Super Nanny

Janna

New Member
I just watched this show for the first time ever. Yes, I live in a cave.

What a crock!!!!!!!!!

Ok, I agree, the parents were super slack ~ and absolutely needed help.

But, I like how she put up the house rules with NO consequences beside them, and then took the boys outside to watch the parents play, played detective with the father, and the little one had a playdate, and all of a sudden *SHABAM* ~ everyone is cured.

HUH???????????????????????????

I spent three YEARS doing behavior mod to get my kids behaviors to change LOL! Man, if I knew then all I had to do was run around the house playing, looking stupid, I coulda saved myself a ton of headache.
 

AllStressedOut

New Member
LOL....ya, gotta love the Super Nanny. She is the end all cure all for badly behaved children. I'd like to give her a week or two with mine and see how she does.
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
I loved the Southpark where Cartman's mom called Supernanny, but only "The Dog Whisperer" could soothe the savage beast...
 

On_Call

New Member
I have to believe (I really HAVE to) that there are many, many families/shows that don't end up all tied up in a pretty bow. We are only seeing those that work out after Super Nanny comes to the rescue. There MUST be some awesome footage of a real difficult child sticking in his/her heels and giving Super Nanny a reason to question her job choice.

At least that's what I keep telling myself. :rofl:
 

Lothlorien

Active Member
I stopped watching it when the dad and the son looked like they were having fun struggling to put the son in his room. It was bogus. I honestly don't think they were having serious behavior problems with the ten year old. It looked like acting to me. I did think they had legitamate problems with the four year old. But too much of last night show looked staged to me. I mean what kid is only going to play with Lincoln Logs for hours. The ten year old has tons of things in his own room, why wouldn't he just go up there and play. We turned it off and watched Dirty Jobs.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
The reality would have to be far more complex than we see. I actually do like the show, but I'm also reading between the lines.

Yes, they WOULD take the cases that they have the best chance of helping, plus the cases would be vetted to screen out (and refer on) those who really do need professional help.

PLUS - what we see is probably days and weeks of filming, edited down to one hour. Having been there done that with documentary/news filming, I know just how much film they use, to only screen seconds to maybe a minute, sometimes.

It's very staged - the format is always the same. In the beginning, before the credits, you see Jo Frost, in full "nanny" outfit (glasses, hair in severe bun, black nanny suit) in the London cab watching a DVD of a family, on her laptop. She looks up in horror at the camera and says something like, "Wow! THIS family really needs my help!" and off they go to that address. As if it hadn't already been well set up.
Then she arrives, spends the day observing - in full nanny rig, looking a bit scary - often looking meaningfully, or in horror, at the camera when wither kids or parents do something very wrong or inappropriate (or "unasseptable", as she used to pronounce it).
Next day (at least, we THINK it's the next day) she turns up, looking friendlier with her hair down, no glasses and a plain coloured shirt with trousers. First she sits down with the parents and gives them her analysis. Then her rules are brought in - she explains to the kids what they have to do also and what they can expect if they break the rules. The "naughty chair" or the "naughty mat" or similar. Then we watch as Jo coaches the parents in the process of following through and implementing the rules. Since some of these rules and problem behaviours relate especially to evenings and mealtimes, she HAS to be, in reality, spending several days at least with the family. I've watched episodes which deal particularly with a child who won't go to bed properly; they show progress over a number of nights. They might try to make it look like an instant solution, but if you scrutinise the show 'between the lines' clearly it's not an instant process.
After she leaves the parents to it she often says, "I'll see you in a few weeks". And we then see her watching footage of how the family is coping (or not). She then comes back to fine-tune things (how much longer does this take? Nothing is said) after which the family is apparently doing fine. Then, almost as the credits roll, they deliver a report on how the family is doing, months later. Subtle, but how would they know unless they have continued to work with them?

You've got to think - what is the purpose of SuperNanny, from the point of view of the show's producers? Why do they make the show?

My thoughts are that it's to show a range of problem behaviours that some parents have to deal with, along with a professional's point of view on how to best deal with it and reduce the problems. The problem behaviours are not just the kids, they're also the parents. Sometimes the parents are just not organised enough (perhaps a mum trying to work at home, perhaps made worse by a dad's unrealistic expectations of how much his wife can manage and still look after the kids properly as well). Sometimes it's a child who is more demanding than the average parent can handle, but a change in technique is all that's needed. Who knows? Because we only see the edited, sanitized, cut-down version, designed to showcase the scope os assistance available when you call in a professional nanny (or similar).

Something I've also seen in watching this show - they are careful to NOT say that ALL children can be easily 'cured' by a day with SuperNanny. I remember one episode in particular, where she urged the parents to get their son assessed for possible learning disorder/Asperger's. But from what I've seen, I suspect that is rare, that such a family would make it to air.

I have seen a few cases where she comes back again, even later. Problems have continued and she's made her "follow up in a few weeks" visit more than once.
What we're shown seems simplistic. I suspect what actually happens is far more complex. They're not going to invest the time and effort they DO invest (plus the cost of production) to have a family fall apart the moment she walks out the door after two days. It would give her a bad name; it would give the show a dud reputation. And they can't afford that - she's doing commercial endorsements now (which I think is selling out, frankly). She'd never get the commercial jobs if she had no professional credibility, so behind the scenes they must be doing SOMETHING right.

Like a lot of 'reality' shows like this, where people's genuine problems are solved within half an hour or an hour of prime-time, it is far more complex and takes a lot longer than it's commercially acceptable to let on.

It must be wonderful for those families whose kids only need a tweak from SuperNanny. But for most of us on this site - I suspect we'd never get past their screening process!

Still, it's nice to dream, and live vicariously...

Marg
 

On_Call

New Member
The more I think about this, the more I laugh - thinking about Jo watching my difficult child moving his mattress out of his room in a rage a few months ago. Love to see her looking at the camera in horror as she caught that particular incident on her laptop.

I know, I know - I wasn't laughing myself when I was living that night, but to see it from her perspective . . . . . you're right Marg, I know our household would never make it past the screening process!!

Thank goodness things have been going better for our difficult child right now, but perhaps next time they're not, I'll give her a call.

 
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