To think supernanny doesn’t need a come back

[Inthenameoflove]

I’ve noticed that Jo Frost is on a bit of a PR wave at the moment. AIBU to think her brand of ‘parenting’ advice can stay in the 00s.

I’ve always found the idea of parenting experts without children somewhat suspect. To me it’s very different than being a teacher or working with children generally which I don’t think you need to be a parent to do well.

I don’t enjoy her lectures/rants about things I suspect she has very little knowledge of.

I also find it really morally questionable putting struggling kids on TV - immortalised in their hardest moment forever.

Remember a copy of supernanny called "little angels?"
My husband's ex, mother of his kids sister was on an episode with her 3 kids. In one scene the 2 daughters, aged about 12 and 10 were sat on the sofa in just their knickers. Looking back any old nonce could have been watching!

Also the episode of supernanny I found upsetting was the woman with 2 toddlers and the older one was out of control, but his middle brother had died of cot death a few years previously. It was really sad and I felt so bad for the mum, trying to control her son but show him love at the same time. Poor woman

The point about her not having children is completely irrelevant. My surgeon had never personally experienced the surgery he performed on me - and yet did an excellent job. She is a well trained experienced professional.

I do agree that children should not be used as entertainment.

She has a lisp (like me) and it pisses me off when people use that fact to be spiteful.

It wasn't all bad.
I remember her recognising PDA in a young boy who the mum was finding incredibly difficult. This was a long time ago and the first time I'd heard the term.

I always remember a moment where a kid sprayed water in anger at a mum and the mum picked up the nearest water and drenched the kid really aggressively while she was watching on the camera. The mum said after he just pushed my buttons and the dad said he started it. I think a percentage of the population needed the ensuing talk about you being the parent and how you can’t retaliate, about how a family needs to calm down etc. Reality tvis where some people will get their advice from

It kind of would work on mine … if she did it! If I tried to enforce a naughty step <hollow laugh>

I followed a couple of her techniques - mostly about consistent behaviour from parents building a good frame for the child. Helped enormously with bedtimes - being boring but present helped my son be calm and settle at night. Being neutral about food helped him slowly develop his palette while being relaxed around mealtimes.

If she updated the show with new techniques and focus around neurodivergent parenting that would be a good thing. So many parents are struggling, particularly those with undiagnosed neurodivergence themselves.

However the 90s/00s style shaming people and exploitative drama production needs to be gone for good!

I quite like this sort of programme and I think a lot of parents are putting their children on social media anyway these days, arguably a regulated TV show is more ethical. I would rather see one that acknowledged that some of these children might benefit from an Autism/ADHD assessment and took into account neurodiversity though. But as a previous poster said, there was some shocking parenting on there and generally families did seem happier afterwards.

As someone in education I question the words, parenting technique, as sadly not a lot of parenting going on. Too busy on various platforms to engage with their children. Makes you fearful for future generations.

One of the little girls from the show is now on TikTok and has a whole series about how coached it was (at least for older children), and Jo herself has said how much the producers wanted her to have certain 'scenes' in each episode

That being said I think her ethos of boundaries and consistency is a good thing

The problem with televised shows is that for producers it’ll always be about the entertainment factor, not about spreading awareness or genuine education (even if Jo is in it for the right reasons or not). So a lot of the bad behaviour and screaming and whatnot will be exaggerated, children will likely be pushed in to those reactions and we’ll be told it’s because Tilly doesn’t like her bananas cut in to 5 pieces, only 4.

I would hope that Jo has adapted her approach over the last 20 years, you’d expect that in any profession really. But the biggest part for me is reflecting back at some of the episodes I’ve watched with the lens of what we know about ND today and wonder if she is best equipped for that.

I am ‘someone in education’ as well.

We don’t need to claim that teachers are a cut above the ‘awful’ parents we see out and about who don’t engage with their children.

There are going to be children we teach who have special needs, diagnosed or otherwise. There are going to be children we teach from backgrounds that are turbulent and troubled and they and their families may need support and help and kindness, not judgement and sneering.

My children aren’t perfect. I’ve tried really hard and I do cook homemade meals and I take them to interesting places and lots of fresh air but they can still both be complete arseholes sometimes and if anyone wants to shake their head and ‘sadly parents today’ at me they can get stuffed.

There’s also a lot of advice you can access nowadays which means you can get suggestions that can be contradictory or confusing.

It was essentially the Jeremy Kyle show with children and a uniformed woman staring angrily through her glasses.

How do you know they were happier? Or perhaps more materially, how do you know the chaotic parenting stopped? They were such a formula: SN came in and observed dreadful behaviour, SN suggested a few strategies, parent tried not very successfully to put them place, SN came and viewed the recordings and told them what they were doing wrong, miraculously they started getting everything right, and the end of each show was the family saying how wonderful everything was now. I'm quite sure each family knew that, if they said it was a load of rubbish and wasn't helping at all, that show wouldn't see the light of day. Goodness knows what the reality was.

The thing I liked best about her 'techniques' was that she would often give the child, especially say an elder daughter or son, some time to explain how they felt; and the outcome was usually 'would you feel better if you had some special one on one time with mum or dad?' because often the child/teenager feels ignored, unimportant and sidelined, defined in their parents' eyes as 'the naughty one' or even 'the good one'.

When the importance of giving a child some special one on one 'fun' time was pointed out, at least on screen we saw it improve matters, and it's hard to see how it could do anything else. A night out bowling or shopping or just having a coffee and a chat with one parent, feeling like you matter as an individual and it's not all about you as a problem child is obviously a good thing, though I imagine it's not always easy for a busy harrassed parent to prioritise it, which is why it slipped in the first place.

I used to watch her show and even before I had children I felt she was very harsh and lacking in understanding in many areas towards the children. I also thought she unnecessarily poked her nose into the adult relationships at times and even now when I see her I find her incredibly lacking in nuance.

Children and parents are individual and her 'methods' were basically using children for entertainment and of course it was heavily edited. And people who were children at the time have spoken about it since and often not positively.

I’ve always found the idea of parenting experts without children somewhat suspect.
I disagree.
There are many professions where you can be an expert without expierenceing the subject you are an expert in. She is an expert as she has worked with many different children , while most parents are specialists with their own.

I didnt like the children being on the TV.
However, from what I remember she got to the root of the problem , which was always the parents and got them to alter their approach.

Maybe some of her methods are due a come back because , in my expierence through work, many of the families I support the kids rule the roost and there are very little boundaries and consequences in place. Once children get to a certain age it is difficult to come back to calm and satisfactory behaviour without interventions. Age appropriate discipline needs to be in place from a very early age so that children know what is and what isn't acceptable. Routines and boundaries where everyone is on board makes a calm, safe environment for everyone.

I did the time out with my kids when they were old enough to understand why they had to do it.It was for a short length of time and they were asked to think why I was upset.
Once it was over we hugged and Inalways said 'let's move on from this'

She already has an updated show in America - the episodes are on YouTube - and it's very, very different to her original series. She's much calmer, there's a lot more awareness of SEN and medication, and she addresses the issues with the parents as well as tackling the kids.

I think exposing children on reality tv shows like this is exploitative and wrong.

however her brand of parenting advice isn’t dated, it’s routines, consequences for doing something wrong, it’s stable and much needed. Likewise her not having children doesn’t mean her advice isn’t valuable, her whole career was with working as children as a nanny, to write off her advice just based on not having her own os ridiculous.

Making distressed kids go and sit somewhere by themselves always had strong 'stand in the corner and face the wall' vibes to me.

She was crap then, she's crap now.

I don't agree with your idea that parenting experts must be parents themselves though. As we know, plenty of parents are utterly incapable and clueless. Being able to reproduce doesn't make you an expert at what is best for child development.

Snob

Absolutely!
We’ve gone too far the other way at this point.
I’ve been teaching in Primary for 20 years and the deterioration in behaviour over that time has been huge.
Many parents can’t or won’t set boundaries or give consequences it’s shocking.

@fartoomuchtoblerone I hear you. Most parents don't have a child who can get up at 5 minute intervals for hours and hours on end. Her method of picking up and returning to the room, no words, no eye contact is much better than any other. Seeing it work even on a TV show gave me hope if nothing else, at a time when the alternative was despair.