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!

I think she isnt saying neuro diverse kids are naughty she’s saying people with NT kids looking at behavioural issues as if the problem must be diagnosable instead of looking to themselves to resolve the issue, Explain away the “naughty” ,she’s not saying she thinks being naughty is the same as being neuro diverse she’s saying there are some parents for whom “naughtiness” = diagnosis.

Reminds me of that documentary where the parents were convinced there was something wrong with their child and had to be coached in an alternative parenting style. Make a 180 difference in the poor girls behaviour. They didn’t believe she was NT at first.

It is a bloody awful way of saying it though.

@WTF475878237NC
completely agree with what you say.
Some of those children sadly don’t get their needs met (for many complex reasons which I won’t derail with) and then we see them at 17/18 in the adult mental health system.
it saddens me that some children have such a difficult start and their parents for various reasons don’t always have the resources to parent effectively.

of course, some children absolutely do have adhd and other neurodiverse presentations. But it isn’t as simple as a ‘clever’ snappy meme from a so called ‘expert’

She has always been as thick as pig shit.

So do I

For attention, same as all the other controversial shit z list celebs come out with on social media when their star is faded.

I don't really like her but I can see what she's saying and I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that she is equating naughtiness to N Divergence. She's saying that some parents are overlooking the obvious, that their kid is actually just a little bugger, and are looking for an excuse other than their own parenting. Some people are desperate to pathologise their own behaviours rather than engage in self reflection and of course some people will also do that with their children. We all know at least some annoying pop psychology type people surely?

Absolutely this.

It's not a label, it's a medical diagnosis.

It's a deliberately inflammatory and misguided post I agree. However I think it's naive to say that parents don't want a label for their child with a medical condition. IME parents of difficilt children are usually desperate for some sort of label and don't under any circumstances want to entertain the idea that parenting or traumatic childhood experiences are in any way responsible for their child's behaviour. The problem is that this often is the case. Also, I don't personally believe that the 2 are mutually exclusive.... I think a child with a genetic predisposition towards attention deficit for example is going to find these symptoms harder to manage if they're not parented consistently and collaberatively. I think that this is a taboo that we need to break to be honest if we really want to help today's children. I am in no way disputing behavioural diagnosis' but I just can't fully accept that there are so many more kids in today's generation that are unable to concentrate in a class/lack basic social skills/are basically unhappy unless there's also fundamental problems in modern society that are also at play. That's not to say these problems are any one individual's fault or 'bad parenting' as such but I do think we need to acknowledge this liklihood if we want to tackle the ever growing mental health epidemic in our children (and adults for that matter)

I agree

Parent making too many excuses for their children’s naughty behaviour. They would rather medical label than simply … naughty.

one doesn’t exclude the other

Winner 👏👏👏👏👏😂

I think her post is clumsy and, without further understanding, inflammatory.

however, as someone in the autistic spectrum, with two autistic kids, I’m completely fed up with seeing a whole range of bad behaviours from kids/partners/parents etc being put down to Neurodiversity.

An mumsnet example: a quick glance at the odious ”ASD support threads” in relationships will show the wide range of contradictory behaviours all of which are blamed on the partner having “undiagnosed autism”. The ableism is rife and unchallenged. There is a complete misconception and ignorance about ASD and I suspect this ignorance is equally present in the wider population.

so IF her purpose is to highlight that simply being naughty does not mean there is a diagnosis behind the behaviour - it can actually be due to piss poor parenting. (and let’s face it we have all seen piss poor parenting, and all of us are probably guilty of it ourselves at times m). Bad behaviour does not equal ASD/ADHD.

but then again, if she is trying to deny that these ND conditions exist, then she’s a compete prick.

As a mother of four, two of whom are are ASD/ADHD I think shes right 🤷‍♀️

My ds was diagnosed with ADHD over zoom, by a paediatric consultant that saw him for all of 10 minutes. He has other medical issues as well, and maybe he does have ADHD. I had to fight to get him a proper assessment, and we are still waiting for the results. When I was asking for his assessment, they were asking if I was looking to medicate him. I said No, I just want him to have the assessment properly before someone diagnoses him with ADHD.

I also like Jo Frost in general. I think that she helped a lot of families.

I've always found it interesting/odd that she doesn't have her own kids. I think her methods would have changed if she had - she might have become more compassionate

Amen to this 👏👏👏

Yes, this.

It was always just highly edited, emotionally manipulative horseshit. I'm glad most of the world has moved on.

Agree

Good one 😂

@User478 😂😂

She doesn't mention children being diagnosed. She mentions labelling which is different.
Read any thread on here where someone behaves badly or is selfish and a poster will come along to assign a label (with no medical knowledge, background or diagnosis).I read it that she was talking about that culture of random people on the internet deciding on and assigning labels. Where I slightly disagree with her is that she only mentions children. It's used all the time on here to try to excuse or justify shitty behaviour from men.

I'm not sure many people commenting really have a clue. Naughty has had its day. Most of us who work with children have a better understanding on behaviour.

😂

I think that a lot of short term interventions for behaviour appear to work as the child/teen treads carefully into the unknown. From a parents pov is much harder as weak spots are known and it's a long haul job.