I was in the depths of child-raising hell a decade or so ago when Supernanny Jo Frost came along with her no-nonsense ways and her naughty step.
Her hit TV programme showcased a different family each week in various states of domestic catastrophe: feral children swinging from the curtains, parents cowering in corners, kids screaming and yelling. Then Supernanny would sweep in, sensible bun intact, and restore order without so much as raising her voice.
Not only did it offer genuinely useful advice, it made the rest of us feel like absolute paragons of parenting by comparison. My children were hard at times, but at least they weren’t chasing my car down the street or sleeping in our bed at 15.
“It’s just not asseptable,” Frost would say, scolding parents and children alike in that crisp British accent that made even a dressing-down sound aspirational. The accent did a lot of heavy lifting. Kind of sexy, actually.
The centrepiece of her method was the naughty step. Kids misbehaved, received a warning, ignored the warning (obviously), and were deposited on the step for one minute per year of age.
No yelling. No negotiating. No seventeen-part documentary about their feelings.
Can you imagine that passing muster now, in our current era of trauma-informed, child-led, emotionally attuned parenting, where raising an eyebrow at the wrong moment risks permanently fracturing your child’s sense of self?
So I am overjoyed to note that Supernanny is back, just when we need her most.
Frost’s recent Facebook post may be her finest work yet.
She opens with a warning: “I’m going to say something that might make you uncomfortable, so sit tight.”
Seasoned parents sat up immediately. This is a woman who once had to physically return the same child to a naughty step forty-seven times in a single evening while maintaining a completely neutral expression. She does not issue warnings lightly.
“We are slowly disabling our children,” she says.
“We’re pushing children along on bikes instead of teaching them how to ride. We’re keeping children in strollers who should be walking, climbing, and building strength. We’ve got four-year-olds still using dummies when they were only ever meant to be a short-term aid.”
She continues: “Seven-year-olds who can’t brush their teeth without an electric toothbrush. Eight-year-olds who can’t use a knife and fork. Nine-year-olds who don’t understand bathroom hygiene.”
“I find myself asking: when did we stop teaching these life skills?”
Good question, Jo. Genuinely asking for a friend whose twelve-year-old recently required assistance locating the laundry basket. It’s in the same place it’s been for twelve years but apparently that’s not enough of a clue.
Frost has also recently called for a ban on social media for children under 16 in the UK, describing it as a “public health crisis” — a message she delivers via social media, to millions of exhausted parents nodding along on their phones while their children eat dinner in front of their phones.
Since Supernanny last graced our screens, the collaborative, therapeutic, child-led philosophies that followed her heyday have quietly shifted all responsibility away from parents and into the hands of children, who immediately began exploiting it to its absolute limit.
Parents stopped saying no. Children took note. The results are visible at any school drop-off, restaurant, or shopping centre food court near you.
What’s genuinely alarming, revisiting the old episodes, is how extreme behaviour that once had audiences slack-jawed now barely registers. Jo once discovered a father sleeping on an air mattress on his seven-year-old’s floor, having surrendered his own bedroom to the child and quietly accepted this as his permanent reality. Back then it was shocking. Now it reads like a Tuesday.
As someone who wrote a book called The Secrets of Half-Arsed Parenting – a love letter to parents who’d had enough of the child-obsessed circus – I say this with total confidence:
We. Need. Jo.
Whether you’re surviving newborn sleeplessness, the primary school years, or — God help you — still parenting a twenty-something who doesn’t ever cook dinner, the Supernanny’s prescription remains the same.
Eating at mealtimes. Kids sleeping in their own beds. Behaving in public. Good manners. As Frost puts it: “Your child needs discipline, just like they need food and water.”
No anger. No yelling. Just calm, consistent, endlessly repeated boundaries.
Welcome back, Jo. We didn’t deserve you the first time around, and we have learned absolutely nothing since.
And that’s imply not asseptable.
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