I don't like it. Firstly, I think it is very easy for a Nanny to make judgements, separated as she is from the all-encompassing love felt by a parent. Secondly, I believe it is the parenting style she - and other childless parenting "experts" - advocates that is causing the parenting crisis she speaks of. Before I had children, I was a teacher. In a secondary school. I came across hundreds of children each week. I had some pretty big views on how children should be brought up too. I watched Supernanny and nodded vehemently as she told the parents off and corrected the children. I ascribed to the idea of the naughty step and reward charts. As a teacher - like the Nanny who wrote the article - I felt qualified to hand out parenting advice. Hadn't I seen more children than any of these parents I had to speak to?
But then I started to think about how these methods were implemented in the classroom. Detentions and credits were the norm. But they weren't helping difficult children in my classes to improve. Fear of punishment wasn't making them work harder; the offer of a reward wasn't helping to strive for better grades. Ironically, it was my lowest set who showed the most improvement and this was because I had to deal with them in a very different way. They needed tlc, having been told so often that they were not very good - behaviourally and academically. They needed to see the intrinsic benefits of learning. And many of them did eventually see that. There appeared a love of learning in that lesson, and a vast improvement in reading and writing levels. However, it wasn't until I got pregnant with B that I realised that my love for the Supernanny method was misplaced and that the "attachment" teaching that I had been doing with my bott set was a far better way. I maintain that the hardest children to teach are those who expect to be rewarded for doing well - they have no intrinsic desire to succeed, and instead a desire for increasing rewards. Where a credit had once been welcomed for an A grade, it was soon no longer enough. A credit became expected for completing work, then for listening quietly. Eventually there was no reward great enough. Pupils who need fear of punishment to work are almost equally difficult to teach. They don't have an intrinsic desire to learn either. Their desire is to avoid being sent out or put in detention. The punishments have to get bigger and bigger to have the same effect. And often the punishments meted out in school don't come anywhere near those received at home.
