Train Your Baby Like a Dog review – dehumanising and indefensible

Animal trainer and behaviourist Jo-Rosie Haffenden uses controversial methods like clickers and treats to make children behave better. The results are troubling.

Southern Spain. A rural location we will call, to use the correct overblown reality TV lingo, “an oasis of canine calm”. “Sit!” instructs Jo-Rosie Haffenden, 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 Haffenden’s cocker spaniel. The other to her three-year-old son. “Good boy!” Haffenden says … to her son. It is a shocking sight.

For Haffenden, 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 confident, 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, ad offendum. 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, for anyone in their right mind, 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 are not dogs!”. It claims that clicker training – which we see Haffenden 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, finds ABA as upsetting and unethical as LGBT+ conversion therapy, this is profoundly disturbing stuff.


https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/aug/20/train-your-baby-like-a-dog-review-dehumanising-and-indefensible?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1566336894

There are many ways that training a puppy and a child are the same.

With three-year-old Greydon, prone to tantrums, aggression and attention-seeking, her techniques include making him a play room (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.

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,” Haffenden 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 offers 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,” Haffenden 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 Haffenden a child whisperer.

Chitra Ramaswamy reports two cases of success and calls these results 'disturbing'

No, children are not dogs...

Children under two are much, much worse..

I remember what one Sydney-based child psychologist/behaviourist said a few years ago :

"Children under two should be treated like animals -- because that's what they are !"

Going by that change.org petition, they have already found over 25,000 snowflakes still in denial over the true nature of their own little darlings..

Sleep training is a thing. Lots of French, German and Scandinavian parents do it with great success.

I read books recently by American women bringing up children in these countries and they were remarkably similar. Sleep and potty training early, starting crèche at a young age etc...Overall they didn’t sweat the small stuff but were sticklers about good manners, telling the truth, parental authority as opposed to friendships. It made for very interesting reading. I watched the sister basically make a rod for her own back by doing the total opposite. I love my nephews dearly but I’m so glad they’re not mine 24/7. Was I a perfect mum? Hell no. But what’s really indefensible is letting your child turn into a little s**t by letting them do what they want when they want.

I agree with Eds about similarities between children and dog training. I don’t really agree about using a clicker. That’s going too far in my opinion but if you had an autistic child it may work. What works for some, may not work for others.

But you must remember that they show the most traumatic events during these tv shows in order to get good ratings.