TV review: Politically Incorrect Parenting Show

Two of the most cliched words in the language have to be politically incorrect.

Who knows what they mean, apart from offering some vague prospect of a, hopefully, risque swipe at certain cherished liberal ideas.

Nevertheless, it was with much anticipation that I sat down to watch Nigel Latta's Politically Incorrect Parenting Show (TV One, Wednesdays, 8pm).

Would the psychological expert du jour, having survived the Darklands, prove to be the Bruno of the child-raising advice? Might he go so far, in this time of fraught national obsession with a certain referendum, as to advance the heretical notion of giving naughty brats a clip round the lughole?

Far from outraging us, however, Latta's main thrust is to advocate a return to good old-fashioned common sense and a policy of non-interference: sit back, take a deep breath and don't feel guilty about shovelling the offspring up off the couch and outside to play. Stop taking it so seriously and have fun.

To emphasise this fun message, Latta transforms the expert role into a cross between cheesy game show host and stand-up comedian. He might be a clinical psychologist but he's also a wacky guy, complete with the goofy body language, sound effects and face-pulling.

From last night's first instalment, it wasn't clear why he needs a live audience for this performance. Perhaps its role will be revealed at a future date.

In Latta's view, parenting has become a business taken far too seriously, so seriously that parents have become people with seriously addled brains who are no longer able to understand a joke.

There can be no other explanation for that most patronising prop, the show's irony light, which flashes when he's having us on.

It comes on, for instance, when he recommends throwing the kids to the alligators. So we know not to take this literally and start booking the sprogs on a one-way excursion to the Everglades, presumably.

The real ironies don't seem to trigger the light, such as needing an expert to tell us there are too many experts out there confusing us with a welter of conflicting advice.

Or shows arguing in favour of taking risks needing an irony light, a device every bit as protective as all those rubber mats and bark chips in the modern, unadventurous child's playground.

The show, too, certainly has plenty of padding in the form of corny skits and extended analogies about straightforward talking and full-stops and commas.

My conclusion: too much punctuation is bad for children, a fact they seem to know instinctively judging by the free-wheeling state of their internet postings and text messages.

There were a few interesting bits buried in there somewhere, such as a visit to a Dunedin childcare centre that allows kids to let rip on their bikes and hit one another with bits of, well, highly dangerous foam plastic.

But most intriguing are simply Latta's accounts from his own casebook.

Despite all the packaging, Latta's simple message is surely welcome among the frazzled and confused. Other exhausted caregivers might prefer a simpler bit of escapism from the rigours of child-raising: let sleeping parents lie.