• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Supernanny

RainbowGurl

RainbowGurl

Active Member
This is really for the England people, but did any of you watch this programme on channel 4 called Supernanny?

It is about this lady who has been a nanny for 15 years and she is now doing this programme to help parents with problems of how to control their children.

This first episode was of a 2 and a half year old boy who got everything his way. He was controling the house and the parents. The parents would let this boy do what he wanted. They wouldn't tell him off. He would have tantrums if he didn't get his own way. So this Supernanny came in and helped. She would tell the parents how to make the boy listen to them etc.

I found this programme very helpful because I hope to be a nanny. I like working with children and find this will be very helpful if I do become a nanny or if I want to do part time babysitting etc :)
 
I saw a trailer for it, but I didn't watch it. I prefer Supergran. :D

There are an awful lot of people letting their kiddies get away with being little monsters. You see them on the streets pleading with their children to behave. When I was a child grown ups were scary. They didn't have to hit you to frighten you, they were just scary. They had cunning ways of punishing you, and shaming you, and just the thought of the shame you would feel if you were caught was enough to stop you doing the stupid thing you were contemplating. And they never made idle threats. There's a lot of people who threaten to kill their child or abandon them (I've heard these threats quite frequently), but the kiddy knows they won't and so they carry on misbehaving. My parents never made such over the top threats, and the ones they did make they would always follow through on.
 
Lol, my parents used to threaten to throw me out the window :p I think these days children are spoilt and the law of not hitting your children too makes the child run more over you...
 
RainbowGurl said:
Lol, my parents used to threaten to throw me out the window :p I think these days children are spoilt and the law of not hitting your children too makes the child run more over you...
Click to expand...
I think a lot of people do feel that they can't get away with disciplining their children because of all the laws that get thrown at them. But I also think that these laws are helping no one. I don't think you need to hit a child to discipline it, but at the same time, banning spanking isn't going to protect children.

The only people who will stop hitting their children because of the new laws are the people that would only have hit their children as a last resort anyway, and only to shock the child, not to hurt it. I was only hit a couple of times as a child, and it didn't hurt, it scared me and I remember being shocked. But I wasn't injured and it certainly stopped me in my tracks.

If you're faced with a child about to run into the road or put its hand into the fire or drop something onto its younger sibling, then sometimes you don't have the time to do anything more than slap them away from the danger.

There is certainly a rising problem with children knowing that they can get away with harassing adults, such as teachers and strangers on the street. There was one story of a woman who caught some children damaging her property so she told them they could either clean it up or she'd phone the police. So they stayed and tidied up the mess, and then a couple of days later the police arrived and charged the woman with kidnap! It's not just that a lot of parents themselves don't want to discipline their children, but they actually take offense when other people do it for them. They send their children off to school but when they misbehave somehow the teacher is suppose to deal with it without actually having any powers to do so.
 
I think the anti-spanking laws tend to cause uninventive people to assume they can't come up with any other way to discipline their child, so they don't discipline them at all. We've no such laws over here, but if anyone is seen spanking their child, they often have to worry about being charged with child-abuse, which has much the same result as the anti-spanking laws. As one who hopes to become a teacher, it concerns me, because undisciplined children are harder to control and parents often get angry when a teacher attempts to place some controls on their child's behavior.
 
VTChEwbecca said:
As one who hopes to become a teacher, it concerns me, because undisciplined children are harder to control and parents often get angry when a teacher attempts to place some controls on their child's behavior.
Click to expand...
My sister-in-law teaches primary school and got punched in the belly by a boy. He was excluded for three days. I don't know what, if any, punishment the parents would have meted out, but all she could do was try to keep him away from her while another teacher restrained him.

Ultimately, what keeps you in line at school is the threat of your parents finding out that you misbehaved, but if your parents don't care then what's to keep you from misbehaving?
 
Litany said:
Ultimately, what keeps you in line at school is the threat of your parents finding out that you misbehaved, but if your parents don't care then what's to keep you from misbehaving?
Click to expand...

Exactly. My friend, who also teaches primary school, was told not to discipline one child, because his family had gang members and it was too dangerous to discipline him. He, as you can imagine, was quite a terror the whole year.


What the parents who fail to discipline their children don't realize, is that they're causing imeasurable harm to their children. Undisciplined children have a tougher time making friends, doing well in school, and retaining jobs and maintaining relationships, when they get older.
 
I used to live near the center of town, where I was surrounded by rich people who kept saying things like, "Now honey, mommy asked you not to touch that." It was completely ineffective. Now that I live in the suburbs, I am pleased to see the type of parenting that I had as a child, the "Get over here and stop touching things, NOW" variety. I am much less likely to run over a kiddo with my shopping cart, so I approve.

I worked at a montessori school for a year, and was impressed that the teachers gained control without having to resort to raising their voices. It always saddened me when they tried to impart their wisdom to the parents, who would say things like, "Oh, he won't do that at home." If it's expected of them, they will. We had enough structure so that even the 3 year olds cleaned up after themselves and respected the other kids.
 
I saw that programme Rainbowgurl - mainly I was unimpressed by how little responsibilty the parents wanted to take for the behaviour of their little brat. And I felt so sorry for the older kids, who had turned out quite well considering.

I prefer Wife Swap though :)
 
Ashlea said:
I worked at a montessori school for a year, and was impressed that the teachers gained control without having to resort to raising their voices. It always saddened me when they tried to impart their wisdom to the parents, who would say things like, "Oh, he won't do that at home." If it's expected of them, they will. We had enough structure so that even the 3 year olds cleaned up after themselves and respected the other kids.
Click to expand...

I've heard of such schools. The concept fascinates me...and I've heard wonderful things about the schools. Kids will rise to meet their expectations, but I think many people fail to realize that fact. If you expect nothing from them, they tend to give nothing.
 
Information on the Montessori system/philosophy here

Here is a description of the basics:

Montessori children are free to move about, working alone or with others at will. They may select any activity and work with it as long as they wish, so long as they do not disturb anyone or damage anything, and as long as they put it back where it belongs when they are finished.


Many exercises, especially at the early childhood level, are designed to draw children’s attention to the sensory properties of objects within their environment: size, shape, color, texture, weight, smell, sound, etc. Gradually, they learn to pay attention, seeing more clearly small details in the things around them. They have begun to observe and appreciate their environment. This is a key in helping children discover how to learn.
Click to expand...

Obviously, older students have a more structured curriculum but learn at their own pace.
 
Don't they sound great, Martin? I first heard of the schools last year and I think they're a wonderful idea. Especially for younger children, but all kids could benefit from such techniques.
 
Yeah, it does, actually. It gives the kids much more freedom, but at the same time it teaches them how to cope with responsibility, teamwork, etc...

Good idea!

Cheers
 
I was really impressed, even though my mother is a traditional teacher and very skeptical of the success of students to transfer over to traditional classrooms.

What really makes it works is the attitude of the teachers. I'd love to know how they teach it. They are calm, never raise their voice, and interact with the students in a very respectful and supportive way.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top