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!

Argh, fat fingers today! Silly typos 🙄

Ableist.

@BogRollBOGOF I agree life is harder for people with neuro diversities. Everything from shopping to paying bills is harder for anyone who struggles to adapt to new ways of doing things or who needs help. People used to go into the gas showroom to pay their bills if they struggled using the phone or setting up bank payments. There a staff member could help them through the process. That helping hand is totally gone these days.

@NooNooHead1981 Sometimes that is true, but not always. My DP and kids have a rare genetic disorder, that can be conclusively tested for. I have seen families convinced they have a mild version and then refuse to accept it when tests say they haven't.
People want an explanation for their difficulties, but they do not always choose the right explanation.

It only took about 6 months to receive ds's ASD diagnosis, we were already in "the system" though as he had had some developmental delay and due to having a genetic condition was already under a paediatrician. It was not this years and years process that everyone says it takes.

For some a diagnosis can be very quick.
Has anyone paid for a private diagnosis and been told their child is NT?

My daughter was incredibly quick as in a different department of Cahms and her ED life threatening.My son is still waiting 2 years on and likely to leave for Uni before he gets it. Not having it yes has had a massive impact on his life.

My son may not have hit his diagnosis but he was assessed and accepted on the pathway with his dev history half done. There is no way he isn’t autistic and was treated as if under Cahms. That only goes so far though and not having it on moving to adult has been a huge hindrance.

'no one bats an eyelid when someone self diagnoses their child with a cold, some hearing impairment, or physical issue'

What? You think you can self diagnose hearing loss? If you want an example of a gruelling process of diagnosis involving multiple medical professionals and tests, you couldn't find a better example than hearing loss.

Parents are experts in their own children and will often have done hours of research into their child’s neurodiversity. Many experts won’t have the time to do that and know all the traits from a huge collection to draw from . Not having a diagnosis is/ was exhausting. It’s not about going from doctor to doctor. There is only one route. Researching how to treat, support and handle your child whilst actually doing it and fighting to get what they needs is horrendous.

I agree with her

Medics will bat an eyelid if you self-diagnose your child with a physical issue without a medical diagnosis. There is a lot of medical awareness that some parents fake their children's physical health problems and wrongly seek medical attention for their children.
Some physical health issues are easily diagnosed such as a blood test. For anything more complex there can be a long diagnostic process with multiple tests and medical consultations.
I think people who say things like this probably have no experience of their child being ill beyond ordinary childhood illnesses.

@Fl and sometimes parents are wrong.

Would also like to add you need to be very careful with how you handle autism. My dc were well behaved in school and I was firm at home. Masking and repressing their neurodiversity has without a doubt contributed to their catastrophic poor mental health in teenage years.

I found it very upsetting and certainly not true of our family.

I doubt you have any reliable data for that. Going by the shocking mishandling of my child at times I think I’d go by parental intuition and research every time. They may not always be 100% right.

Its very rare to hear people talking about attachment disorders, pediatricians are not very well versed in attachment behaviours. Parents do not want to hear a diagnosis of attachment difficulties and certainly never seek one out.

Yet attachment difficulties are significantly affecting huge numbers of children in terms of their emotional and behavioural development, this can co exist with other issues and disorders or be present on its own

My parents were accused of faking my epilepsy. As this was around 1995, we didn't have cheap camcorders, etc so they couldn't record me as proof.

They were actually right.

To some extent, I think JF is right. It seems that everyone has a label.

Me too.

My best friend was a community paediatrician for almost 30 years. She left before COVID because she couldn't cope any more. She says that when she started diagnosing kids, parents were distressed and frightened. Her experience in the last decade was a growing number of parents who had already diagnosed their kids and only expected my friend to confirm it. There were no more relief when told the child didn't have any disability but outraged. She had parents shouting at her, making threats, telling her that if they didn't get PIP they would sue her. Not all parents of course but more and more commonly. She had enough of having to battle with parents who were convinced they knew better than her and nine ever prepared to consider the possibility of poor parenting. She got out.

So I see why Jo would think as she does. It's not due me to judge, I have no experience but did see my friend growing more and more stressed and disheartened.

@TigerRag I am sorry to hear that. That started as a trend after some research found that a significant minority of children diagnosed with epilepsy did not have epilepsy but were having pseudo-fits.

There is some truth in this in some cases.

To be fair I've spent some time living in the states and over there it does appear astonishingly easy to get a label and a prescription for Ritalin for your child. The amount of parents I knew who had it prescribed for what seemed like minor enough ( to me at least) behavioural issues was and is deeply troubling to me.
Maybe she's coming from that perspective.

Haven't read all the replies but I hope Jo reads this. Its not a label, it's a diagnosis.