Michele Hewitson: Naughty boys rewarded

You can't watch much of Matthew and Marc's Rocky Road to South America without coming to the conclusion that a few licks around the bottom with a wooden spoon in their youth might have made all the difference.

Of course, such discipline measures are about as frowned on as shutting up naughty boys by stuffing a tennis ball in their mouths.

Ritalin might have done it, but you fear it is too late for M & M: they get to go on the telly to misbehave, which only encourages them. And I don't know whether Ritalin works on the (allegedly) grown-up.

I'd quite like to see what Supernanny (tonight, 7.30, TV2) would make of M & M's antics. British nanny Jo Frost is quite strict but you can't imagine she would prescribe the wooden spoon for naughtiness.

Actually, the American kids the supernanny is imported to sort out, are not naughty - they are problem children.

You are not allowed to tell problem children they are naughty. You are also not allowed to tell them that if they don't eat their dinner they can damn well sit there until breakfast time or until they eat that meatloaf.

You are not, actually, allowed to comment on their behaviour directly. You are most certainly not allowed to say, "Do that again and it's the orphanage for you".

Despite this, Supernanny is quite riveting. I didn't know children were quite that badly behaved. I also didn't know that parents were quite that stupid.

I do hope New Zealand parents aren't stupid enough to allow their offspring to watch M & M. Because if the lads are allowed to behave so badly and like silly buggers, how are you going to tell the kids that if they carry on like this they'll end up badly?

It's not much of a threat to say, "You'll end up with a telly show in which you and your mate get free trips around the world, behave like dorks and get to ogle chicks wearing bikinis. And get paid what is presumably quite a lot of dosh for doing it."

So Supernanny is not going to be much help with that particular parenting dilemma.

I rather feel that Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer (Sunday, 7pm, Prime), might have more luck training M & M.

The Dog Whisperer knows about discipline. He also knows about types. Some dogs are ego-maniacs, although this is not a word the Dog Whisperer would employ. They are attention-seekers and territorial. Some dogs are also very competitive with other dogs.

The beauty of dogs, says the Dog Whisperer, "is that they live in the moment". The bad thing about dogs is that the moment might involve, say, having to win every challenge and when they don't, throwing a tantrum.

Matthew threw a tantrum when he lost a challenge and had to wear a moustache made of Marc's pubes. This was disgusting.

"You can shove your stinking mo up your arse," he barked.

He had made Marc have a Brazilian. In the dog world, there are some who can dish it out but can't take it.

When faced with a dog called Flirt, the Dog Whisperer said "obviously you have a hyperactive case". Hyperactive cases are hard because they involve attention-seeking behaviour and this, in some cases I suspect, is incurable. Flirt is "just play with me ... I want you to be my new best friend," said Flirt's owner.

If Flirt was a sports star in New Zealand she would probably have her own show.

All M & M want is to play and be mates. In animal behavioural terms, they also want to inflict pain on their mate and get away with being overly aggressive with the other dog because they both want to be top dog.

Nanny couldn't do anything to change this sort of behaviour. And, sometimes the Dog Whisperer does come across a case where "the hardest creature to change is the human" - especially in creatures who get far more encouragement to make asses of themselves on primetime telly than they deserve.