I just heard today that the popular show Super Nanny is looking for adoptive families to be featured in upcoming episodes.
ABC’s
hit show SUPERNANNY is currently looking for adoptive families with
kids (toddlers to teens) to take part in its popular television series.Families
with children who were adopted are like every other family. They
struggle with the same issues, behaviors and personal challenges. Plus,
at every stage, there are issues that may come up that are specific to
adoptive families. We would like to give ongoing life in such families
an intelligent airing that does service to families, both adoptive and
not.
Call
me cynical, but I just can’t quite see Jo having any particular
"expertise" on adoptive families. And I worry that the show will end up
being another story framed as "troubled adopted kids" and the "savior
parents" who adopt.
The call for families was written as:
"Using
the expert techniques that have made ABC’s SUPERNANNY a hit show, (and
her book a New York Times bestseller), Jo Frost works with families to
help tame even the rowdiest infants, kids and teens, restoring balance
to American households. Jo offers hands-on advice to parents on how to
achieve the best possible work/family balance, get the best out of
kids, (while still letting them be kids), and guide the family unit to
a positive place.
My
kids and I watched a Super Nanny marathon this past summer while
visiting my in-laws. While the show is ostensibly about these wild,
undisciplined and out of control kids, its more accurate to say that it
is the parents’ behavior that really needs to be reformed
[coincidentally, I’ve noticed the same framework set-up for shows such
as The Dog Whisperer and Honey, We’re Killing the Kids on TLC].
Really,
what is the show trying to highlight by featuring adoptive families?
Will it be a "we’re just like other families" frame work, as stated in
the call [and if that’s the case, why single out adoptive families?],
or will it end up being yet another medium where adopted children are
pathologized?
Harlow's Monkey 