Daddy Cool

Published on Friday 6 February 2009 12:36

BEFORE we had children, we were regular viewers of Supernanny. We watched it for the same reason as everyone else: to see how appalling the children were and how rubbish the parents were at coping with them. No need for the TV these days.

Actually, I'm being a little unfair to my children and my wife. But now that our first-born has hit three, with the consequent – how to put this politely? – 'behavioural issues', it does feel sometimes as if I am ready for an episode all of my own. I fear I am beginning to betray many of the worst tendencies of the Supernanny dad (SD).

If I recall rightly, the standard SD is the dork in the corner of the kitchen who continues to read the paper despite the screams of his rabid kid, only to suddenly react with absurd force when his patience snaps. "Right, that's it!" he declares, before marching the child out to the rain-sodden garden where Junior is left wondering whether he has been punished or whether SD is taking him for a spot of gardening. Cue tutting from that woman with the specs.

I'm not doing quite that badly. I'm keeping a lid on the temper, but I excel in the ineffectual bit. For example, I'm particularly good at another of the SD traits: the miles-over-their-heads explanation. Trying to explain to our son why he can't eat another biscuit, I'll say something like: "You can't eat biscuits all the time because you need lots of other food to balance it out which goes to make up a proper diet, you know, fruit and vegetables and meat and so on…" The three-year-old looks up and blinks.

Then there's that other SD classic: the punishment you'll never follow through on. At 2pm, father screams: "Do that again, and you'll go straight to bed!" Three-year-old, eyebrows raised, looks at clock. Aye, right.

And, of course, there's the old favourite: the anything-for-an-easy-life approach. Do I find myself obeying my son's various shouty demands in the morning, afternoon and evening for snacks, drinks, TV, games, jigsaws, stones, sticks, stuffed rabbits, etc? Look, they wear you down eventually, okay.

The other big curiosity of watching Supernanny, of course, was to try to get into the heads of a couple who had decided that national humiliation on prime-time TV was the best, perhaps only, way they could resolve their family nightmare. Oh, how we used to scoff. But since we've had kids, I don't think we've watched it once. I'd be far too scared of recognising myself.

• Eddie Barnes is Scotland on Sunday's political editor