Supernanny Sucks - Page 3

[Deja]

Thank you Candiland!

Candiland,
Thank you so much for your kind words. I very much appreciate them. :-)

[wasabi]

I haven't watched the show. The ads I've seen made it seem reasonable. However then a friend emailed me about her method for getting a child into its own bed (we were going to see if DD wanted to move to her own bed in our room but it was not a priority for us at all) and I was horrified. I mean really and truly horrified. Don't talk to the child? Don't make eye contact? Just put them back in bed without a word, a look or a touch? Ack! No thanks!

[Deja]

I was so concerned about the growing length of my post that I neglected to add something of importance.

I didn't see the episode in question, with the chair being turned to the wall, so my comments were confined to the discipline technique itself. I thought it might help to explain why for some children this is a more effective technique.

Some personality types are so agitated by sensory stimuli that they have a difficult if not impossible time regaining self-control unless external stimuli are reduced. Turning the chair to the wall achieves this purpose. Therefore, the reason for turning the chair is not to inflict pain on the child, but to respect that individual child's unique response to sensory stimuli and then create conditions more optimal for that child to gain control of herself.

I hope that helps.

[Ary99]

Deja, I am impressed with your gift with words. I was actually thinking about this thread as I showered this morning because I was haunted with the nagging question that I am uncomfortable with:

Is feeling shame for negative behavior a bad thing?

I don't like the idea of shaming my child any more than I like the idea of slapping him. But, I do think the idea that my child may grow up with the ability to shame himself as a means of self control and judgement may make him a happy, healthy adult.

An interesting discussion, friends. Gotta go, DS needs his mom.

[captain optimism]

Originally Posted by Deja

First, I would never have as my motive in my strategy with any child, the intent to inflict emotional pain. Perhaps this is exactly what needs to be teased out in with this issue. I don't like for children to feel emotional pain, and know that this is true of the community here. What I am saying is this; there are times when I do know that my strategy will upset the child, because the child only wants what he wants, and not getting it upsets him and causes him real pain. I know that his inability to get what he wants will cause him emotional pain. Does the establishment of boundaries then constitute intentional infliction of emotional pain?

Okay, your example was good. There are some situations in which a parent has to say no, and not allow the child's feelings to influence the decision. A toddler can't run in a parking lot, whether or not they understand why. So you pick them up and carry them, and if they cry, you soothe them but you don't put them down, okay.

There are some things that children want that are bad for them. I don't want my son to find out that the stove is hot by burning himself, and I will physically prevent him from touching the hot stove. That's a boundary, I'm setting it. I'm not permissive here, you understand, I think it's my job to keep him safe.

I still don't understand how a naughty room or a naughty chair or sitting in the corner is anything but a humiliation. How else could such a thing work? What's the child's motivation to avoid the punishment if it's not a punishment?

I think there is a crucial difference between children learning that they can't have everything they want and learning to simulate total obedience, the same difference that I pointed to before between setting limits and humiliating children. The problem is that I haven't seen this television show and you have, so I might be fighting with a straw person a bit. I just don't like that whole naughty chair, naughty stair, naughty room schtick. My son is not a puppy.

[jenais]

Originally Posted by Mamid

we have decided to hate supernanny. Sure some of the parenting techniques are good ideas etc but what really bugs the pee out of us is:

Every single family we have seen there so far is unrealistic to our point of view. Not only are their houses are too clean, they have houses with yards and with enough rooms for a master suite, each kid to have a room (or twins sharing) AND a spare/guest room! Its pretty obvious that the family has some resources or they wouldn't even have a house, let alone a yard for the kids to play in - especially tonight's family.

How is a family on low income living in a cramped appartment supposed to deal with this? Especially one where, if they are lucky, they have a second bedroom. Renting in our area is ridiculous and 2 bedrooms are now going for more than what we are currently paying.

ps.. Gotta love the dad telling jojo off tonight. I loved that.

My friend saw this show and said "The problem is their houses are all too big! There you go, problem solved." I thoought that was funny. Probably because our house is very small.

[wasabi]

Originally Posted by captain optimism

I think there is a crucial difference between children learning that they can't have everything they want and learning to simulate total obedience, the same difference that I pointed to before between setting limits and humiliating children. The problem is that I haven't seen this television show and you have, so I might be fighting with a straw person a bit. I just don't like that whole naughty chair, naughty stair, naughty room schtick. My son is not a puppy.

Exactly. In a discussion on another board about spanking someone was talking about a spanking her mother gave her and said she was crying not because it hurt but because she was embarassed and shamed. I thought she meant she felt badly that she had been caught lying to her mother so I pointed out that the spanking had really been beside the point. I asked if the spanking didn't hurt as so many advocates like to say they don't spank to the point of hurting then really what was the point? If it doesn't hurt how does it work? She clarified that she was crying because she was embarassed at being spanked or punished. So basically I'm left with a means of discipline that either works through pain or shame. Yeah I'll pass.

Now I will admit that I do use timeout and I can freely admit they're more for me than DD. Unfortunately I grew up in a home heavy on physical punishments and lack of temper control. I do not hit my child ever but there are times when I lose my temper. When she is hitting me is a particularly difficult issue for me. And so I do put her in timeout for that because for one thing it gives me those two minutes to compose myself and remind myself of all the reasons why no it would not be ok to just smack her back. I'm not perfect but it's so much better than the alternative that I'm ok with it. I don't shame her though and there's no naughty room and I only use it for causing others physical harm.

[IdentityCrisisMama]

Does anyone know the legal rights of the children on this show? This would be my first issue. Does the child have a contract that easily allows them to exit should a problem occur? Does the child ‘own’ any compensation given to the family? Does the child have control over their image when they’re adults?

Personally, I don’t much care if this show’s advice is good. The fact remains that this show is a lie. The goal is cash ~ it’s not about helping you or the guest families. They mislead us by telling us this is ‘reality tv’. They pretend that they’re unbiased when we all know that they need entertainment.

An average family with average problems who isn’t helped much by the nanny doesn’t get ratings. They need families who have ‘issues’ weather these are real, made up or a combination. Then they need the nanny to seem like she ‘fixed’ everything.

How hard would that be with modern editing? Well, I heard there weren’t any real horses used in the filming of the movie Braveheart.


Deja, Jenais ~ Welcome to MDC!

[mommyofshmoo]

Originally Posted by Deja

Learning to tolerate our own discomfort when our children are upset is appropriate; we are the adults in the situation. It is hard. We love our children and don't want them to feel pain, emotional or otherwise. But it is in learning to deal with what is a shattering disappointment as a small child (not getting what you want) that critical life skills are born and developed.

You won't be able to protect your child forever. But you CAN provide your child will skills which will enable her to cope with the unavoidable pain and distress of life, and those skills WILL last a lifetime.

As I said before, this is an amazingly powerful gift of love from a parent to a child. And it requires some sacrifice on our parts to give it. As my own mother often told me, "When you are faced with a dilemma and you don't know what's righ, the right thing is usually the hardest thing to do."

I just have to say that I've ended up being an AP parent because it was positively the path of least resistance. It was way easier than all the supposedly "quick fix" things like CIO. and GD continues to be the most effectove and easist way to parent. Ive never felt the need to inflict suffering on myself or my child in the name of "it's good for you."

I get so irritated when people act like parents need to be cold while their children suffer and need to teach children to handle frustration by purposefully frustrating them.

Children are frustrated constantly. That is because life is hard when you are small. The way to help them learn to deal with it is to hold them close, help them calm down, and to empathize.

I don't need to create stupid rigid rules to help my child understand frustration. She knows frustration because she can't reach the counter, or drive a car, or touch the moon.

I am not laboring under the delusion that I create every one of my child's experiences.

My job as a disciplinarian is to teach her and help her deal with life- not orchestrate and micromanage her world.

[NoraB]

I like some of the techniques I've seen Jo use. One was when a 4 year old kept getting out of bed. After the second or third time, the parents were instructed to just calmly and gently walk him back to bed, but not to converse w/ him, etc. That seemed very gentle to me.

Her ideas about meal times bother me though. I firmly believe that it's the parents' job to provide a variety of healthy, nutritious fare throughout the day. It's the child's job, however, to eat. There's no need for power struggles or ridiculous "praise" to get through a meal.

She doesn't seem to focus on any of the underlying problems. She focuses on quick fixes only. If a child is constantly acting out, maybe there is a serious deficit in the amount of positive attention he's getting. Praises, such as "Good boy, you ate your hotdog," are simply not going to cut it. The child needs genuine time w/ his parents. He needs cuddling, talking, playing, etc. A child will get the attention he needs by whatever method he can, even if that attention is negative. I haven't seen Jo address this.

WRT causing emotional distress. I think most GD families understand that sometimes (maybe a lot, especially in the toddler years) a child is going to be distressed by parental decisions. The crawling baby wants to pull a plug out of an outlet. The parent says something like, "Danger! Hurt Baby!" and redirects the child. The child may be upset and that is okay. The parent can empathize w/ the child's feelings and help the child label those feelings. "You're crying. You sound frustrtated b/c you can't play w/ the plug. It's hard when you want something and can't have it." That's entirely different than the emotional distress inflicted by punishment. Even if the parent's concious intent is not to produce distress, punishment by it's very nature is deliberate infliction of distress. Punishment is not punishment by definition if it doesn't make the child feel bad somehow. This cannot be equated w/ a child feeling bad after natural or judiciously used logical consequences. W/ GD, the parent's intent is NOT to punish, but to teach. Sometimes that teaching can be painful. A child can learn (and I say they can learn better) w/o punishment. Perhaps it sounds like splitting hairs, but the difference is very real (IMO at least).

[sunnmama]

Originally Posted by IdentityCrisisMama

An average family with average problems who isn’t helped much by the nanny doesn’t get ratings. They need families who have ‘issues’ weather these are real, made up or a combination. Then they need the nanny to seem like she ‘fixed’ everything.

I keep thinking "what if there were a GD reality program?"

And then I realize how boring that would be, lol. Families working together, solving problems as they come up, and no "quick fixes"....the episode would have to be about 15 years long: "and, presto! A mature, well adjusted, capable adult!" :LOL :LOL :LOL

[annettemarie]

I didn't see the episode in question, with the chair being turned to the wall, so my comments were confined to the discipline technique itself. I thought it might help to explain why for some children this is a more effective technique.

I saw the show, and do not believe it was an '"effective" technique. It was a technique which was meant to subjegate the child to the parents' (and the nanny's) will. It was not discipline, meant to teach. It was punishment.

Furthermore, as we have discussed many times on this board, just because something is supposedly effective does not make it right.

Some personality types are so agitated by sensory stimuli that they have a difficult if not impossible time regaining self-control unless external stimuli are reduced. Turning the chair to the wall achieves this purpose. Therefore, the reason for turning the chair is not to inflict pain on the child, but to respect that individual child's unique response to sensory stimuli and then create conditions more optimal for that child to gain control of herself.

Again, we are still dealing with punishment verses discipline. The child was not placed on the chair with the understanding that this was a calming down time. The child was told "That is not acceptable. Go to the naughty corner" and then forced to stand facing the wall.

If a child has sensory issues and needs discipline, I can think of many, many alternative ways to do so.

I have many problems with this show. IDCMama points out one- it's fake. You can't solve an out-of-control-family (note- not child, family) in 60 minutes without some pretty good editing. The parents are not empowered at all in these shows. She does not ask them about their children, or their feelings, or their thoughts. She is the "expert" based on one days' observation, and the parents are expected to do what she says. This is about as far away from attachment parenting as you can get. Finally, I question her methods. They are strongly based on behaviorist theory, and I do not feel she has a good grasp of developmetally appropriate behavior or consequences.

[IdentityCrisisMama]

oh, that's whether...maybe I need the naughty chair :LOL

[monkey's mom]

Originally Posted by Deja

It would please me if I could respond in such a way that might create an openness to consider the techniques used by 'Super Nanny' from another perspective.

I was raised with those techniques (for the most part), I see them everyday, I am told that children must be treated this way to become upstanding/law-abiding/contributing-to-society people quite a bit, and I used to believe that. The SuperNanny perspective is pervasive. I can't help but consider those techniques all the time.

Originally Posted by Deja

The mothers responding here obviously love their children very much and I can see how much it pains you to see your children or other children who are experiencing emotional upset. I ask you to consider the following;

Emotional upset causes pain, obviously. It is difficult to see your child experiencing pain, of course. What I have seen in my twenty two years working with preschool children and their parents has caused me to believe that there is a trend in parenting in which well meaning parents attempt to protect their children from any emotional distress whatsoever.

I have no problem with children experiencing a wide range of emotions. I think it is absolutely vital. However, I strongly believe that they experience those emotions in a safe and nurturing environment--comforting my child is not an attempt to curtail his emotions.

Putting a child into time-out for being angry or frustrated and not having a socially appropriate way to express those feelings (tantrums) does seem to attempt to prevent those emotions. And the "sorry" elicited at the end of that time-out could be confused as needing to apologize for those strong feelings. Tantrums are not something that need to be "fixed" in my view. Nearly every episode of SuperNanny, however, lists tantrums as one of the behavioral "problems" for the nanny to address.

Originally Posted by Deja

This extreme attention to detail in terms of protecting the children from distress has produced children who do not know how to cope with internal turmoil.

The children I have seen on SuperNanny cope with internal turmoil in forced solitude. What's the coping skill being taught there? I don't know why those children can't be prompted and shown to express their internal turmoils in healthy, constructive ways. Six year olds sucking their thumbs in the fetal position on a bed in a room isn't something that's going to help a person come up with a plan for what to do at 30 when they have internal turmoil.

Originally Posted by Deja

In a nearby, very affluent community, this dynamic has tragically resulted in teenagers who, when finally confronted with situations that required the abilities that they were never required to develop as preschoolers, died in accidental overdoses in their attempts to soothe themselves once they were finally exposed to life obstacles in which their parents were not there to handle things for them.

Were these AP families? Were these gentle discipline families? Were there other factors? I don't think anyone here is "handling" "life obstacles" *for* their children. That's not really what attachment parenting and gd are about.

Originally Posted by Deja

My observations of 'Super Nanny's' techniques lead me to believe that her methods are respectful of the child. An adult sitting on a chair facing a wall would indeed be shamed. Please consider the possibility that in concluding that this is shameful to a child, perhaps there is an aspect of projecting adult responses into the young child's psyche.

Children who are not feeling shame and who are experiencing respect don't typically act the way the children on that show do. And the Golden Rule should apply to everyone--not just adults.

Originally Posted by Deja

They lack the reasoning skills to discuss these issues with us, therefore adult attempts to reason with a child who is flooded emotionally and unable to listen are completely futile and serve the needs of the adults without addressing the needs of a child in the situation.

According to whom? THere are countless threads in this forum that contradict this. Children are perfectly able to reason and discuss--obviously not mid-tantrum, but no one's advocating that.

Originally Posted by Deja

Children are not happy of course, when these boundaries are set. But they are relieved and greatly empowered. They become more confident and secure. Their world becomes a more predictable place, which develops a sense of efficacy in navigating through childhood. This enables your child to build coping skills and mechanisms that will serve him beautifully for a lifetime. There is no greater gift you can give to your precious child.

The children in that show last night didn't look relieved, empowered, confident, secure, or like anyone had given them a gift when they were avoiding their parents' eyes and muttering, "sorry" after their time-outs were over.

[mommyofshmoo]

Originally Posted by IdentityCrisisMama

Does anyone know the legal rights of the children on this show? This would be my first issue. Does the child have a contract that easily allows them to exit should a problem occur? Does the child ‘own’ any compensation given to the family? Does the child have control over their image when they’re adults?

Personally, I don’t much care if this show’s advice is good. The fact remains that this show is a lie. The goal is cash ~ it’s not about helping you or the guest families. They mislead us by telling us this is ‘reality tv’. They pretend that they’re unbiased when we all know that they need entertainment.

Children have no rights as it is. Even if they are asked to consent to this, which I am sure they are not, they are unable to give consent because they are minors. (I was a paralegal in a previous life.) Parents consent for children.

I very much aggree with your arguements against this show.

I disaggree with some of the methods, and others are not that bad.

But the thing is that reality television is not reality. This is the worst kind of packaging and selling of quack advice. It's not so much the caliber of advice, but that they can make the story and editing say whatever they want. It creates a false image.

I wish these kids would grow up and sue the pants off whatever network makes this show. Why? Because they are taking these kid's childhoods and families and toying with them on public tv for the entertainment of the masses and to make money.

That is messed up.

[Mom4tot]

Wouldn't it be funny for her to come in to an extended nursing, cosleeping, unschooling family?? :LOL


Dolphinkisser~ "asseptable", :LOL I nearly spit my drink!

[IdentityCrisisMama]

Originally Posted by sunnmama

And then I realize how boring that would be, lol.

Yea, really. I live my own discipline challenges and spend all day with my kid. *Why* would I want to watch this??? Seriously we’re freakin’ masochists.

[monkey's mom]

Don't get me wrong...I love this show! :

[annettemarie]

Originally Posted by IdentityCrisisMama

Yea, really. I live my own discipline challenges and spend all day with my kid. *Why* would I want to watch this??? Seriously we’re freakin’ masochists.

I quit watching after the third show. CSI is much more realistic. :LOL

[IdentityCrisisMama]

Originally Posted by mommyofshmoo

But the thing is that reality television is not reality. This is the worst kind of packaging and selling of quack advice. It's not so much the caliber of advice, but that they can make the story and editing say whatever they want. It creates a false image.

I wish these kids would grow up and sue the pants off whatever network makes this show. Why? Because they are taking these kid's childhoods and families and toying with them on public tv for the entertainment of the masses and to make money.

That is messed up.

Sing it!

Anybody see the "Reality TV" thread in TV? I'll bump it...