Recently the Guardian newspaper published an article/memoir by a woman who'd been a Norland nannie all her life. This British nannie training was instituted a bit before the middle of last century and she told of how the first thing they learned to do was to polish those coach-built high perambulators until they shone spotless!
A couple of things were interesting to me. Firstly, that the training insisted a child should never be spanked... certainly a concept way ahead of its time. Then she wrote about how a child could be disciplined. Inappropriate behaviour could be met by sending the child to his or her room (not merely to sit on the stairs) to think about what had happened. Then, when they were ready, they'd come downstairs to apologize. The apology given, they were then given a kiss and a hug to express approval and to show that they were loved.
It was this last step that brought an 'aha' for me, so I wanted to share it with you.
