To think we need "Supernanny" style programme back

[Hufflemuff]

Thinking of the Jo Frost TV programme, she did a UK one and a USA one about 15/20 years ago. I'm early 30s, so I used to watch her programme as a young teen/teenager. At that age I obviously wasn't looking parenting tips it was more a case of there were 4 channels in my household and that was what was on! However, loads of things she did I found sticking with me for when I had my kids.

More than ever, I think we need this lady (or someone similar) back on our screens. So many people are stuck with the examples their own parents gave them, which were frankly shit and there's so much conflicting advice online. The thousands of articles and clips with poor examples of gentle parenting, shouty parenting, permissive parenting etc... I honestly felt like Jo actually nailed it with her firm but fair & calm common sense "recipe" tbh.

(No im not Jo Frost sat here starting this thread haha 😊)

I liked The House of Tiny Tearaways with Dr Tanya Byron.
I remember a friend of mine who is a Speech and Language Therapist watching these programmes and commenting that many of the strategies were what SALTs had been recommending for years.

I loved this show!

I was just about to post this exact same thing. I think Tanya was amazing and I learned so much from her.

My parents were of the smacking generation and I might have carried that on, knowing no better, but for programmes like that and reading gentle parenting books.

I definitely don't think we need to televise/monetise poor parenting or exploiting the poor children, no.
I do wish there was more resource put into Sure Start type programmes for those who just need some extra support, but also have a similar concept for teenager years. I feel sorry for teenagers whose parents give them little boundaries or guidance.

There was a programme on Watch (or whatever they call themselves now) not so long ago called The 3 Day Nanny which was similar

Not sure whether it was this programme or another one she was on, but the one where they provided an image of what the children would grow up to look like was really offensive as all they did was create images of the adult children as working class vs. Middle class in rugby shirts and Boden dresses.

I loved Supernanny! Most of my parenting is based on that show 😂

I'm not a fan of some of the main Supernanny techniques but I agree that the BBC in particular could be putting on more helpful, informative shows re. things like parenting, cooking healthily on a budget, DIY/home safety etc. Just look at the success of the Martin Lewis money show!

Informative without being exploitative and over dramatic, perhaps. Drama is what makes folk watch things though....

I used quite a few of Supernanny’s techniques with DD, although I think Jo often missed that some kids had special needs so weren’t behaving badly on purpose or refusing to eat just because they could. And I think she sometimes used Time Out on kids that weren’t old enough to understand. Her bedtime technique worked brilliantly. Before we implicated it, DD would get out of bed over a hundred times some nights!

I agree about Surestart. So sad about that fantastic initiative, The reality was that it cost a sod of a lot of money to fund so I doubt we will see the like again any time soon in these cash-strapped times. Such a shame because we could have put the millions that Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng lost so irresponsibly to much better use.

Tanya Byron stopped doing The House of Tiny Tearaways when she realised it was inappropriate. She stated that she regretted doing it, and would never do a programme like it again. Children should not have their behaviour shared with the world. Ever.

This is actually a really good point. It would have possibly been better to blur the children's faces in hindsight, although it probably wouldn't have been as easy to see what was going on without seeing their expressions.

Regarding sure start, thats never happening because its the government that needs to fund that, not a TV network unfortunately.

I watched some old episodes the other day and it wasn't as I remembered. She really wasn't the kind of person I would want to take parenting advice from, I parent very differently. Though I did like that she moved us all away from smacking as a method of discipline and that she would speak to the children.

The sad thing is that preventative measures such as sure start programmes and other interventions that support families in the early days/years would actually save the country so much money in terms of social and health problems later but the government (all governments!) seem willfully blind to this.

The 1st 1001 days are critical and should have so much more investment and weight lent to them

The Supernanny style of programme has now just been repurposed into endless shows about clueless dog owners whose pets are miraculously reformed by training gurus (and selective editing).

It's infuriating enough to see that kind of over-simplified reality-show make-over performed on animals, let alone humans. Supernanny was not too bad, but I don't really think it was high-quality parenting advice. A bit too one-size-fits-all.

Labour are trying to both restart it and protect it with legislation.

I don't think this program would get any support this time around as most modern parents are into gentle parenting ( equals kids do whatever they want) and take parenting advice from sides like tick tock or Instagram.

I wasn't suggesting the TV network should fund Sure Start.

Jo Frost is active on social media and let's just say lots of her methods differ now. Her approach has evolved, which is a good thing. I'm not sure she'd promote naughty step now.

I really like how she is strong family values - like eating together with the TV off, which I think is a basic thing but so many families don't do these days.

Totally agree with more investment in children’s centres or Family Hubs. But parents just turning up to a toddler group isn’t necessarily going to have an impact on parenting, it needs to be a specific evidence-based programme. The well-known programmes are Incredible Years (which has variants from toddlers up to the teenage years) and Mellow Parenting. Local authorities do put these programmes on, but they seem to be few and far between and only targeted at specific groups, whereas really they should be freely available in every neighbourhood.

I looked into training as an Incredible Years facilitator and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth it as the course just wasn’t hosted regularly enough for it to be worthwhile undertaking the training.

Perhaps a book or leaflet given out at the first midwife visit and then offered again at any contact point? Of course half of them would get lost or ignored, but it might be a relatively cheap way to get the messages across.

The problem is that it isn’t easy to offer input at the ideal age of about eighteen months as by that point so many parents are no longer accessing services.

Governments are also often very reluctant to be seen as ‘interfering’ in family life, even when the messages are evidence-based.

The issue with sure start or tv programs is the wrong parents won’t attend or watch it. Not sure how you reach this demographic.

Our children’s centres don’t reach the parents that really need the support and we can’t force people to attend.

That was "Honey We're Killing the Kids"

The underlying point about poor diets, excessive snacking and lack of exercise and their impact on health was sound, but I don't know how you'd balance that more personal style of lifestyle "makeover" that tends to resonate more strongly than general documentaries without going down the route of exploiting families that society is more aware of now people can be traced more easily online. The digital footprint when it was made in the early 2000s was a lot smaller as it was pre-social media as we know it now.

(Wonders if the now-adult children ressemble anything like either of their CGI futures...)

UK parents (last 20 years) are generally terrible at being parents, they want to be their kids friend instead. And they seem incapable of disciplining their little friends, their "bestie". The amount of times I've heard parenting like . .

"please don't do that, mummy will be cross . . . no darling . . . no . . . yes I know you want to, but you shouldn't . . . yes darling I know . . . oh look, you've broken it now . . . no, no don't cry, mummy will get you a new one"

🙄

If we could have one for parents of ASD kids that would really really help too.