
October 1, 2007 @ 7:21 am
I love the coerced appology thing. I never force my kids to say sorry; they just abuse the word. I can’t tell you how many times they’ve done something and then just say “Oh, I’m sorry”. I tell them that they need to show they are sorry. They need to make it right. Let’s say they dump something all over the floor and leave it. Don’t just say sorry, clean it up to show you are sorry. Stuff like that. So of course “sorry” as a condition to being released from time-out is just enforcing that nonsense.
luluandbeans said,
October 1, 2007 @ 10:41 am
I read the article in it’s entirety and I have to say I am shocked at Jo’s lack of credentials. I think that if more of the public understood that she really has nothing to back up her practice with she wouls lose a lot of her following.
That said, I do think she has some things right, like consistency and the importance of family time.
I’ve never seen a follow-up show, has she done any? I’m curious to see how long her quick-fix-tricks last…
angelofthenorth said,
October 1, 2007 @ 11:58 am
She has done a follow-up show at the end of the season, 3-4 months after original filming, and things tend to last (given all the families were on it), and I saw one show where she went back some time later (a year I think) and things were good.
She’s of the “behavioural” school of psychological thinking - and behaviour therapy is known to work for a lot of people. It works for me far better than a lot of the “talking” treatments like CBT or person-centred counselling. They’re going back to that model with current obesity research at Imperial, London, and being more mechanical about eating. One interesting paper talked about how not being fed breastmilk meant that children didn’t develop good satiety control, and an inability to interpret food-related signals. Therefore a secure routine needed to be established for eating, as an eating on demand model wouldn’t work for them, because as adults they struggled to recognise certain signals.
The one thing that I do know is that the editing between the US and UK versions is quite telling. In the UK ones I’ve seen she gets behind the “protests” far more, and you see her working with the parents and looking at how their frictions are contributing to the problems. She also teaches parents to play with their children, and spend time with them, instead of putting the children in front of the tv. I haven’t seen the current series (in US or UK). And we only see the things that have worked, not her trying out different things with the children, or any sort of trial and error that goes on. Again, clever editing.
And since when have people round here been so hung up on qualifications, anyway? Scientists have them coming out of their ears, yet there’s loud shouts when they’re talking about anything breast-milk related negatively, and encouraging people to work with midwives/doula rather than obstetricians (even though obstetricians might have significantly more training). She’s been a nanny since she was 16, if I remember correctly, and she’s now in her 30s. I’ve seen a few papers since that seem to contradict the finding, and some in support.
A lot of the time, some basic changes will help a family (or so say my Social Worker colleagues), and then tweak them according to the inclinations of the children. The US version is far more “same-y” than the UK version - 1) routine 2) Naughty step 3) teach parents to interact with children, 3) stay in bed technique. The UK version has had more things like fostering independence, managing violent behaviour, coping with autism, and so on where she’s brought in expert advisers, as well as shows on picky eating, good table manners, eating together and so on.
At least it isn’t the trainwreck tv that’s on at the moment called “Bringing up Baby”. Basically they’ve got three experts, with techniques that come from the 50s, 60s and 70s, and different families are trying them out. I don’t watch tv much at the moment, so I’ve not watched it, but I’m assured that the 50s woman creeps the hell out of people. And gets paid £1000 a day to do so.
angelofthenorth said,
October 1, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
Please note, that wasn’t intended to discredit midwives/doula or fellow hathor-fans, it was intended as “sometimes experience and critical thinking counts for more than qualifications”.
And the “I’ve seen a few papers…” should have been at the end of the breastmilk/obesity comments, not the “now in her 30s”.
Sorry.
mamaluxe said,
October 3, 2007 @ 7:59 pm
Did you see this article: Supernanny kids set fire to own house after visit from TV expert
Now, I think the headline is misleading…I don’t think there was necessarily a cause and effect there, but it is an interesting article.