In the foreword to her new book Dr Tanya Byron says something rather
unexpected. The parenting industry, she declares, is marketing a “simplified
and unrealistic view of parenting”. The raft of books and television
programmes that has sprouted from the modern preoccupation with the “right”
way to rear a child is not helping but increasingly disempowering parents.
They are becoming overwhelmed and confused by a burgeoning industry that is
presenting the most instinctive human function — raising one’s offspring —
as a combination of easy tips and techniques to be learnt like a five times
table. The genre, she seems to be saying, is a monster spinning out of
control.
But hang on a minute. As the country’s leading child psychologist and
parenting guru with two acclaimed television series and three books under
her belt, didn’t Dr Byron help to create this monster? At her home in North
London, where we meet to discuss her latest book, Your Child . . . Your Way
(another parenting book but with a difference), her answer is unhesitatingly
“yes”.
“I would never duck out and say from some sort of clinical ivory tower, ‘Look
at all this that’s going on now and it’s all terrible’,” she says. “I am
part of the genre. I was one of the first people who did it on telly, so I
have a degree of responsibility for that genre.” And this is why she has
come to a decision. She will not make any more television programmes about
parenting. It is a surprising and possibly, I suggest, rash statement given
that she is at the height of her marketability and could, to put it crudely,
make a mint if she decided to cash in on her media brand. But her mind is
made up. “It was just a sense for me that the way the genre is going I
didn’t really want to continue to be a part of it,” she says.
Before she says any more there is one thing about which she wants to be
emphatic. In no way, she says, is she critical of the BBC or the production
teams with whom she made House of the Tiny Tearaways and Little Angels and
whom she describes as “brilliant” and “hugely responsible”. She wants to be
crystal-clear that she is proud of those programmes.
But some of the TV shows that bred on the back of its success (despite much
encouragement from me she refuses to name names) she is not so comfortable
with. “There are other programmes you do see which are either run by people
with no training or it’s completely car-crash telly and you think ‘How did
that family end up on TV because they so shouldn’t be there?’ ” she says.
“And that’s when I do start to think ‘Oh God, where is this going?’ ” It is
obvious talking to Dr Byron that there are many reasons behind her career
decision. Two of them are running around in the back garden — her daughter,
Lily, 12, and son, Jack, 9. “I don’t think it’s that easy for my children to
be the children of Dr Tanya Byron,” she says. “They haven’t expressed it,
but if I become the parenting guru for the rest of time . . . it’s intrusive
for them. And because their father is so well-known — well, we’re very
private in that way.” Dr Byron’s husband is the actor Bruce Byron, who plays
DC Terry Perkins in The Bill, so the children have two parents whose faces
are instantly recognisable. But I imagine that Dr Byron is more concerned
that if she sets herself up as the TV expert who tells others how to parent,
then, by implication, they might feel public pressure to be “perfect” kids.
And no child deserves that.
But she dismisses my rather mercenary question about whether she is worried
about killing the golden goose. “If I ever thought I set out just to want to
make a shed-load of money I think I’d be really appalled at myself,” she
says. “I came at this because I’m a clinician and you remain grounded
because you remember where you’ve come from. If you lose where you’ve come
from you also lose your integrity and respect.” Besides, she says, some
parenting programmes, in their perpetual quest to offer something fresh and
exciting, are veering towards just entertainment with little benefit for the
children involved.
You can say that again. You don’t have to be a psychologist to feel queasy at
some of the stuff we now see on television. Dr Byron may be too diplomatic
to identify specific programmes but I am not. One that stood out as
particularly distasteful was I Smack and I’m Proud, an ITV production in
which parents boasted of their iron discipline by hitting their children in
front of the camera. If this kind of thing is now a part of the genre then I
can see why she wants no part of it. In any case her message seems to be
that parents should trust their own instincts more and not rely on
one-size-fits-all rules from a parenting manual that might not suit their
own individual child.
Which brings us to Dr Byron’s new book. At a time when neurotic, competitive
parents are increasingly hung up on strict bedtime routines, potty training,
eating and myriad other aspects of toddlers’ “ideal” behaviour, reading it
is a blessed relief.
The book differs from other parenting titles in that in its second half it
tells the reader straight that no amount of manuals will help if there is a
fundamental problem with their — the parents’ — attitude. It asks parents to
consider some home truths about themselves and what issues they might be
projecting on to their child. The second half is partly an appeal to stop
obsessing about being perfect parents, use more of our natural common sense
and, most of all, to enjoy our children — not turn them into a mathematical
problem to be solved. We are overcomplicating the most primitive human
relationship.
Here’s an example. She wonders why some parents are so preoccupied with
pushing their children into potty training perhaps before they are ready.
“Early bladder and bowel training is not an indication of a future place at
Oxford University,” she writes, and “How many 15-year-olds do you see in
nappies?”
Ditto parents who are overly anxious about their child’s eating. Put yourself
in their shoes, she says, and next time you’re having a meal, get a friend
to peer into your face, repeatedly mop it with a fragranced wipe and see how
you like it. Most pleasing to me as a passionate dissenter of Gina Ford’s
methods is her declaration, both as a mother and a child psychologist, that
she isn’t comfortable with rigid routines for newborn babies. You should
feel able to lift them when they cry at night and fall asleep on your chest,
says Dr Byron. You need to get to know each other, to establish a bond
before setting precise routines. “The young baby should not be viewed as a
task but as a new, precious and bewildered little human being,” she writes.
The first half of the book is a more practical guide with advice, for example,
on how to deal with tantrums, how to gradually introduce bedtime routines,
sensible toilet training and encouraging small children to eat. But it
differs from traditional parenting books in that its standpoint is showing
the parent how to really make it work, effectively “combining thinking and
emotion”.
“In this age of information about parenting what really strikes me as a
clinician is how people seem more confused than they were before,” she says.
“I think that’s possibly because the emphasis is on technique, and parenting
— well, life, actually — isn’t about a series of techniques; it’s about a
dynamic that exists between two people.” She has written this book for those
parents who have bought every manual available and still feel confused and a
failure.
“You can buy every book on the planet but if you don’t believe you’re a good
parent and don’t believe your child is capable of being a lovely child . . .
none of it will work. I’ve yet to meet a child, apart from kids with very
specific neurological problems, whose problems are totally located within
them and divorced from the context which they are in. But that’s not about
blame. When you work systemically you take a view that any individual’s
problems are representative of difficulties within the system, ie, the
family, the school setting etc . . . sometimes it’s not about doing a new
thing but shifting a perspective.”
There are some basic psychological principles of behaviourism “but
fundamentally the only way they will work positively is if you adapt them
towards you and your child”. Spending just a few hours in the Byrons’ home,
you realise what a genuinely happy, grounded family they are. Dr Byron has
her own upbringing partly to thank for that. Her parents loved each other
very much and she was fantastically close to her father, the film, stage and
TV director John Sichel, who died two years ago, an event that left her
devastated. Tragically, Sichel’s own mother was murdered when Dr Byron was
15, which was, obviously, extremely traumatic for the family. But he was a
great believer in positive thinking and this has rubbed off on both his
children (Dr Byron has a sister, Katrina, a television director).
“My father was a very emotional man, very charismatic; he was a real proponent
of the notion of self-belief,” Tanya says. “His coping strategy was
understanding that it’s how you think about something that will really
impact on how that thing goes. He had this great optimism, a can-do,
why-not-have-a-go attitude.
“When I think about my upbringing I think that’s the key. It’s probably
informed who I am.” Indeed, self-belief is the key to the book in many ways,
so it is a great shame that Sichel isn’t here to see what is in part the
fruit of his philosophy. “I’m really sad that he’s not alive to read it. I’m
desperately sad that he’s not alive to see how his grandchildren are
growing; they are both fantastic grandchildren. But I’ve sort of got to the
stage in my grief where I can accept that he’s not here but that he still
lives on, if you know what I mean.”
Sichel would no doubt approve of his daughter following her own instinct and
walking away from the media juggernaut to protect the integrity of her first
love, clinical psychology, which she says will always be her priority and
which she will never give up.
She will, however, make different types of television programmes as a
psychologist. She will also continue in her clinical work, and answer
readers’ psychological questions in times2. Later in the year she presents a
series of BBC Two documentaries, Am I Normal?, which explores the extremes
of human behaviour, and she has also co-written a comedy series with
Jennifer Saunders, The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle, to be broadcast in
October and satirises the chat-show, pop psychology in programmes such as
The Jeremy Kyle Show. She feels very strongly that programme-makers should
be responsible for the people they feature. On Tearaways not only was there
an independent childcare committee, but all the families were screened by
professionals. The ones they didn’t take on were given advice and sometimes
Dr Byron would write to their GP. The Tearaways producers, she says, became
like her clinical team. “They really understood as TV executives that they
were coming into my world rather than bringing me into theirs. But I don’t
think a lot of productions understand that.”
She tells me about a father of a child she sees in her clinic who had pushed
his son into potty training too early, resulting in terrible soiling
problems. Most of the work she ended up doing was with the father who, it
turned out, had always felt inadequate as a child. His parents had separated
when he was young and he had never been made to feel quite good enough.
“When that man stood there and looked at his little boy every piece of
unresolved and painful experience in his life was triggered by his son
struggling to potty-train,” she says. “It was all about projection.” The
problem is that you will create exactly the child you don’t want to create,
she says — one who feels a failure, that they have let you down. “It can
become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Not all parents, of course, suffer from such problems but Dr Byron says that
her book is for those who perhaps do; those who have tried everything but
still something is wrong. “I have parents who come to my clinics who just
cry,” she says. “I say ‘Tell me something you enjoy about being a parent’
and they say ‘Nothing. I always feel I’ve failed.’ And you feel so sad for
them.” But her worry generally is that with all the emphasis on theory we
risk losing the sense of joy in bringing up our children. “Why do people
think that anything as important and complex and intimate and intricate as
bringing up a child is going to be simple?” she says. “How do you get to
that point? It’s such a dangerous belief to have.”
As the book says, the relationship between parent and child is the most
primitive, the most natural, the most amazing of all relationships. Why
don’t we just relax and enjoy it?
Finally, I ask whether being a psychologist has made her a better mother. She
is quick to say that despite knowing all the so-called “techniques”, she
still struggles at times. She remembers herself and her husband being
exhausted when their daughter had a sleep problem as a baby but, even as a
qualified professional, she felt unable to implement all the “right” methods
because they didn’t feel instinctively right for her — reassuringly, she
says, emotion can cloud rationality even for those with the training to
“know better”.
Besides, she doesn’t want to raise her kids purely by using psychological
techniques, so they become “compliant little people with no spark of
personality, no ability to say ‘NO!’ ” She wants parents to have the courage
to just let their child be when it feels right, without worrying about what
others say. “Being a practitioner hasn’t made me a better mother,” she says,
“but being a mother has made me a better prac- titioner.”
— Your Child . . . Your Way by Dr Tanya Byron, Penguin, £10.99. Available for
£9.89 from Times BooksFirst, 0870 1608080, timesonline.co.uk/booksbuyfirst
TANYA ON TV
MAY 2005: The House of Tiny Tearaways: Dr Tanya gave advice on tricky
toddlers
MARCH 2005: Teen Angels: Dr Tanya and Dr Stephen Briers dealt with
teenagers
FEBRUARY 2004: Little Angels: Dr Tanya worked with parents of difficult
children
AND OTHERS
I Smack and I'm Proud, ITV: A documentary featuring parents who believe
that smacking is a perfectly acceptable method of discipline
Honey We’re Killing the Kids, BBC2: Child psychology expert Kris
Murrin took six families and fast forwarded their children’s lives to the
age of 40
Bad Behaviour, Channel 4: A spin-off of the 2003 documentary series
about desperate families with out-of-control children
Driving Mum and Dad Mad, ITV: The clinical psychologist Claire Halsey
took parents back to the classroom to teach them how to change their kids’
behaviour
Supernanny, Channel 4: Jo Frost, a nanny, helps families who don’t know
how to deal with their children’s behaviour
Before the boom
Television shows revealing how families cope with children with behavioural
problems have been around for decades, but parenting programmes featuring an
all-knowing expert are a relatively new phenomenon.
Channel 4’s 2003 documentary, Cutting Edge: Bad Behaviour, is thought to be
one of the first programmes in which a child-behavioural expert counselled
parents who felt hopelessly inadequate. Warwick Dyer, a self-styled
parenting guru, was seen advising a couple who could not control their
daughter’s spectacular tantrums.
The documentary led to a booming industry of parental advice programming (and
a proliferation of books), but instead of focusing on the struggling
families the shows centred on the child “experts”, who soon became
celebrities.
— Michelle Henery
Six best selling parenting books
1 How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele
Faber; Elaine Mazlish
2 How to Be a Happy Mum: The Netmums Guide to Stress-free Family Life
by Siobhan Freegard
3 The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep
Through the Night by Elizabeth Pantley
4 Could Do Better!: Help Your Kid Shine at School by Phil Beadle
5 Toxic Childhood: How the Modern World is Damaging Our Children and
What We Can Do About It by Sue Palmer
6 Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So
You Can Live Too by Adele Faber, Elaine Mazlish and Kimberly Ann Coe
