I think we need to bring back Super Nanny

There was a British TV show which came on the air in 2004 called Super Nanny which did pretty much what it says on the tin.

A marvellous nanny by profession named Jo Frost would visit families with children who were completely out of control, and basically teach the parents what many assume they will know how to do instinctively—how to parent.

Contrary to popular belief, parenting does not come naturally to everyone, either because they were not parented well themselves, or because they go to the other extreme; those raised by uber strict parents become far too lenient, while those whose parents were laissez-faire decide to exert too much discipline. Enter Super Nanny, who would show them the ropes, demonstrating with simple effective techniques how to get the children to change their unruly behaviour. It turned out that the basic rule was for the parents to change how they were responding and handling the situation. Instead of the children being in charge of the household with the parents feeling helpless in the face of daily meltdowns, the adults learned how to take the reins firmly and decisively, as it should be.

It was fascinating television and in response to an interview which aired with Jo Frost recently, many parents across the country confirmed that they had implemented her methods with great success. Another frequent comment was: We need to bring this show back because it is needed more than ever!

We only need to look at the news headlines to realise how true this is. When teenagers gang up and beat another teenager up, the anti-social behaviour would not have started that night. It would be a result of children who are without any direction at home, who are left to their own devices, who have no discipline, no boundaries, no rules.

The same can be applied to young adults and even people who are middle-aged. If no one in your life has ever told you what you can or cannot do; if you have sailed through life getting away with the most appalling behaviour because no one has ever told you “No”, we can hardly expect that adulthood will magically transform you into a decent, civilised human being. Instead, it manifests itself in rudeness, being obnoxious and arrogant, with a supreme sense of entitlement where you expect everyone to get out of your way, whether it is in traffic, in a queue at the supermarket or being served at a restaurant. There is that well-known saying that you can tell a person’s character by the way they treat a waitress, and it is 100% true. If snapping your fingers or belittling someone who is there to take your order makes you feel important and superior, you really need to check yourself.

Taking this issue even further, it has long been patently obvious that we are suffering from a lack of discipline and a penchant for law-breaking on a national scale. From something as innocuous as the truck driver who double parks because he wants pastizzi and wants them now, to the highest people in authority who disregard ethics, rules and the parameters of their office… just because they can. The latest scandal which has revealed that a member of the judiciary and the executive were in communication with one another in direct breach of the code of ethics has made us question everything.

We look around our country, blinking in bewilderment and wonder how we ended up like this, only to remember that the rot has been there for a long time, eating away, slowly but surely until it has devoured the core of our values.

Just like children who do not suddenly become juvenile delinquents overnight, a nation also does not suddenly turn to anarchy from one day to the next. It starts in little drips and drabs—skirting the law, bending the rules, finding a loophole which lets you wriggle your way through even though you know deep down it’s not right. And once you have successfully managed to get away with something without getting caught, it emboldens you to push your luck even further.

Just watch the face of a toddler who throws a screaming fit until his parents cave in and give him their iPad, and you will see that there is a little glimmer of triumphant satisfaction in his eyes that he has “won”; you can be sure that once it works once, he will do it again and again until he won’t even have to resort to a tantrum any more before he gets what he wants. He would have conditioned his parents to hand over the coveted device without the slightest peep.

I find that the similarities between building a civilised, law-abiding nation and raising well-behaved children according to Jo Frost’s methods cannot be clearer. You need consistency, calmness, a clear sense of authority and that word again, discipline. Without discipline nothing can function properly and yet so many feel they can implement it haphazardly, or water it down or discard it altogether. If discipline is a hit or miss affair you end up with what we have now—decisions which do not make sense, leaders who let us down time and again because they themselves are picking and choosing which laws to follow and a population which resorts to taking matters into its own hands because there is a lack of official protection.

The analogy to child-rearing is not as far-fetched as we might think either, because one of the things which Jo Frost said in her interview really stayed with me. In her career she was often asked, how can you tell parents what to do when you have never had children of your own? Her response was: “I have had lots of children from those families who have turned to me for help, because I feel they are ALL our children. They will grow up and we will have to deal with them in our society one way or the other, so it is our collective responsibility to ensure they turn out well.”

This encapsulates the very essence of why the way they are moulded at home has ripple effects on the way children behave when they go to school, when they are out with their peers, and with their colleagues when they eventually enter the workforce.

Jo Frost was also the proponent of the “time out” method and putting children on a “naughty step” to calm down and re-set their behaviour. Maybe that’s what our country needs—a national time out, to breathe and stop this frenzy. We had that respite briefly during lockdown but Malta along with the rest of the world simply came back with a vengeance wanting to make up for lost time. There is this sense of urgency and panic that we must live for the moment because who knows what tomorrow will bring. While there is nothing wrong with that per se, it can sometimes manifest itself in being so completely self-absorbed and only interested in what is best for “me”, that consideration for others has fallen by the wayside.

All of this is not to be confused with wanting a nanny state, but with encouraging more mutual respect, which always starts within the family, a microcosm of society and the first place we learn how to get along with others. In fact, a nanny state is the opposite of what we need as doling out too many things for free has only resulted in mollycoddling people who take advantage of the situation. They expect everything to fall into their lap because “il-gvern” will take care of it. Making exams free, just to take one example, has led to a high percentage of “no shows” because since there was no payment there was no real obligation to actually attend. A more sensible and financially feasible idea would be to make parents pay for the exam if the student does not attend.

As any good nanny would tell you, actions have consequences, and it is about time we implement this adage not just at home, but nationwide.