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.

Little Angels actually came first! If anything it was Supernanny that was the copy. (Sorry, I know that wasn't the point of your post.)

I don't think we should make exploitative tv shows with children in them, as they're too young to give informed consent to being on the show and have no idea of the real potential consequences.

I do think you need to experience a situation yourself to give genuine advice and guidance. Some things may be common sense - children require rules, boundaries etc., but having zero lived experience of a situation (whether as a nanny, surgeon etc) doesn't make you as well equipped as some with lived experience.

But a parent generally only has experience of their own children - whereas a nanny or childminder has potentially dealt with hundreds of children.

I mean, how often do you see threads on here from parents giving advice because "it worked with mine" followed by loads of other posters saying they've done the same thing and it failed dramatically...

@faerylights Yes, a nanny may have dealt with lots of children, but may not have come across someone like your particular child or whatever issues they face, so someone with lived experience is always going to be able to offer more than someone who is just going by what they were taught or have read/viewed from an outsider's perspective.

But again, a parent is unlikely to have dealt with someone like your particular child either

I guess I just find it strange that you think a parent with experience of maybe 2-3 children is better equipped to give advice over a trained professional with 30+ years experience of working with hundreds of different children.

This.
Saying unAsseptable isn't an impediment, it's simply incorrect pronunciation.

I don't know. I watched her interview on We Need To Talk and I have to say it completely changed my impression of her. I realise that she could have been spinning for positive PR but I hadn't realised that she had veto power in choosing which families she worked with, and she said no to certain things the production team wanted to do because she didn't feel it was in the best interest of the children. Or the amount of hours that she spent with each family. The programme made it seem like she breezed in and out and was barely there for any time at all. She also seemed like she really wanted to help people even though I think her advice is sometimes a bit too narrow and one-size-fits-all.

I started watching some of the older/original episodes again and it made me see them from a different angle. The editing and voiceover is very much focused on "Look at these TERRIBLE, NAUGHTY children and Supernanny is here to SORT THEM OUT!!!!" but she doesn't actually do or say much to the children directly. She does it a couple of times to demonstrate to the parents what to do, but what she is actually doing is parent training. And while the approach is really dated - I cringed at the first episode I watched where she grabbed a child by the wrist and dragged them by the arm to a corner to face the wall and be told "You face the wall because you have been BAD." - It is 22 years old. I haven't watched the more recent USA episodes, so I don't know if those ones have more updated wording, although USA seems around the same stage as the UK was 22 years ago in terms of how hitting/smacking is generally seen. It strikes me that it's not especially safe handling, yanking children around by their arms is not something that would be allowed in a school for example.

OTOH, I think the principles of clearly and calmly communicating to the child what behaviour you don't like, and why, and providing a calm, predictable and unscary consequence, are good and usually a huge improvement over what the parents have previously been doing, which is normally ignoring the children until they get overwhelmed at which point they shout and argue with them. What I'm less keen on with the punishment part is that it's often shown as being prolonged ie the time out continues until the child submits or apologises even if it takes over an hour. And she often tends to double up on the punishment so e.g. will use time out AND toy confiscation and by the end of the ordeal I don't think the child even remembers what they were originally being punished for. I am not sure this is strictly within the guidance of how to use that kind of thing effectively, and to me that highlights that she doesn't have the relevant training/understanding, this is something she's come to from instinct and experience, which is why she's including some unnecessary aspects such as shame, persisting until you "win" to establish dominance, and making the punishment something the child explicitly does not like, which are aspects of discipline that feel intuitive (they fit nicely into the "order and good triumph over evil and chaos" narrative) but aren't necessarily supported by research. It's all the other stuff which makes it work, this is just flair, and as long as it's balanced out overall by positive interaction, it's unlikely to be harmful but for some children, either because they have underlying difficulties which make it hard for them to meet behaviour expectations or because their parents struggle to provide the positive side, it won't be balanced and that can cause a problem.

She also mentioned explicitly in the interview that time out isn't going to teach your child to e.g. have better table manners. Practice, actively teaching and praise for that behaviour is, as well as general routine/structure and connection so you can share your family values. This doesn't come across at all in the programme, at least the earlier seasons - the programme presents it that the being yanked constantly back to the step/naughty spot/etc and told they are naughty is what changes children's behaviour, and while the "practise and praise" part is shown in each episode and she seems to tackle at least 1-2 issues this way, and the routine and/or connection is usually mentioned as well, it's given barely any airtime and the routine is always presented as a militaristic thing, so the overall impression is that Supernanny's approach is all about whipping these unruly kids into shape using military-style discipline - probably because the most "entertaining" part of the programme is people wanting to gawp at how bad the children's behaviour (or alternatively, how bad the parenting) was "before" and then that conflict scene of the unruliest child being "defeated" is included consistently in EVERY episode - it provides a chaos vs order/good vs evil sort of narrative, and that is the entertainment value, both in enjoying the conflict but also in judgement over the "before" scenario (parents and/or kids). If you read the comments on all the youtube videos it's almost all people talking about these parts of the programme.

Morally in terms of the children being exploited for entertainment, especially entertainment based on the audience judging them as bad, I do think this is hugely questionable and I'm unsure whether that would still happen today but maybe I'm naive there. Also some of the families probably needed more support - some of the children present as though they may have issues such as ADHD for example, and while clearer discipline and structure help, they won't actually treat said issues. Some of the parents also probably needed psychological input but that is fairly standard for reality TV, TBF.

The format if you take it purely as an observational/documentary/educational style thing is quite good (for the viewer) in that it shows an example of the kind of issues a parent might have (so you can see whether it's relateable) and the approach is pretty much the same each time so once you've seen a few episodes, you start to spot yourself where the parents are going "wrong" (according to Supernanny). The fact she leaves them to it for a week and then comes back also sets them up to fail, which I think is purposeful in terms of it allows you to see common mistakes people make when trying to follow the techniques, but that is my other criticism of the system - it only really works if you're using all the parts of it. If you're just taking certain parts (especially the strict telling off and shame parts and the taking things away) but not others, like the clear communication, adult remaining calm, and the positive aspects of practicing and praising and structure, then it's not likely to work and might even make things worse. Again clear trade off between what's good for the viewer vs what's exploitative for the family. And it's also all very one size fits all - Jo Frost clearly has set ideas about what is right in terms of how routine or hierarchy or family life should look, which might not fit all families in reality.

The other "retro" programme I've been watching recently from a similar era is How Clean is Your House, which I compared with Stacey's Sort Your Life Out.

HCIYH has a similar format to Supernanny - very strict, buttoned up, almost dominatrixy characters of Kim/Aggie and the first part of the programme looms in on the worst bits of the house and bits of interview with the family edited to make them look as lazy/stupid/unashamed as possible and K/A being totally shocked at how awfully dirty it is, then they give the family a dressing down about it and make them grovel and promise to do better, and THEN they sort it all out and give them a clean slate to work with, and this is presented as a kindness so you leave the programme with a feel-good impression rather than the impression of having judged the people. But again the entire entertainment value in the programme is about this defeat of order over chaos, gawping at how bad other people are, and whipping unruly people into shape using shame. Very one size fits all, too, so e.g. if someone says they won't use a particular storage system they are just told off and told that they must do it that way and it's lazy not to.

SYLO which is a modern programme is much softer and less judgemental. The team go into the house without the family and while they do have an element of being shocked by the amount of items, the focus isn't about how awful the family is, it's more sympathetic "How do they eat at this table? The children have no space to play. I wonder how it's got like this?" And then rather than having a section of shaming the family, they have scenes where they box everything up and during this time they discuss with the family what they would like to be able to do with their space and sometimes a bit of how it's got that way, and it's presented as a more sympathetic section. There is a little bit of the "order vs chaos" and "whipping into shape" in the warehouse section where they have to wrestle with how to reduce the number of items, but it's usually much softer, more collaborative, more constructive and sometimes there are moments of emotional vulnerability. Then by the end they have usually transformed the house with attention paid to the family's unique needs/wants and rather than being told no, the way you were doing it before is wrong and this is better, they try to incorporate things in and it at least comes across as being tailored to the family themselves without judgement, e.g. they might use a storage system which is realistic, like hidden baskets, rather than saying well I know you want to just be able to throw things in but actually you must line it all up neatly.

She has a South London/Essex accent.

I can see why people might find her delivery annoying but I don't think it's fair to attack the way she speaks. The meaning was perfectly clear.

The American series was shocking,especially when she threw the chicken nugget!

It’s obviously no longer acceptable to broadcast dc but in our current fractured society, when we are no longer around grandparents and aunts, it was quite helpful back in the day to watch how some different ideas played out, even if you decided it wasn’t for you, it provided a framework ifyswim.

In fact I found a famous baby care book which shall remain title-less quite helpful for the same reasons; in other words when you have absolutely no clue, or have run out of ideas, it’s helpful to have a framework to start from to which you can either adopt, or reject, whichever technique suits your individual child.

Jo could have been worse tbh. She seemed sensible and positive and ultimately tried to represent a child’s best interests. The latest publicity is explaining how she tried to manage what the producers wanted versus what was best for the children. Also, she said she stayed with a family many, many more hours then was shown, so we only got to see edited high or low lights.

Quite honestly, judging from what friends of mine who are teachers say, and what a friend of mine says who used to mc children’s parties for a living, I am yet to be convinced that modern parenting techniques work a lot better.

It’s good that children are listened to properly, first and foremost, and that efforts are made consistently to meet a child’s individual emotional needs, all of that is so important, but what seems to have been left off the curriculum is how to accommodate the needs of others as well as your own.

She just came across as thick and uneducated.

I always felt that it wasn’t really Supernanny’s techniques that were the thing that made the difference - it was having an extra adult in the house, to support the parents, and encourage them to keep on with whatever technique they were using, when it didn’t seem to be working.

Also, meant to add, that in reality, I found some modern parenting techniques far too wordy and long-winded and talk/reasoning based which doesn’t always work with a hugely active younger child.

Of course a child can be taught to breathe and self regulate but it takes a lot of time and patience and if you are a single mum say, with two other dc, and a job and a house to run, if it’s the fifth “battle” of the day… it can be effective to just separate them from you and tell them to reflect and that if they want to be with the rest of us, then they need to calm down and not hit or whatever.

Finally, I think some of the older episodes could still be shown to adolescents as they make a great case for contraception! Yeah I’m kidding! But … 😂

The kids were happier, but how will they feel in a few years time when they realise their parents were willing to show them off to the world, especially when they were going through real childhood traumas.

Honestly, some parents really could do with as much help as they can get. Like her techniques or not, they worked for some people.

When my kids were little, there seemed to be a lot more parenting ‘experts’ around. I didn’t agree with everything, but did pick up the odd tip that worked for our family. It also meant that as we watched, DH and I probably talked a bit more about our own approach and it meant we were on the same page.

I’d assume that after all this time, Jo would have some updated techniques too.

So, even if she’s not for everyone, I’m all for more awareness and discussion of techniques that will help parents.

I don’t like the grabbing and manhandling of children you see in supernanny. I agree the techniques are dated but Jo Frost claims she we do it all exactly the same now as then- so doesn’t really seem to have grown her repertoire or reflected.

I do find it hugely exploitative of vulnerable families.

I was a teacher for over a decade when I then had my own children (biological & adopted). It is different when they are your own. Firstly you are different - the emotions and love involved is different. The triggers relating to your own childhood are different. It’s also 24/7 for years. Nothing can prepare you for parenting- not even being a childcare professional. At least that is my view! I certainly had to eat humble pie at some of my judgemental attitudes prior to being a parent myself.

I agree with the point about the "Outsider" perspective. I've found the same, i.e. that people in different circumstances often come up with better ideas as they can look in from a different perspective.

I remember the episode with Megan !

@ItsNotMeEither

Honestly, some parents really could do with as much help as they can get. Like her techniques or not, they worked for some people.

Unfortunately, the ones who most need the help/advice probably won't be the ones who watch the program.

Same with all the current crop of "decluttering" progs and "eat better" progs - the typical viewer is probably the kind who aren't cluttered and don't eat too badly.

I like her and learned a lot from her back in the day. She ALWAYS emphasises that any issues within the family are NOT the children’s fault - it’s all about poor and/or lazy parenting.

As with all parenting experts, you take from them what works for you, and ditch the stuff you don’t want/need.

I always assumed there was actual experts, child phycologist in the background and she was more presenter than anything else.

I do think there is space on TV for good parenting programmes. But I'm not sure how they should be done.
One of the best I saw was focused on older kids, inc 15 yo twins towering over their mum, who had zero control over them.
Dad wasn't on the scene, they managed to get to the bottom of the issues of two very unhappy boys

Lots of us thought it was questionable 20 years ago. Obviously the TV company were happy with it, she had her fans probably still does.

I particularly hated the naughty step.

This seems unusual. I remember watching her dealing with a family of a son that had autism and adhd, long before it was a known as it is today, and she did a really good job of explaining to the parents what it felt like for him and adjusted her techniques to be more appropriate for him.

To be fair she always empathised that the children’s issues stemed from poor & lazy parenting which there was a lot of lazy parents on her programmes. I would enjoy her coming back, parents are far to laid back these days thats why we have teens going around stabbing other teens & teenage rapists. Time to bring back stricter parenting.

There is absolutely no need for this.