TVScope/Supernanny, Channel 4, Wednesday, August 24th, 9pm: Horrible children make good TV and none more so than the truly awful kids who turn up in Channel 4's Supernanny series.
Supernanny Jo Frost is a fine, strapping lass, a combination of Reverend Mother and social worker. In her Reverend Mother persona, she is a stickler for discipline and for keeping the rules. In her social worker persona she insists on parents showing love to their children and building positive relationships with them, however sickeningly horrible their behaviour might be.
And her methods seem to work.
Last week's episode had Debbie, a separated mum, being driven demented by her three girls Bethany (5), Ruth (3) and Hannah (2). Their grandparents who lived next door and who were the only ones who could control the little terrors were also being driven demented by Debbie's too-frequent calls for help.
These are children to whom standing on the table and scattering food around the floor was seen as normal behaviour at mealtimes. They were so good at giving their mother the runaround that it took two hours to put them to bed at night, often with the help of grandparents.
When Supernanny arrived she was greeted with flying garden chairs, flung by the children who pelted her with various objects picked up from the back garden.
In her social worker persona she saw them as "beautiful young girls, high-spirited and lively". And she told poor, demented Debbie that the girls would learn nothing from her demanding that they behave or from shouting and yelling at them.
In her Reverend Mother persona, she laid down disciplinary procedures. She instigated two naughty corners to which children were banished for up to five minutes for misbehaviour. She also introduced a system of rewards and deprivation of rewards depending on behaviour.
The children eventually began to get the message and things got better. Even getting them to sleep at night ceased to be a nightmare.
Instead of running around the room attempting to get three of them into bed, Debbie was told to leave the bedroom and, whenever one of them came out, to simply bring the child back in again.
On the first night, Ruth came out of the room no fewer than 47 times before she finally got the message.
Supernanny insisted that Debbie spend more time playing with the kids one-to-one, giving them positive attention so that she was not relating to them only on the level of discipline. This also seemed to work wonders.
When Supernanny left for a week, things went well at first but then Debbie herself began to slip on enforcing the rules. It wasn't long before things were back to a yelling, shouting, fighting normality.
Never mind. Supernanny came back, gave Debbie a right telling-off and for the next week took her through the parenting processes again. By the end of the week, Debbie had got the hang of it. Supernanny left, Debbie continues to implement her methods and everybody lives happily ever after.
This week's episode features a particularly obnoxious karate kid.