Cutting Edge: Bad Behaviour (Channel 4); Don't Drop The Coffin (ITV1)

COMMUNICATION between parents Fred and Diane and their seven-year-old daughter Georgina followed these lines: they'd tell her to do something, she'd shout "I don't want to," and then scream at the top of her considerable voice.

No one had been able to control her since she was a toddler. "Every single thing is a fight from when she gets up to when she goes to sleep," they said.

After she was expelled from five playgroups and had exhausted six child minders, they sought medical advice. Nothing conclusive showed up.

But her behaviour was so bad that they were seriously considering asking for her to put her in care.

The story might have ended there but for retired teacher Warwick Dyer, whose remarkable solution for creating harmony in the family was chronicled in this eye-opening Cutting Edge documentary.

He solved the problem without ever seeing Georgina and meeting her parents only once, although wedding video film-maker Fred and civil servant Diane reported happenings in the home to him each night over the telephone.

What he realised - and was blindingly obvious to anyone watching - was that the child's behaviour stemmed from her parents' attitudes.

Diane lacked maternal instinct. Having a child was not only hard work, she said, but brought "inconvenience, mess, noise, expense, and curtailment of our social life, of our enjoyment, our freedom".

She hadn't touched Georgina for years, but did get angry and shout at her. Dyer pointed out that "anger just makes the child very angry", and warned Fred and Diane they'd learn things about themselves they might not want to hear.

Their backgrounds helped explain their attitudes. There was an age difference between the couple, as well as a considerable height difference. Fred already had two grown-up children, and Diane's pregnancy was unplanned.

She found it easier to show affection towards the family cat than her daughter. Diane's poor self-image had rubbed off on Georgina, who found it difficult to make friends at school. Children in her class made excuses to avoid attending her birthday party.

Dyer's scheme involved sanctions. Georgina began the day with 30 pennies. Her parents could take one away every time she misbehaved. The idea seemed silly, but miraculously it worked.

Three months later, the word happy could be added to a description of this family with some justification. That the turnaround had been recorded by a film crew made it all the more remarkable.

By contrast, Don't Drop The Coffin seemed run-of-the-mill - not something you'd expect to think about a fly-on-the-chapel-of-rest series about a firm of undertakers.

The title refers to the golden rule related to current owner Barry Albin when he was eight or nine by his dad. When coffin and corpse weigh in at 27 stones, as the one in the opening episode did, that's easier said than done.