Feedback on 'super granny'/Andalene

I attended her (super Nanny)parenting classes in MIni Monsters before summer and really liked how she asseses each childs personality which i think is a big factor before addressing behaviour issues. I implemented a few techniques based on her suggestions and saw progress in the first few hours. She explains the kind of parenting skills required for each age group and helps you to understand your own personality traits and this can help to see where you are going wrong before getting started on using her techniques. I agree with a previous poster that time out in a seperate room did not sit comfortably with me but on the rare occasion where DD has needed it,it really worked wonders, SN believes in first time discipline,i however dont agree with it as i feel it crushes a childs spririt but if suits your family and your needs then it gets the results.

I had super granny come to my home and she taught me to do time out. It is effective to an extent. I have twin 4yr old girls, one is complaint, obliging, quiet. A good girl. The other is, to put it bluntly, a nightmare. stubborn, oppositional, aggressive, back to back tantrums. I ended up at HRI Dubai and saw Naeema Jiwani. She was fantastic, she trained me to deal with them more effectively. The bad news is shes gone on maternity leave, but if you ph them they may have someone replacing her. Google carolyn webster-stratton, this is what my training was based on. It was fantastic. She is having far less tantrums and I'm coping alot, better. On the carolyn webster website you can look at examples of some of the videos I saw during my training. Maybe you can find a practioner here. If u want to learn some useful hints I'm happy to share them with u. My girls have gone from the worst behaved in their class to the best behaved in just a few weeks. I still have a way to go, but I feel im working on it and things will continue to improve. <em>edited by Ginnee on 22/11/2012</em>

I think lizard's got it in one - take what you agree with and discard what you don't. I had a home visit with her when DS was 17 months and DD had just been born, and she certainly solved a lot of problems in our house. I don't believe in smacking or shutting children in small rooms and I wouldn't use those as disciplinary tools, but time outs in the same room as us worked brilliantly from day one and are still working now. For me, she has a lot of valuable inputs and I'd say the visit was worth it. PS NannyMacTee, do you do it here? <em>edited by DubaiCat on 20/11/2012</em>

Very interesting to read your posts about 'super granny' as I'm in the same field of work. I haven't yet attended any of her talks but was surprised to hear that she advocates 'controlled, non-angry smacking' as a disciplinary tool, and would be interested to hear how you understood that may work. When it comes to 'experts', I believe parents are the experts when it comes to their own families, you know your children better than anyone else. It is helpful to get as much information as you can from those who have had the relevant training but then to adapt the information to suit your own family dynamics. As Lizard said 'pick and choose the ones that ring true for you'.

Just today I attended a talk that she was giving at DD's nursery, and I thought she had a lot of useful suggestions. Like any of the so-called baby experts, you should take everything they say with a grain of salt. For example, super granny advocates controlled, non-angry smacking as one disciplinary tool, which I disagree with. So okay, I won't smack my child to make a point. However, where I agree with her, she also advocates consistent disciplinary techniques like giving time outs and structuring time into your child's day called Chill Time (which is where you basically train your child to play alone so that you can get some free time to yourself). I don't see any problems there. I think if you like some of her methods but disagree with others, you could pick and choose the ones that ring true for you. For the most part I thought she was sensible and had some good ideas that seem to work.

I met her at a play-date and was not really comfortable with her methods and experience she didn't seem to know a lot of basic things about sleep training (that i read in baby wise, baby whisperer and gina ford). But then again it was a short time - and i just heard the advice she was giving mothers without knowing the complete story on either side. I guess the thing that put me off was her likening disciplining children to breaking a horse. and while i used CIO with my DS and routines to get both my children to eat and sleep at the appropriate times - I prefer the "loving your children on purpose" method . (which sounded like the perfect solution prior to actually having the children ..lol) but it did teach me I found i get more co-operation when I explain and prepare them for whats coming e.g where we going and what they need to do - i also give them choices - where i limit the choices to 2 options so i am still the parent in control but they get to affirm their independence by making some choices. (it doesn't always work - but generally we have peace with this method) but sometimes When they respond with aggression or just bad behaviour that makes me wanna scream myself - we use TIMEOUT Basically I take them and place them on a naughty chair or a naughty corner ..... its a place that is otherwise boring - where they are close enough to hear and see . timeout time is 1 minute per age of the child at the end of the minute - i give a hug and explain why the behaviour was wrong and ask for an apology i try to keep the language short and to the point (hard for me to do !) the first few times tho - time out was more like i place him in timeout - he follows me - i carry him back ....until finally he gets the message now he sometimes goes to the naughty corner himself ! i think sometimes they just need a few minutes to collect themselves or just get the frustration of not being able to articulate their feeling out and a boring corner might actually ne what they need!