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 trauma in children is generally under-recognised - living with domestic violence, child abuse, etc. Behaviour from trauma can look similar to ADHD and aurism.

She was never the sharpest knife in the drawer or the most insightful, but now she's put it in print to confirm it.

No one ever wants to talk about the fact that some children are naughty. Is it a forbidden word now? Quite a few of my friends have 4 or 5 dc. They talk about their differing personalities, how one of them for unknown reasons was just so much more difficult that the others. Nature v nurture.

😂😂😂

This!

My autistic child requires a whole lot more energy and attention and as you say, careful and responsible parenting. It’s even more difficult because so much of the typical advice, rules, boundaries and techniques that work well with NT kids just does not have the same effect AT ALL. So it is a complete learning curve of trying hard to work out what is actually going to work for a neurodivergent child.

It’s a lot harder than parenting a NT child, those who don’t have the experience really don’t get it and their opinion doesn’t mean much.

Really agree with this. A lot more literature coming out about this, e.g. Gabor Mate's work

@antelopevalley Really agree with this. A lot more literature coming out about this, e.g. Gabor Mate's work

This is a great post.

I was in a support group for parents of children with ASD. Id say almost half of the posters have self diagnosed their children (and themselves in a lot of cases) without ANY professional interventions.

(on the flip side, as a parent of 2 children with complex ASD I wish with all my heart it were a fault in my parenting, as that’s something I could change)

I take about as much notice of Supernanny’s opinions on parenting issues as I do of anyone else who doesn’t have kids, ie none.

I agree with her. There are so many ‘labels’ on kids these days which allow their parents to get out of actually parenting their kids. And admitting that they might just be naughty. Or little shits.

I agree with her. There are indeed some children with certain conditions so I’m not talking about anyone’s dc here on this thread, but it seems to me a lot of women especially have jumped onto a bandwagon of labeling their children unnecessarily. It’s become a contest to see how many of people’s kids are “sen” or attention deficit, hyper, all the alphabet labels, it’s ridiculous.

In some (of course not all or most) cases, they’re being fed atrocious fast food and sugary caffeinated drinks and made to sit perfectly still for hours in class or play mindless video games at home when they should be running, jumping, riding bikes, playing outside with decent recess at school. Or, they are simply high energy kids. As a child, I was content to lie in bed when I could, my brother would literally jump up out of his bed at dawn ready to go, eager for the day. He is still very active as an adult and there is nothing wrong with him and never was.

Way too much labeling of children. That in itself affects their mental health. “Remember, you’re Sen, you’re this or that, you’re different, take these pills, be separate from the other (normal) kids.” I think it borders on abuse in a few cases.

I’d rather be called naughty aged 3 than labelled for life with a brain disorder that’s associated with, for example, academic failure. And prison.

Whether or not that label is fair to me as an individual.

Hint: it isn’t, but that’s science for you. Playground insults can’t compare to the facts people will associate with me. Whether or not they say so to my face or my mum’s.

Jo Frost might well be wrong on the whole, but I think she’s right to be cautious about pathologising terrible toddler behaviour unless there’s overwhelming medical need.

I think that, for the most part, understanding has moved on and most people realise that children aren’t just ‘naughty’. However the reason behind poor behaviour is not always a ND, in fact statistically from the child it’s more likely to be a learning difficulty, language difficulty or developmental delay. And even more likely to be a result of poor parenting skills. But parents have generally heard of ASD and ADHD so latch on to that as the reason.
This is not saying that ND children are naughty, it’s saying that sometimes children are naughty for other reasons.

I agree with her.

No one wants to acknowledge that their child might just be a naughty little shit; they’d rather label them. Which must be frustrating for parents of kids who have actually got ADHD etc.

A publicity stunt in advance of a new book coming out in time for Christmas perhaps 🤔

100% YES

If I understand SuperNanny’s point correctly, I agree with her. Labeling something as ‘naughty’ or ‘ADHD’ or ‘PDA’ or whatever is unhelpful and, frankly, just plain wrong.

People shouldn’t label others, especially children, but seek to understand ways they can better help individuals.

There is a major cultural element to this as well. I have taught in schools on three continents and have seen it first hand. As a result, I believe that neurodiversity is both under diagnosed and over diagnosed in different parts of the world.

I’ve also seen this in my own extended family. One person has four children, two of whom have been told they are autistic and/or have ADHD (on Ritalin), one of whom is largely ignored, and one who is ‘on the spectrum’. Based on my experience with the children and as a teacher, I would say one has a developmental delay likely as a result of parenting in her early years, two just want attention from their parents, and eldest is traumatized by his parents divorce. Actually, they are all traumatized but at this point only one has tried to run away, taken a knife to school, drawn disturbing pictures, and behaved in age inappropriate ways. (But hey,his dad says he is fine and his mum says that she will book him in to see the recommended psychiatrist now he has a label. Note that now she has a label, the child isn’t being taken to regular medical appointments because mum is soooooo busy with four feral kids - her words, not mine). Incidentally, with one exception, all but one child behaves reasonably at school, and all, without exception, behave well with me.

And, I want to reiterate this, neurodiversity should not be used as an excuse for behaviour but rather the reason to find different ways to interact with people. We should be doing that anyway!

Full disclosure - I have been told by former colleagues (psychologists, teachers, social workers) that I am neurodiverse. I have not pursued a formal diagnosis. I may have benefitted from more understanding when I was younger but it wouldn’t serve me as an adult.

I think JF is very good at setting boundaries and that’s really important for children. I don’t think she’s got any understanding of neurodiversity and she should leave that to actual psychologists.

Well done Jo Frost.
Finally, someone had the guts to say it.

I wish I didn’t click on this. Just makes me feel even more anxious and nervous about taking out my autistic six-year-old, knowing if he has a big meltdown or plays up I’m probably being judged by mums of NT children who believe I’m just poor at parenting :( It’s exhausting being a parent to a disabled child. If you don’t have experience of it then you can’t understand and posts like this are just even more upsetting.

Some children without doubt are “Naughty “.
A large, clumsy girl was clambering all over display shelves in a small pharmacy, causing the contents to fall off and shelves to break.
Her mother did nothing, apart from shrug and say
” She has dyspraxia “.

No attempts by the mother to rein the child in, just let her lumber about breaking stuff.

Dyspraxic or naughty?

The parent should try at least to stop bad behaviour.
or if they can’t- Take child outside to stop senseless damage to other people’s homes or premises.

DS2 was labelled as the ‘naughty kid’ as soon as he started school - didn’t follow instructions, didn’t change behaviour after sanctions (missed playtimes and sent to Head in primary/ detentions and isolations in secondary), did silly inappropriate things, shouted out in class, wouldn’t sit on the carpet, wouldn’t complete work in class, do homework unless we spent hours sitting with him which ended in tears of frustration for all of us etc.

We were asked what consequences for negative behaviour he had at home - err the same as his twin brother and older sister who were veritable angel children (at least until teenagerdoom for DD)!

School finally agreed in Yr5 that there was something else going on after I’d requested a referral numerous times. He was diagnosed with severe learning difficulties at age 11, no apology from primary school. Also wrongly diagnosed at same time as NOT having ASD and ‘why did I want that label for him anyway’ (from Paediatrician)

Finally got the correct ‘label’ of a learning disability and ASD at age 17. I wish to God he’d got that ‘label’ in his early primary school years. He and I have had a horrific time trying to get support and understanding for him, he’s been bullied by teachers, peers and his education completely fucked up. Now suffers from severe social anxiety, depression and has self harmed after being a very happy, gregarious joker of a little boy.

Ignorant people like Frost have no bloody idea what they’re talking about and should shut the fuck up in my humble opinion. I used to watch her show and tried her behaviour techniques with DS. Didn’t work! Seems common for no longer relevant people to spout controversial opinions to keep people talking about them.

I do kinda agree with Jo, you can't ban the word naughty but you can't ban other labels either. I'm not sure what her point was or who she is targeting.

Me too. It was clumsily worded though, confusing.

If your DC have ADHD you don't just sit back and say they have a label now I don't have to be a good parent. On the contrary its fucking hard being the parent of DC with ADHD.

Both mine have ADHD. Neither is naughty. And having spoken to many parents of NT DC, parenting them IS a lot harder. But I still dig in and do my best

We have never looked for a diagnosis. My then 9 year old was diagnosed after an eagle eyed orthoptist identified dyspraxia and it snowballed from there.