To think Jo Frost (Supernanny) was wrong to post inflammatory comments

[Margot78]

Jo Frost shared this on her FB page. I’m
not sure why, I was quite baffled by it. Surely she knows that parents of children with asd/adhd/ocd will be offended at the suggestion that they are chasing a label for their child? Not sure what she was trying to achieve with this!

Meant to add that many groups now are changing to sign posted referral only (ie after a diagnosis) to weed out these parents who quite seem to enjoy the attention.

She isn't talking about professionslly diagnosed children. But parents who self diagnose because there couldn't possibly be any other reason for their child being naughty.

"Silly doctors" with their labels aren't always there to be trustee implicitly. They don't always have the answers. I agree, labelled conditions aren't a bad thing per se, but there are those parents out there who believe their children have a neurodivergent condition when in fact they'd be better disciplining and setting better boundaries, as PP have said.

I'm sure many ND children will be correctly diagnosed buy blindly accepting what is a given "diagnosis" isn't always the best thing to do. I blindly accepted and trusted my doctor's advice to take a psychotropic drug, and it permanently harmed me. My trust is still there but not as willing these days. If I'm honest, I'm a lot more cynical than I probably should be.

Sorry for the typos, I've still not got the hang of typing fast on my phone 😅

Trademarker

“In every support group” wow in our area area there aren’t any let alone several support groups.

I’m on an online support group specific to my daughter’s condition and all parents are supportive of any parent struggling with or without diagnosis. We remember what it was like pre diagnosis and would never be dismissive re struggles of those on the diagnosis pathway. The groups you go to sound shocking particularly when you consider there are parents on a 2 year waiting list. So a select few get a diagnosis and all the support. The rest are left out in the cold whilst they wait struggling.I’d be complaining it I was one of those parents.

@Boomboom22 exactly 💯 👏

I am on the fence about Jo Frost. It's true that pretty much every child on MN seems to have additional needs (including one of my own, who was diagnosed before it became cool to have a diagnosis).

However, I'm more struck by the PP who said ADHD is under diagnosed in children/adults born as females

I'd rephrase that as "ADHD is under diagnosed in girls and women", myself.

Whether the ‘N’ word is applied or not, some children certainly are pains in the arse, often because of hopelessly weak parenting - I mean of NT children.

So I used to admire Jo’s approach in such cases.

Who doesn’t know someone who shrugs helplessly in that ‘What can you do?’ way, but who absolutely never sticks to consequences, never makes them do as they’re told, who’ll give in to absolutely anything if their child screams and roars enough (cue instant beam after that child has ‘won’ - yet again).
Because they’ve been allowed to learn that this will almost invariably result in getting what they want.
I’ve certainly known a few of those. Not to mention the pair who hardly ever spoke normally, so often in that horrible whine. TBH I don’t know how it didn’t drive their parents mad.

I was going to call her a muppet but ALG beat me to it. Also did she create that picture herself or has someone else put it together? It looks... tired.

This.

I've seen that often from MN posters. "He's not naughty, he's autistic!" or "He's not naughty, he has ADHD!" As if you can't be both.

Tbf, though, I was extremely naughty until they realised I had ADHD and dyspraxia and treated accordingly.

It is an inflamatory meme. It's simplistic and dismissive. There are deeper discussions to be had about diagnosis, support, parenting and societal expectations but that's not what Jo Frost has tried to do. She presents herself as a parenting/ behaviour guru and this is abusing her position

When a child (or adult) is diagnosed with neurodiverse conditions it's recognising lifelong impairment of "normal" function. I didn't get my child diagnosed because he was "naughty", it was because he was showing long term struggles and delays in co-ordination, excecutive function, sensory inputs, and a "fizzy bottle" child who was great all day at school then would see me and all the repressed emotions and self-restraint would explode out of him. Traditional boundaries and consequences would inflame the situation. Things improved when I adjusted my approach to a more ND approach even prior to diagnosis. What diagnosis provides is an understanding of his differences and facilitating accommodations that help him manage in the world. It's not easy. Things don't jump into place, but that diagnosis helps DS and others in his life to understand his place in the world. It's the same as my other child's label diagnosis of asthma. It's not normally an issue, but that diagnosis gives support (medication) and a plan of how to recognise and treat a flare-up.

There are families that will use anything as an excuse. There are also many families where (undiagnosed) ND is culturally normal and facing up to a child being ND raises uncomfortable questions about wider family life and it's very common for families to resist diagnostic pathways often because of outdated predjudices such as the ones that Jo Frost is propagating here, and people suffer for that because the roots of issues are not explored and managed well.

Modern life has also become less accessible for many neurodiverse people; it's fast paced, loud, stimulating, needs a lot of exective function, social expectation to be professional, literacy skill etc. There are many thousands of ND people whose traits would have been more managable in previous generations. That doesn't mean all was hunkydory in the past, it wasn't, but Neurodiversity is more visible in society because of inclusion policies, and because some "higher functioning" people face pressures that previous generations didn't. Just because it wasn't so obvious, it didn't mean it didn't exist.

In the end, however posters wish to interpret what Jo Frost is saying in this quotation, her use of the phrase 'every other ABCD' tells me everything I need to know about her.

And how many parents self diagnose their child with a hearing impairment or other physical issues?

She clearly should have nothing to do with children or child raising, ever.

@Fl0w3ryard857473 we have been very lucky wrt groups, 2 of which have been set up by the same mum who works tirelessly to offer support. As open groups they are 'walk-in' so the problematic people I'm talking about aren't on the pathway to diagnosis, they are telling everyone that their dc must be autistic because their behaviour is so bad, yet "they've tried everything". Eg. child is tearing around hitting every other child on the head with a toy. Parent will announce "you see what I mean, he's out of control!" Yet makes zero effort to intervene or even stop the child/give consequences.
Online groups are very different in that what people are telling you is taken at face value, so yes I totally agree no one will be dismissive there. I must add no one is dismissive in face to face groups but behind closed doors talks have been had where this is becoming more common and its not fair on those who are having genuine issues despite implementing lots of techniques.

I would say that a child with autism still needs to be taught not to run into a busy road, not to hit, and not to call people mean names.

I didn't say autism needs to be corrected (I understand completely that it is a disability, and coping strategies are needed), I said poor behaviour needs to be corrected. I stand by that statement.

Wrong to pit one against another.

a) Yes there is a long waiting list. Gruelling? Yes, especially if you go from doctor to doctor to doctor looking for one who will diagnose.

b) The parents know Bobby best but they are not experts in developmental disorders. They are qualified to say “Bobby is not really upset - he’s tired.” or “Bobby loves textures A and B, try Z food”. They are not qualified enough to say he has ADHD.

Parents ‘diagnose’ colds, but they are usually inconsequential and only last a week. Do they diagnose lifelong conditions like MS? Diabetes? Congenital heart defects?? No!!

That’s why we have psychologists and pediatricians! It’s disablist to label children without a qualified expert opinion.

Excellent answer right here.

Don't be ridiculous she made a bloody good career out of childcare and she's got more of a clue that most idiotic parents these days that let their kids run riot with no respect for anyone or anything. You
Must be one of those

But people do chase labels for their children.

It's not a label. It's a diagnosis.

Well, I self diagnosed the rare movement disorder that I have and 5 neurologists dismissed ah gaslighted me. They love to pretend things don't exist sometimes. As Michael J Fox very aptly said, the patient is the expert. The parents will know their child best (but obviously they won't be expected to vw experts in ND conditions, but they will probably have an innate sense of what is going to feel like behaviour that isn't easily remedied).