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!

Absolutely this.

YANBU - The first issue with this graphic is that it perpetuates lazy and uneducated stereotypes about neurodiversity and hidden disabilities.
The few people who (apparently) seek labels to excuse their kid’s behaviour or to claim benefits, do not outweigh the experience and views of the neurodiverse community. It is incredibly difficult to get an official diagnosis due to overwhelmed services and long waiting lists that can take years. Before you get there it can take a year or more of multiple assessments by multiple professional services. It can also be a postcode lottery to what level of support you receive. A generation of children are floundering inside a broken system. Secondly, conflating ADHD with naughtiness is an outdated trope, incredibly ignorant, and shows her lack of understanding of childhood development. But what’s far worse is the fact she is being deliberately obtuse. She has added the “abcd” to her post to be wilfully inflammatory. This has been proven by her responses to the outrage she has received. She has been contacted by hundreds if not thousands of individuals across all social media platforms, most of these comments are from people diagnosed with ADHD, ASD etc, their families, and national groups to voice their concern about this post. Her responses have been incredibly dismissive and sometimes rude. Bearing in mind the majority of people showing genuine concern and upset at this post, she told an individual to read her posts “…slowly…”. As a mother to a child with autism and moderate learning difficulties (shortened to ASD and MLD) I find that comment and her open discrimination absolutely vile. I would take all the issues and ‘labels’ that cause my child distress in a heartbeat. Jo Frost needs to crawl back under the rock of obscurity and leave true professionals to their work.

Unfortunately for a lot of people this isn’t the case. In some areas children are put on the waiting list for assessment in their early years and are not being seen until they are in school
or worse they are moving on to secondary school. In my case DC has been on the waitlist for a year, I raised concerns with my wonderful GP two years ago. In that period DC has been placed under the care of a paediatrician, SALT, IDS, seen by an EP… they have all reached the same conclusion and I have an EHCP, but the autism assessment team are understaffed and have a huge backlog so the wait for the official ASD label will continue. But I’m aware I’m “lucky” to have the level of support I do, some parents have to fight to get seen by anyone at all.

Someone mentioned smacking.
I was smacked as a child(back in the 60s),one slap on the back of your leg.
When I was about 4 we we're told we were not going to be smacked again,we were good for ages because we didn't know what the alternative was.
It turned out to be standing in a corner with your back to the room for' ever',Ok a minute or so but that's how it felt as a child.
So with my daughter was about 4 I did time out(I don't use the word naughty because it is 'unasseptable' behaviour).
She went to her room for a couple for few minutes,never more,to think about what she had done then apologise.
Often she did thing because she couldn't express how she felt and sometimes in retrospect where there was sensory overload this worked and she go to her room herself sometimes if she was getting angry about something.
Chams at 13 who saw her once and a year later told us she was referred as a review indicated she might have autism.
Lots of form to fill at 14-15( school must have had forms too as there was a slight shift in attitude and help when she got overwhelmed),assessment at 16,diagnosis at 17.(Asperger's)
No further input apart for a list of websites that give advice t

People with no experience of neurodivergence will agree with Jo. People without, won’t. If you don’t have experience or a topic I find it’s best to keep your trap shut.

Meh I’ve two kids with ASD. One is nearly an adult. She is excellently behaved too much sometimes. The younger one is a delight and rarely if ever gets in trouble in school, at hobbies etc. Jo Frost is misguided. Her behaviourist approach to child rearing is redundant and while she absolutely has a point that naughty behaviour should be addressed by parents and not excused she hasn’t the first clue about how to address the root causes of those behaviours.

Should read *take away all the issues. Not just take! We were up late last night!

Yes, fully aware of all of this.

You presented a position that parents dont invent things about their children.

You're wrong and I put you straight about that and now you're getting defensive. And also it doesnt even have to be attributable to fabricated illness, parents are sometimes willingly and knowingly doing that about themselves or their child without it being a MH condition on their part.

You're jumping in with defensiveness about something I havent said

Par for the course unfortunately on this site, making things up that posters havent said or even implied.

bellac11
Where are your facts and figures to back this up?

Absolutely. As a parent to an ND child I would not accept advice or judgement from parents who only have NT children, they have no experience and do not get it. It’s the same sort of thing as people who are yet to have children being really judgy and declaring they are ‘definitely NOT’ going to do xyz when they have a baby, and everyone smiles because it’s easy to be the perfect parent before you have children. NT parents judging ND parents has the same energy.

Sorry what facts and figures to back what up?

I’ve always hated her approach of a naughty step and time out, have never used it. A mixture of picking your battles, clear communication and trying to understand the cause of the misbehaviour has been much more effective in my experience. Why are you doing that? Instead of don’t do that!

Katherine Mewes the professional three day Nanny was very honest about her experience of motherhood and realised her years if judging the parents she helped were wrong.
All very well giving advice without experience, her perception changed once she was a mother.

Except in many cases she does point out to parents the route cause of their children's behaviour and gives ideas of how to tackle it.

@EmeraldShamrock1 so only a woman who gives birth yo children can understand how to address issues children have?

Not if they are ND then nothing she suggests would work and based on her post she hasn’t a clue about that. Many kids with ASD especially with a PDA presentation wouldn’t respond to her tactics in any way shape or form.

What was that quote from Dr Tania Byron

”Being a child psychologist didn’t make me a better parent but being a parent definitely made me a better child psychologist”

Then Dr Tania is an idiot.

Tanya Byron is brilliant, there was some excellent advice on House of Tiny Tearaways.

Jo Frost is not a child psychiatrist though so she shouldn’t be lecturing on a wide platform in areas she is not qualified to.

To be honest given her clear ignorance and attitude towards neurodiversity I’m not sure she should be advising parents of children who are struggling at all.

That was literally the first appointment. Do you run my mother dropped off the face of the planet? We still talk. She confirmed this.

That top she's wearing in the photo makes her look like she has no neck.

And ? Is that really worth contributing