FROM a five-year-old throwing furniture through a double-glazed window to youngsters smearing their own excrement on walls, The Kid Calmer has seen it all.

For years Richard Curtis has helped desperate families in crisis solve parenting dilemmas with his no-nonsense approach.

But now the 35-year-old child behaviour specialist has his most challenging assignment yet – to tame the country’s most badly behaved children.

He has been approached by production companies who want to make a TV show and he is tipped to be the next Supernanny.

“The reason I get up in the morning is because I want to have an impact on the lives of thousands of children,” he says.

“Over the last ten years Supernanny has gone, Nanny 911 has gone, The House of Tiny Tearaways has gone – that’s where The Kid Calmer comes in.

“I have a reputation for turning around dead end situations fast.

“I will always find the answer.”

Richard, a former The Romsey School and Mountbatten School pupil, who lives in Bitterne with his girlfriend, previously worked as a teacher at Bishops Waltham Infant School from 2005 to 2008 before moving to Kanes Hill Primary School in Thornhill.

He then helped children who had been excluded from school at a specialist unit at Southampton’s Compass School before working at a neighbouring local authority as an inclusion advisor.

“I worked with 240 primary schools and whenever they needed to hit the big red button, it was me that appeared.

“I have worked with hundreds of children and hundreds of families over the last ten years and they are some of the most challenging in the country.

“Once I had to wear a cricket box in the classroom because a child would kick me and the others would try to escape out the window.”

But last year Richard, who has a masters in Education from Edge Hill University in Lancashire, decided it was time to realise his dream of setting up his own business.

He founded award-winning company, The Root Of It, a service providing special needs professionals like therapists, psychologists and behaviour consultants to more than 100 schools across the south.

But it is his personal parenting advice that he issues online and in person under the name, The Kid Calmer, which has put him in the spotlight – and has attracted requests from desperate parents as far as the Philippines, Brazil and America.

He calls himself ‘the successful parent’s secret to smarter parenting and enviable child behaviour.’ Richard says he has made it his mission to travel the country, to help parents understand newer parenting techniques and leave behind old ways which older generations say ‘were good enough for me’.

He says: “I would never call a child naughty – just misunderstood. Bad behaviour is never without a cause.

“Whether it is a good behaviour or a bad behaviour, there is always a reason.

“If you look at some of the advice Supernanny gave, it was what we believed to be right at the time, but you wouldn’t recommend it these days.

“Current, best practice parenting is so different to how a lot of us were raised. And that’s why a new approach to parenting is needed.”

Richard, who has self-published three books this year on parenting tips, says for example, it is now believed the naughty step could be traumatic for a child and he is passionate that smacking children should be banned.

“I’ve been contacted by families saying I have saved their marriage. I have worked with parents who have felt they needed to consider adoption. I hear all sorts of things from children I have worked with who have totally changed their lives and that is just amazing.

“I think that is why I have had so many requests from production companies about a programme. It’s now about when rather than if something will happen, so it is all very exciting.

“I want my legacy to have had an impact on thousands of children across the world.”

Daily Echo:

Richard's Rules

Never smack your child – if you get to that point you want to smack your child, that’s about you, not your child.

If you insist on winning every battle with your child, you teach your child to be a dictator or to be dictated.

Adults are not always right.

There should be no naughty step. It can be traumatic for children.

When your child is having a tantrum, it’s because they don’t know how to deal with the situation or emotion.

It’s imperative we teach our children today how to handle their emotions.

Richard is launching a free daily challenge for parents to improve their skills, enabling them to become closer with their children.

The activities planned for 30 days begin on November 1 and are designed to take a few minutes each day.

For information go to thekidcalmer.com.