JO FROST ‘We need to teach MORE EMPATHY AND KINDNESS'

The Supernanny ’s tips to help families come out of the pandemic stronger and healthier

- SELINA MAYCOCK

Who would have thought the ‘naughty step’, a concept Jo Frost – most famously known as the nation’s Supernanny – championed more than three decades ago to help children learn from their actions, would be relevant to all of us today. But Jo, 49, believes that the current pandemic is ‘Mother Nature putting us all on the naughty step to make us take a breather’. And she’s back to help parents cope in the wake of COVID-19.

Hi Jo, you’ve spent 30 years in parenting, how does it feel?

It’s been great. Supernanny gave me the opportunity to do other projects so I did six other shows and executively produced another before returning – people were asking me to. I was filming season eight until coronavirus made it too dangerous to continue. People panicked, but now families are settling into the new normal.

Have more parents reached out to you during lockdown?

Both my email and Twitter went off the day I needed to breathe and just help one family at a time. It has raised parental issues that families hadn’t previously made time to deal with and it’s also highlighted new parental challenges caused by the pandemic – families having quarantine quarrels.

How would you go about explaining the current COVID-19 situation to a child?