I don’t have kids. I don’t have any particular reason to care about parenting advice, I don’t like Mary Poppins that much, and watching little kids throw tantrums, when I see it in person, is not on my list of experiences that entertain me most.

But I love watching Supernanny. If you’re not familiar with the show, you can roughly classify it in your head as an instructional reality show, where normal people who are terrible at something get advice on how to be less terrible at it. How Not To Parent, sort of. It used to be that there were a couple of shows like this — specifically, this competed with the very inferior Nanny 911, which had this insane construct where there were these British nannies in uniform who lived in some sort of compound where their Reverend Mother Of Nannying would choose one of them to send off to a needy family, like she was going to rescue the Von Trapps. Except those nannies were mean and sour and chilly, and nobody ever liked them. I mean, you had to pretend to like them, because they were so mean, and it seemed like they’d whomp you with an umbrella if you didn’t. But they weren’t likable.

Jo Frost, however, who’s the one and only Supernanny, is immensely likable. She’s just as British, but her approach is very different. Rather than a starched uniform, Jo just wears regular-person clothes, though she does always show up on the first day with her hair in a tight, authoritarian bun. The show always opens with her in the back seat of her Brit cab, watching a DVD of the family she’s going to see. The parents are always begging for help, showing footage of their children biting, screaming, swearing, hitting each other, hitting their parents, breaking expensive stuff…and then Jo looks at the camera and says something like, “They really do need my help!” And then there’s some more DVD footage, and then some kid yells “That’s bullshit!” at his mom or something like that, and Jo looks right at the camera with her best Jim Halpert face, and then she says, “I’m on my way,” and she’s on her way.

Jo always starts by observing the parents and the way they handle their kids, which usually means that some kid throws a fit, and the mom says “You quit that!” about forty times. Sometimes, the parents have clearly studied parenting techniques on their own, and they know enough to try to give time-outs. But the kids don’t stay in time-out, and they just wander out of the time-out spot and ask for a hamburger, and Mom says, “Okay, well, one hamburger, and then go play with your brother.” “I WANT FRIES!” “Okay, a hamburger and fries, but that is it.” And Jo looks at the camera again, and her eyes are all boggly, and it’s hilarious.

I always love it when they have to learn bedtime, as they did this week. Jo has a very specific way she does bedtime. You put the kid to bed, and the first time she gets out of bed, you say, “It’s bedtime, darling” (she always adds the “darling”) and take her back and put her in bed. And the second time, you just say it’s bedtime, and you put them in bed. And after that, they get nothing. No talking, no arguing, you just put them back in bed. Watch the technique at work!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X--dq2JzK_s&hl=en]

So that’s bedtime, and it almost always goes the same way. The first night is, like, the worst night of the parents’ lives. They put the kid back in bed fifteen, twenty times. And at the end, when the kid finally wears herself out and falls asleep, Jo congratulates them like they’ve just survived a military campaign. And they do that one night, or maybe two, and then the kids start going to bed on their own. I realize this is not how kids operate in real life, but it’s remarkable, the consistency with which the parents say, “This will never work! They will never go to sleep!” Often, these parents have resorted to some completely insane routine like sleeping next to their kids on the floor, letting their kids sleep on a blanket in the hallway…I mean, if these things work, that’s fine, but if the reason is that you believe your kid will never go to bed except in the hallway, that’s bazoo.

One of the things that’s so interesting about the bedtime thing is how much time Jo spends teaching parents — especially moms — how to cope with the kid standing there screeching like his hair is being pulled out without feeling like ogres. I’ve heard this from people I know who’ve had to do bedtime with their own kids, but you can tell what a powerful biological imperative she’s up against. People feel like they’re the devil.

But anyway. So in addition to bedtime, Jo is famous for the Naughty Spot. Sometimes it’s the naughty chair, naughty corner, naughty step…depends on what you’ve got in the house. It’s like time-out, and the kid gets plunked onto the spot for the same number of minutes as she is years old. Observe:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZefXwIMxhMc&hl=en]

You give the warning, they do it anyway, you put them on the spot and tell them why, you put them back on the spot as many times as it takes (this is like bedtime — I’ve literally seen kids get off the naughty spot over and over for two hours to avoid sitting there for four minutes), and then when it’s over, they have to apologize. And then you give them a hug and a kiss and they’re done. That’s my favorite part! I love the fact that you can get in trouble, serve your time, repent, and be instantly forgiven. If only real life were like that. Maybe we should let Supernanny run our penal system.

I can’t really explain why I love this particular show; I’m entirely outside the target demographic, and I don’t really require parenting advice. I think it’s partly just the same fascination with behavior that I like about other reality shows — no one technique works for all kids, but it’s amazing how often she turns out to be right that a kid whose parents announce, “He’ll never sit in time-out for five minutes” can indeed be made to do so, provided you’re willing to put him back, like, three times. You can see how people give up — they try it, it doesn’t work, and they think, “This is making it worse.” Which it almost always does. But then it gets better! Hooray for Supernanny!

Tara and I had a discussion once, jumping off a conversation she once had with her sister, about whether it would be worse to have Tim Gunn upset with you, or Supernanny. My conclusion has been that having Tim unhappy with me would be more devastating, but having Supernanny unhappy with me would whip my behavior into shape faster. They need to make an automated Supernanny who tells you to floss and stuff. That would make my sorry behind a little more compliant, I’m betting.