Section:GDN 12 PaGe:14 Edition Date:190821 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 20/8/2019 16:13 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
- The Guardian
14 Wednesday 21 August 2019
Two hours of programming to celebrate
the centenary of the radical German art
school established in Weimar in 1919
begins with a comprehensive history
of “the fi rst true revolutionary design
movement”, instituted by the visionary
architect Walter Gropius. An intelligent
look at its legacy and infl uence on
modern design, it is followed by a unique
experiment in which Jim Moir (AKA
Vic Reeves) challenges six graduates at
Central Saint Martins in London to create
works inspired by the Bauhaus.
Mike BradleyJamie Oliver: The Naked
Chef Bares All
9pm, Channel 4
Can it really be 20 years
since Jamie Oliver
arrived on our screens
with The Naked Chef?
Here, Davina McCall
invites him to describe
his most memorable
moments: being
discovered at the River
Café, his rise to fame as
the Britpop chef, his
campaigning ventures
and the closure of his
restaurant group. MBDeep Water
9pm, ITV
The Lake District’s answer
to Big Little Lies has it all:
class divisions, windswept
landscapes and a mystery
plot revolving round a
pair of knickers (“the
most hideously tarty
thong”, to be exact). This
week, Roz’s “discreet
physical arrangement”
gets complicated and
Joanne searches for
Kate’s missing daughter.
Ellen E JonesJade: The Reality Star
Who Changed Britain
9pm, Channel 4
The concluding part of
this poignant, unfi ltered
series on Jade Goody and
the changing face of British
society. After the realitystar’s racially charged
return to Big Brother and
subsequent fall from
grace, this fi nal episode
sees a cancer diagnosis
lead to an unexpected fi nal
chapter in her life.
Hannah J DaviesNaked Attraction
10pm, Channel 4
Once, the thought
of Anna Richardson
discussing the texture
of a bare testicle on
telly was shocking, but here
comes Naked Attraction’s
fi fth series. In the
opening episode, serial
dater Stephanie and artist
Bethany each pick a
date from the clothing-
free parade, none of
whom know what to do
with their hands.
Hannah VerdierHamilton: One Shot to
Broadway
11pm, Sky Arts
A feature-length
documentary fi lm about
the successful musical,
written, scored by and
starring Lin-Manuel
Miranda. This is worth
watching for its astute
analysis of the show that
became the hottest ticket
on Broadway and for
the challenge Hamilton
represents to the orthodoxy
of the Great White Way. MBJo-Rosie
Haff enden:
‘Kids are a lot
more like dogs
than people
like to think’Bauhaus 100
9pm, BBC Four
And
another
thingThe Great Hack
(Netfl ix) is the
most disturbing
and essential
documentary
I’ve seen this
year. Watch it.Review Train Your Baby
Like a Dog, Channel 4
not dogs!”. It claims that clicker training – which we
see Haff enden successfully using to reprogramme a
14-month-old’s fear of bathtime – is dehumanising and
potentially traumatising. Initiated by an autistic-led
organisation in London, the petition states that clicker
training is used in Applied Behaviour Analysis therapy
to redirect the behaviour of autistic children. As the
parent of an autistic child myself (and, full disclosure,
an intermittently obedient dog), who, as with many
others, fi nds ABA as upsetting and unethical as LGBT+
convers ion therapy, this is profoundly disturbing stuff.
And yet Haff enden’s parenting advice is neither
as dubious nor as extreme as all this might lead you
to expect. With three-year-old Greydon, prone to
tantrums, aggression and attention-seeking, her
techniques include making him a playroom (dogs act
up when they are bored) and rewarding good behaviour
instead of punishing bad, which is the mantra of positive
reinforcement dog training. It works. Greydon starts
saying “Please” and “Thank you”. He becomes more
independent. Happier. The real breakthrough is his
parents focusing on him more.
The fact that Haff enden’s methods can be intuitive,
eff ective and kind doesn’t justify them, though. Worse,
it shows that standard advice around parenting styles
means we might be treating pets more humanely than
children. Take Dulcie, the aforementioned 14-month-old,
whose distress at bathtime is connected to her terror of
bedtime. Every night her mum puts her in her cot and she
screams for hours. Her equally distraught mother runs
back and forth trying to soothe her. Eventually, they end
up passed out on the sofa in a sweaty, traumatised heap.
It is horrendous, for both of them.
“You wouldn’t allow a dog to get into this state ,”
Haff enden observes, watching remotely as Dulcie
howls in the dark. “It’s inhumane.” Ouch. But also,
yes, it really is torturous to witness. Her solution is to
change everything. At dinner time she off ers the human
equivalent of the “doggie tapas” she feeds her animals.
Basically, cheese and apple. At bathtime, she uses a
clicker and white chocolate buttons. “It’s almost like
giving a dog a treat,” her mum comments. But then the
transformation at bedtime is a pleasure. “We only leave
the room if she is settled,” Haff enden instructs. “We’ve
got to really teach her to trust you again.” So when Dulcie
cries, her mum picks her up, cuddles her, puts her back
down again. Within half an hour she is fast asleep and
they leave the room. No one is crying. Dulcie’s mum
declares Haff enden a child whisperer.
A disclaimer at the end of this often troubling,
occasionally sensible, and ultimately indefensible
programme states that all techniques were approved
by a clinical psychologist. Maybe so, but many will not
approve. What a show like this, and for that matter
plenty of parenting advice, tends to forget is that
children are neither animals nor some special category
of person. They are us. Humans.★☆☆☆☆
TV and radio
S
outhern Spain. A rural location we will call,
to use the correct overblown reality TV lingo,
“an oasis of canine calm”. “Sit!” instructs
Jo-Rosie Haff enden, an animal trainer,
behaviourist and owner of a degree in human
psychology and many spookily obedient
creatures. Two beautifully trained bottoms go down. One
belongs to Haff enden’s cocker spaniel. The other to her
three-year-old son. “Good boy!” Haff enden says ... to her
son. It is a shocking sight.
For Haff end en, what is really shocking is that we are
not all using dog training on our children. She believes :
“If everyone parented the way we train dogs, we would
end up with more confi dent, compassionate and curious
human beings.” She is willing to put her reputation on
the line for it. Her controversial methods include using
clickers and treats. She thinks that “kids are a lot more
like dogs than people like to think ”.
As deliberately button-pressing Channel 4 programme
titles go, Train Your Baby Like a Dog comes from the same
irony-clad but structurally unsound stable as Wife Swap,
My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, The Undateables and so on.
What are we to make of a show advocating the treatment
of babies like animals? Is it funny? Absurd? Actually quite
sensible beneath all the sensationalism? Or is it disturbing?
Dehumanising? Dangerous? A cue to call social services?
According to a change.org petition, it is all of the
latter. “Cancel Train Your Baby Like a Dog,” which
at the time of writing had nearly 25,000 signatures ,
points out, pretty uncontentiously, that “children areWhat are we to
make of being told
to treat babies
like animals?
Chitra
Ramaswamy
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