To think Super Nanny Jo Frost has lost the plot?

[Pekoe78]

Assuming she sanctions the views on her social media page. Jo Frost has shared this bizarre scary post claiming that an unclean home is the “number one sign” of child abuse. How is she getting away with such inaccurate information? Surely she knows the difference between abuse and neglect and that actual abuse can happen in any home. If a child is actually suffering from real neglect, simply telling the parents “clean your house” is not going to help a complex situation. So what is she trying to achieve apart from making parents terrified of being accused of something because they are behind with cleaning?!

I think most parents would do the same as you.

But Jo Frost is, nowadays, a TV personality on a reality TV show. She may have had lots of experience but her job today is to present an entertaining programme and make money, not to be a professional nanny.

Who's her target audience? Abusive parents? They're going to see this post and say Oh yeah, I'll clean my house

She has set herself up as a parenting expert who doles out advice in bucket loads and has earned a lot of money doing it. The thread is about if she has lost the plot. My point is that I wouldn’t pay much attention to her anyway as is she doesn’t have enough credible expertise IMO.

She gets quite aggressive 😳
I'd punch her if she spoke to me like she does some of the parents!

To be fair, I can't criticise someone for taking a successful TV format and rolling with it, lol.

I don't pay her much attention either - she makes good TV but so do lots of people, it doesn't make them experts.

As for her "losing the plot" - her social media posts are designed to get her views and get her name out there, so judging by how successful this thread has been, I think she's been very clever!

I don't think you work with children for 30 years without liking kids and picking up some knowledge on the way. She'll have had to know some recent safeguarding for her role since she's going into peoples houses with their children. Its not all done on hunch about what works.

She's not actually qualified to do what she does. She bases it on 'common sense' as far as I can see, which is probably fine with typical children, but once you move into the areas of neuro-divergent children, children damaged from abusive backgrounds etc, then common sense can take you onto dangerous ground. I have a family member who adopted a three-year-old from an abusive background and used some of her techniques to deal with the behavioural issues. The child psychologist they eventually saw (usual long wait despite serious issues) was horrified and introduced them to the whole concept of therapeutic parenting and the kinds of problems abused children can have such as attachment disorder. She doesn't understand ADHD or ASD, and sems to go for the populist 'common sense' approach that such children are just 'naughty.'

Oh, absolutely. But you do have to take it all with a huge pinch of salt.

There are a lot of alleged stories online about how fake Supernanny is and how much the kids were encouraged to play up for the camera to create good TV!

She doesn't understand ADHD or ASD, and sems to go for the populist 'common sense' approach that such children are just 'naughty.'

I do agree with what you say, but I also think it's important to remember that Supernanny first aired 20 years ago - our understanding about ADHD and ASD has increased hugely since then.

Her newer series in America are much calmer and much more therapy based than the original programmes.

She’s posted on social media only last year that lots of children don’t have ADD or ADHD, they’re just naughty.

Hiw is abusive??

I didn't know that.

It is a fairly common view though - I wouldn't say she was unique in believing it!

Getting parents to stonewall their children when those children come out their room scared to sleep - pretty abusive IMO

I posted the reasons why a few posts after the one you’ve quoted.

I can't remember any kid on the show being too scared to sleep, I remember them messing around and being disruptive and roaring the place down when they weren't getting the attention they were used to.

There’s difference between dirty and messy. I’d be worried if a small child is in a house with a consistently filthy floor or mouthing dirty things. What else would be going on? Not changing nappies regularly causing bad rashes? Or even worse?

Were they scared to sleep, or were they just messing around because they weren't getting the constant attention they were used to?

We're not talking about distressed babies being ignored for hours, a lot of the children were in primary school!

Ha, x-post @MrsPelligrinoPetrichor !

Im talking about bedtimeS Some of these children were tiny and coming down to look for reassurance and comfort and she told parents to stonewall them and ignore them as they led them to bed. Gross.

I also remember an episode where she really belittled a mother who breastfed her toddler and allowed her toddler to feed for comfort. She actually berated this mum while the toddler was being fed and called her selfish.

She’s lucky she didn’t get thumped TBH.

Great, another thread hating on Jo Frost🙄

Hmm I lived in a clean house. It was not a good situation. Everyone would think I had good care due to outward appearances. There's no black and white.

She also told the breastfeeding mum “your toddler is controlling you through breatsfeeding”. This idiot doesn’t know shit about science.

But the technique worked! After 2 or 3 days the kids were going straight to sleep!
If someone has a phobia, the treatment is desensitisation, not mummy sitting with then for hours in the dark.That just reinforces the idea that there IS something to be afraid of.
I wonder how these psychobabblists rationalise the fact that schools are seeing the worst behaviour ever, if their techniques are so good.

A lot of the TV child wranglers had a bee in their bonnet about extended breast feeding. Tanya Byron was always scathing about it too.