In a recent Instagram/social media share, Jo Frost released the following:
Jo Frost is well known for her long-running television series “Supernanny” where she travels the U.S. trying to help troubled families with their children’s behavior.
This image with its caption alone is enough to bristle most neurodivergent families; how often are we accused of fabricating or misrepresenting our kids’ struggles in order to make excuses or get attention for failing our children’s “naughty” behavior.
I have three problems with this message:
One, defending the use of “naughty” creates unnecessary confusion.
Using “naughty” to describe instincts relies on hairsplitting and mixed messages for how kids should process their reactions. How many children can ingest the contradictory idea that “I do bad things, but I am myself am not bad”.
Parenting is about modeling how to channel our natural instincts; there’s no need to pass judgment on how the instincts present as part of that process.
Second, neurodivergent children struggle even more with “naughty” behaviors as a rule
Neurodivergent children are already constantly on the verge of crisis due to their sensitivities, and their ability to mask their struggles is more compromised than neurotypicals resulting in (yes) more frequent behaviors that are out of their control.
This has nothing to do with making excuses.
Third, it’s obvious she has no idea what it’s like getting a diagnosis and why so many parents have to self-diagnose.
The sheer expense in getting diagnosed if we need to do it independantly, the fact that there are so many poorly trained professionals who still only diagnose stereotypes, that we’re already ostracized and judged from people in our own circles…
All a post like this does is perpetuate more misguided criticisms about parents who label their children apart from a formal diagnosis.
We know we’re struggling, and guess what: yes we care.
Our labels help steer how to effectively support our children and address behaviors. Believe it or not we are doing way more work behind the scenes engaging with the “naughtiness” than anyone on the outside can possibly fathom.