Moms Talk: Channeling Your Inner 'SuperNanny'

I get a kick out of "SuperNanny’s" Jo Frost.  She comes sweeping in, usually wearing a business suit, to save some poor couple from their out-of-control, back-talking, rule-breaking, manipulative, crafty, wily, conniving toddlers.

That’s not to say there haven’t been older children on the show giving their parents the blues, but the subjects are usually in the "timeout chair" and "behavior chart" stage of life.

These kids are getting away with everything from physically and verbally abusing everyone within eyesight, treating candy as one of the food groups, going to bed when they want and where they want, not cleaning up behind themselves and talking back to their parents.

Frost watches the unsavory behavior from a distance, captures it on film, then has a conference with the befuddled parental unit.

These are usually not families who are struggling financially. These are almost never single parents.

Many times there is a stay-at-home mom in the equation who seems clueless as to how to get everyone eating at the same time, not to mention that everyone is eating something different as if mom’s the waitress at .

Frost usually comes up with some sort of schedule for the kids, coaches the mom through using the "time out" chair as an effective consequence for bad behavior, slaps a behavior chart on the wall, and then the kids seem to get in line. Some of Frost’s tactics seem to be common sense, but obviously these frazzled parents have yet to hear about them.

I used to teach elementary school, and one of the best pieces of advice I got was to establish and reinforce classroom rules early. Any educator with a degree worth the paper it’s printed on should have learned somewhere in their education about classroom management.

Unfortunately, there’s no "parenting school" that teaches us how to raise our kids in such a way that minimizes behavior problems. We often fly by the seat of our pants, combining how we were raised with what the school or pediatrician tells us, and add a dash of advice we’ve received from other sources.

I could be wrong: Maybe you have unearthed a secret, underground parenting school that is invitation-only. Maybe you’ve read an awesome "parenting Bible" that holds all the answers.

Whatever you’ve done, you’re able to shut down a temper tantrum with a single-raised eyebrow. Your kids eat all their vegetables and love them. Your kids not only clean but whistle while they work. Bottom line, you have had none or few of the behavior problems from your children that other parents can’t seem to solve.

So tell us, how do you manage your children’s behavior? Do you rely on your memories of how you were raised? Do you read parenting books and magazines or seek advice from professionals?