Daunting deadline in war on tiny terrors

Three families brave the discipline of Tanya Byron in her House of Tiny Tearaways.

Childcare experts are the new ringmasters as the reality freak show genre sets struggling parents and their monster offspring ever more firmly in its sights.

The latest in nanny TV, The House of Tiny Tearaways (TV One, 7.30pm) ups the ante by setting a time limit. Child psychologist Dr Tanya Byron must crack the whip and make over three unhappy families in just six days.

It is the doctor's biggest challenge of her career, we are told, often, from presenter Claudia Winkelman. This is the family therapy equivalent of fast food or speed dating. Presumably an even better psychologist than Byron, if such an expert exists, would sort 'em out in five days or even four.

Three families move into a specially constructed house for six days of observation and advice from Byron, in the hope that she will help them to set their misbehaving youngsters on the straight and narrow. The house was built by committee, we learned in last week's first episode. It looks like the committee were playing with junior Lego at the time. Their giant Big Brother-style toy-box has two-way mirrors in all the rooms and strategically placed cameras.

Sadly, no mention is made of any penalty Byron might suffer if she doesn't succeed in transforming the monster children within the time limit. This is a serious omission. The show would be much more entertaining if the expert had something at stake.

Last week's "Day One" episode was a time for Byron to observe the families in all their dysfunctional glory. Some of the kids are big-time tantrum throwers, one won't eat properly, another won't sleep.

Byron and Winkelman watched them, wincing and tsk-ing gleefully. These two are the Susannah and Trinny of childcare.

Compulsory interventions were necessary. So was dishing the wayward parents a few home truths about their neuroses and negativities. There were tears before bedtime, most of them from the grown-ups.

The parents had their favourite things taken away from them: the indulgent baby talk and the wipes. "I want to see some messy, schloppy, messy, messy, mess," said Byron. She probably doesn't do the cleaning.

Other useful exercises conducted by the doctor included getting everyone drawing on a big piece of paper. The parents drew beds and dinners and one especially downtrodden soul produced a child with devil horns and a tail.

The psychologist interpreted these for us: the parents were obsessed with sleeping and eating and bad behaviour.

Her words of wisdom are not hard to grasp: "Life isn't all about clouds and bunnies and flowers. Do you see what I'm saying?" Byron's depth of the analysis and advice has you longing for the sophistications of Super Nanny Jo Frost's favourite mantra, "Unacceptable!"

The challenge for the viewer - if you can stand all that screaming and shouting in your living room without wanting to get up and give the box a good thump - is to sit through it without feeling judgmental or horribly smug. The child who refuses to eat solid food for dinner has no problems with crisps or chocolate. Mum and dad see no contradiction here or even a whiff of a infantile cunning. See? It's impossible to go for six seconds without sneering at the poor, deluded parents.