The Swift Family

Episode summary
Jo visits the Swift family in Sacramento, California where Jenny (34) & Tony (34) have four sons: 11-year-old Jack, 10-year-old Josh, 7-year-old Sean and 4-year-old Max, and one daughter: 9-month-old Mia.

For the first time, the family's nanny, Kadie (22) called Supernanny for help and when she visits, Jo may have met the laziest parents she has had to deal with. Jenny and Tony openly admit that they expect Kadie to do everything for them when it comes to the kids.

The boys run wild in and outside of the house, completely unsupervised from their parents, which puts them in danger.

Meanwhile, baby Mia crawls around the floor and the boys leave behind small objects that she often puts in her mouth. The house is not even baby proofed, which is very dangerous for her.

Meanwhile, grandmother Gloria (69) also tries to help out around the house and is the only person to implement any form of discipline. However, Jenny and Tony are ungrateful towards Gloria and don't think they're doing anything wrong.

Can Jo help the family make sure that the kids (especially the baby) are safe? Can she get the parents, nanny & grandma on the same page when it comes to discipline and rules? And can she finally get these parents to be parents?

Observation
The parents had to go out to work, so nanny Kadie is now in charge of the kids. Max and Sean were playing rough with each other, including kicking them in the privates, messing around in their parents' bedroom while the nanny was busy with baby Mia. The nanny could hear they were playing rough then went to tell them off, and Mom came back to have a conversation about their duties.

Jenny took the kids to the store, but Max wanted to go to the restroom on his own, but he couldn't, so Mom had to go with him, leaving Sean in charge of the baby. Jo interrupted Jenny about what she would do, and she didn't go to the restroom with Max.

Back at home, the kids were playing outside, and Jo had a chat with Gloria. She was too worried about the kids' safety, and there was no barrier around the pool, nor the pool alarm was engaged.

Parents Meeting
The following day, Tony and Jenny are in for a shock when Jo arrives. Jo brings the issues of their parenting skills by criticizing that they are 'immature and lazy' how ungrateful they are to the nanny and babysitter. Then, she brings up the big topic of household safety and putting baby Mia in grave danger.

Teaching
The parents and Gloria talked about their point of view of things in the house and how ungrateful the parents are towards one another. The parents made a few household rules and a rota for the parents, nanny Kadie and Gloria to divide the household duties.

The family went to the store to buy household safety equipment mainly for Mia, but Max wasn't happy about going with them. Jenny asked Max to hold onto the shopping cart, but Max kept letting go. Jenny told Max that he would be put on timeout when they got home. When they were checking out of the Store, Max wanted to get a gumball, but Jenny refused as he let go of the Cart, causing a Massive Tantrum. Tony says that if he and Jenny had allowed Max have the gumball, it would have told him it was ok that he let go of the cart. The tantrum only stopped once Jo stepped in and angerly told him to hold on to the cart and stop messing around. When the family got home, and Max's four-minute timeout began, he continued to move from the spot that Dad told him to stay in for about 13 minutes before being put. With that, the family got the First-Ever Discipline In the House.

The family got the sons involved in keeping the house baby-proof for Mia by placing empty socket plugs and casing electrical strips and door brackets. Jo taught the boys about placing their bits and bobs in huge containers.

Jenny and Gloria have a conversation about their relationship to let it go out. Later, Jenny had the opportunity to have some fun time with her boys, including painting with Jack, playing basketball with Josh, and teaching Max how to ride his bicycle without pedals. Sean missed out - he was punished for breaking a house rule.

Clip 1
Jenny and Tony were going out for the night. They told the boys they had to listen to the nanny, so Jenny reminded the nanny about what she expected from the boys while they were gone and changed the pie of duties.

Clip 2
The boys remembered the household safety, and the parents reminded them to be aware of Mia crawling.

Clip 3
Jenny spends time with Sean water coloring together and outside on the bicycle.

Clip 4
Tony asks Max to take a spoon of medicine, but he refuses it. He threatens to pin him down and use timeout if he doesn't take it and forces the spoonful into Max's mouth. Jo told Tony not to use a timeout to control the situation, it's for teaching them right from wrong, and he needs to change his attitude towards parenting.

Reinforcement
Jo decided to take a different approach for Tony to give Max his medicine for his eyes. Jo interrupted when Tony was in a conversation with Max about the medicine, and she gave him the choice of taking it from the spoon or syringe, then chose the syringe. The family praised him for taking his medication. Then Jo has Tony and his wife make amends with Gloria. Afterward, Jo left the Swift Family.

Behind The Scenes
This episode was filmed in April 2010.

Trivia

 * This isn't the first time that Jo has dealt with lazy parents; she also had to deal with others such as Robert from The Gorbea Family and Jacob from The Harmony Family (even though he Disciplines when he thinks it's needed)
 * This is the second episode to have someone outside of the family Jo’s helping be the one to call for help, the first was The Chapman Family
 * A rare video of a someone capturing cellphone footage whilst filming the scene where Max threw a tantrum about having a gumball can be found on YouTube