Nanny knows best

Nanny knows best
Friday February 22, 2008

Dear Ms Miller,

Please can you help. There is a fashion recently for Nanny programs in which the rage and anger of children is controlled by means of ‘communication’ in order to teach it not to express anger, violence and frustration in its childish way but in one that conforms to the adult’s requirements.

When a child is angry it is placed in ‘isolation’, usually in a corner or a ‘naughty step’ for as many minutes as it has years in age. So a two year old is ‘isolated’ for 2 minutes etc and so on until it stops and starts to control it’s anger – the mother does hug and comfort the child after but something in this pedagogy does not strike me as right.

Please can you describe how a mother who allows herself to be narcisically cathected would react to a childs or group of childrens rage, anger or violence.

Thankyou for your wonderful work, love, A. K.

AM: Thank you for your letter. You are perfectly right; but I can’t help it that this kind of Nannies are working in all countries. I am writing and hope that other people will do the same. Unfortunately, not many do it. Can you use my Flyers? I think that they are translated into Polish.