supernanny keeps wanting to follow my protected account on twitter. three times she’s requested to follow me, and on every try i declined. i finally gave in on the fourth attempt. but i didn’t follow her, so she’s gone now. someone who persists with their follower requests should be avoided. and look at her latest update:
‘Toddlers bite and hit to get their own way, but it can get serious. Nip biting in the bud’
nip biting in the bud?! ffs. anyway, i was searching for summat in my email and found this:
J: Bloody hell. Did you watch Supernanny last night? All I could think was: cattle prod. You could control this creature with an electric cattle prod. Is that unpaternal of me?
me: Wait. Are you telling me they used a cattle prod on some kid on Supernanny? When you stop and really really think about it, maybe it’s a bit unpaternal. I’ll tell you something funny. Whenever I see a niece or nephew with a runny nose, I *have* to get a couple of tissues and clean them up. I can’t seem to leave them to it.
J: No, the cattle prod was my idea. Supernanny suggests you crouch down so you’re face to face with the child and speak with a ‘low, assertive tone’. And if the child continues to misbehave, it is made to sit upon an allocated ‘naughty step’ on the stairs, where it will remain until a parent decides it has been sufficiently admonished. I mean. All that faffing about when a quick high voltage blast would put an end to the worst temper tantrum in a matter of a fraction of a second. Perhaps childcare is to be my forte after all.
me: Oh, that softly softly approach. Supernanny seems to think you need to use it all the time. I’ve not really disciplined my nieces or nephews much, but when they’re being bad all I have to do is say their name out loud in this bossy grown up voice and they freeze. Works every time. And then there’s nephew #1. If his mother goes out and leaves him behind, he does this crying face. You know those deranged grieving faces you see in comics when someone dies? And ‘Nooooooooooooooooooo’ letters trail from their mouth all over the page? That. Nephew #1 wails and wails and wails, like he’s been so badly wronged. The first time I did get face to face with him, and told him to ‘stop crying’. Not ‘stop crying you little brat’ but ‘stop crying’. And he did. Now I don’t have to get face to face with him. All I say is ‘stop crying’ and he does.
J: Holy moly. That all sounds very knowledgeable and proper. Clearly, not only was the cattle prod idea unpaternal, it was quite inappropriate. And, thinking about it, possibly illegal. “Stop crying.” I like that.
me: Works every time. Trust me. On the other hand, one of the neighbouring relatives, her kids keep coming round, and she’s told me I’m allowed to tell them off if they’re bad. I’m waiting for her oldest, a nosy bossy fat kid who’s about 6 or 7 to really piss me off and then I’m going to slap her one.
J: Overheard at lunchtime, one young boy to another: “Our dad’s fuckin’ awesome, he lets us do whatever we want!”
![yep. the boy has moved on from Cars.[via fyeahpixarmovies]](http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kwi1u0ykgF1qapyy7o1_400.gif)
