The Daniels Family

The Daniels Family is the seventh episode of Season 4 of the American Supernanny show.

Episode summary
Jo heads to Murrieta, California to help the Daniels family where Lisa (35) & Steve (32) In Five Years Since 2003 have 6 kids: a 13-year-old son named Josh, two pint sized daughers: 8-year-old Alexus and 1-year-old Norah and five pint sized princesses: 12-year-old Hailey, 7-year-old Alisen, 4-year-old Irelyn and 2 1/2-year-old Brynnleigh.

While oldest child and only boy Josh is hidden away in his room playing video games, his younger sisters are acting out by fighting, roughhousing, back chatting, and having outbursts.

While Lisa refers to her daughter Alexus as a ”Wild Child" and the other girls kicking off, Hailey is the only child in the house referred to as “the troublemaker”, and the only kid to be given chores (and Hailey is not as bad as her parents portray her to be). When dinnertime comes around, nobody even eats in the dining room.

Steve & Lisa have given up on trying to discipline their kids. Jo makes it clear to them that they're lazy and they need to grow up.

Can Jo help these parents stop being lazy and start acting like parents?

Submission Reel
Jo meets the Daniels family, one of the largest families she’s helped, It includes Steve (32) and Lisa (35) and they have six kids, Brynnleigh (2), Irelyn (4), Alisen (7), Alexus (8) Hailey (12) and the oldest yet only son Josh (13). According to Lisa and Steve, Hailey is “the most difficult of them all” as Lisa states Hailey’s gotten to be “very conniving” and talks back.

Alexus is also difficult to deal with, as she’s very hyper and energetic, Steve actually says she’s like an animal. More shocking, she says extremely offensive things to people no child at eight should know.

Lisa says she’s very tired of dealing with the kids and begins to cry (some say this is fake); however, Steve knows how when he gets home things are usually out of control and because Lisa’s given up he’s the one who always has to deal with it. Dinner time is also out of control, as the family never even sits together.

Observation
Jo enters the house and finds Alexus in the corner. Lisa says she felt a bit sad having Jo come in with one of her kids in time-out. She then gives the kids name tags in order to remember who they are, due to there being 6 of them. Jo points out how studies have shown that 2% of American families are the same as Lisa and Steve. After this, Jo talks with Josh, asking what he does. Josh says he usually plays on his computer and goes over to his friends' house. He also admits that he doesn’t get along with any of the girls and also says it sucks being the only son in the house.

We cut to later in the day, where Alexus is shown spitting on Hailey, and whilst Hailey tries to get Her to stop, she doesn’t. Jo notes how Lisa and Steve claim that Hailey’s the troublemaker, but from what Jo sees, she spends most of her time defending herself from Alexus. Lisa steps in and goes to fetch Hailey from Steve’s office, and in the end, Alexus Is not Punished by Lisa, but Hailey is, having to do chores. According to Lisa, she keeps Hailey busy with chores to "keep her out of trouble", even though most of the time, she doesn’t cause the problems.

In the afternoon Jo noticed how Lisa wasn’t around and she went to find her, eventually finding Lisa crying in Steve’s office, and she admits that she feels like putting the kids in boot camp.

A while later, Hailey and Alexus had been grounded; however, Alexus was in the pool, unlike Hailey, who was inside. Lisa explains that Hailey had been banned forever from the pool just for swearing. Jo finds this ridiculous, as Lisa will never follow through with the punishment. Lisa also says she tried to get Alexus out of the pool but couldn't so she’s going to have Steve do it. Jo states that Alexus is completely out of control and Lisa doesn’t want to deal with her, so that’s why she’s not bothering to do anything (this could also explain why she's barely even punished). Jo adds that the Kkds are realising Lisa won't care about what they do, as she'll just end up doing nothing.

After all of that, Steve finally comes home, and dinner Isn’t any better, As it turns out, the family has a huge dining room that isn’t even used. Jo points out how Lisa, Steve and the older kids eat in the living room, how the middle children eat in the kitchen and how the younger two don’t even eat at all, as according to Steve, they were upstairs eating chips all day.

Parents Meeting
Jo starts off by saying that Lisa and Steve did make a conscious decision in having 6 Kids and how they have the label "parents", but asks when they would actually be parents. When Steve asks what she’s means by that, Jo says it’s when they got to the point where they gave up. And she knows Lisa did entirely, and Lisa does admit she did. Steve knows that what they're doing isn’t working, but according to him, every time they try something new, it doesn’t work.

Jo decides to start of by talking about Lisa and her relationship with Halley, which to her is one that’s unfair as she points out how yesterday, Halley was giving chores, which none of the other kids had, Lisa still stands by her assessment of Halley as the one who “causes” most of the problems. Jo points out how the other children were playing up and misbehaving, but nothing was done with them, Lisa simply says they have a lot of issues with Halley and then says she’s done talking about that. Jo isn’t, however, and she proceeds to explain how Lisa has a relationship that’s wrong. She simply states the fact about Lisa is that she’s lazy and doesn’t do anything about it.

Jo then talks about family time, which Lisa claims they try to do, but it doesn’t work out, She also says she’s didn’t have time for the kids yesterday. Jo asks if she had 6 kids because she wanted to be a mother, to which Lisa says she did. Jo then asks how much they know about their kids, to which Steve claims they do a lot more with them than what Jo thinks (this would be disproven in Teaching). Jo also points out how nobody eats dinner together, to which Steve yet again claims they try to do.

Teaching
Jo starts off the teaching by bringing in a game instead of a routine. The game is simple: guess what the children like, hate and what they want to do when they grow up. This quiz actually shows how little Lisa and Steve know about their kids, as opposed to what Steve said in the parents' meeting, claiming they do more with their kids than Jo thinks.

After this, Lisa and Steve show the kids the rules of the house, and Most of The Children actually looked OK with it, except Bryn, who was refusing to sit on the couch. Steve was initially shocked, as Bryn's normally not like how she was acting; however, he soon realized she was doing that because it was the first time someone had actually laid boundaries for her. This causes Bryn to go to a time-out; however, during this punishment, Lisa had a complete breakdown and shockingly blamed Jo for Bryn’s actions, claiming she made Bryn like that. However, Steve wasn’t giving up, as he wanted a change, so he continued with The discipline until Bryn cooperated. This culminates in a scene with Lisa claiming Jo and Steve are supposedly “making Bryn stressed out”.

Jo finally decides to get relationships addressed; seeing how Josh is the only boy, she decided to send him and Steve out to spend father and son time together by playing Golf while she deals with Lisa and Halley’s relationship. Lisa tells Hailey that they're going bowling, and for the first time in years, Lisa and Hailey finally hug. The bowling experience turns out to be a success, as Hailey and Lisa finally start getting along with each other for a change. With this done, Jo leaves for four days so that Steve and Lisa can use the techniques while she's gone.

Parents Evaluation
Jo returns to the Daniels to review Lisa and Steve’s work.

Clip 1: Steve sends Alexus to time-out for teasing one of her sisters while the kids were in the pool. She screams, though surprisingly enough, Lisa and Steve actually ignore it entirely. Alexus does apologize, and Jo praises Lisa and Steve for ignoring Alexus.

Clip 2: Alisen finishes her timeout; however, she’s refusing to apologise to Lisa. Fortunately, Lisa does the right thing and tells Alisen if she doesn't apologize she will get another time-out. A while later, Lisa ends up dragging Irelyn to time-out.

Clip 3: The Family finally uses their huge dining room; however, they are shown to be very quiet, as barely any talking is going on.

Clip 4: A montage of Lisa negatively telling the kids to do things.

Clip 5: Halley and Lisa finally begin bonding as mother and daughter, as they're shown crafting together. Though it's never shown what they were working on, Jo praises Lisa for helping Halley and bonding with her.

Reinforcement
Jo says she's very concerned about Lisa's language, so she brings in lemons and sugar. They don't seem to mean anything at first; however, as it turns out, the lemons are meant to show the negativity of Lisa, while the sugar is meant to show the positivity of their house.

Jo then decides to have the family compete in an obstacle course, where they all had to work together to retrieve something in an ice box: Halley dives for a key, Lisa pops balloons for another, Josh has to get basketballs into a hoop for a key, Irelyn has to ride a bike and put balls in a bucket for another and Steve is forced to put his face through ravioli to find the last Key. The family end up unlocking a ton of food, and they all dive into the pool to celebrate.

With this, Jo has achieved her goals of helping the family bond and fix Halley's relationship with Lisa, so she heads off and leaves the family.

Behind The Scenes
This episode was filmed in August 2007.

Controversy
While the episode received positive reviews from fans and critics, one of the main criticisms was how Halley was being treated by her parents, with some comparing it to a slave. Youtuber Robyn Gemelle commented on a Youtube upload of the episode, stating that the family needed therapy. Another criticism was Lisa and Steve's initial portrayal of Halley in the submission reel.

The main criticism, however, was towards Lisa, who was criticised heavily in some reviews, mainly for her excuses in the parents' meeting and the teaching, as well as the fact that she wanted to put her own kids in a boot camp and Halley's treatment. She is often considered one of the worst parents in the series. Steve, despite being criticised like Lisa, was praised, as he actually wanted things to change.

Pop Cultre

 * In Multiple Scenes in the Living Room, a Nintendo Wii can be seen

Trivia

 * When Jo First Enters The House Halley can be heard saying “JoJo” so it could be possible She found out Jo was coming to The House. JoJo is also a name Jo calls herself when meeting younger kids, making Halley the second oldest person on Supernanny whose ever called her JoJo, with the oldest being Sonya from The Peterfreund Family


 * Alexus was seen in Timeout, when Jo first enters however it is unknown what she did, This is similar to How Devin was in Timeout for unknown Reasons in The Nitti Family
 * In The Submission Reel Halley can be heard Saying Shes gonna stab someone with a Knife, However it’s unknown if she was referring To The Camerman or Lisa


 * Many People have been calling Lisa’s Crying in The Submission Reel Fake, as instead of it being a sign of sadness they say it could’ve actually been an attempt to get the audience to sympathise for her, which ended up backfiring after her actions in The Observation.
 * During Alexus’ segment of the submission reel. A dog (presumably the families) is shown. The dog is likely dead, and it’s unknown what it’s name was.
 * To this day, it has never officially been explained as to why Halley was treated how she was. As almost nobody has been able to narrow down a definitive answer. However, many believe it could have had something to do with the “major issues” Lisa stated she and Steve had with her during the parents meeting.
 * Most episodes usually feature teens play a major role in episodes, such as Dylan from The Young Family (U.S. Season 2). Josh, however, is an exception. As he plays a minor/supporting role in the episode. Likely due to him hiding out in his room most of the episode
 * In the submission reel, an audio clip of one of the girls saying “Shut up” is used twice, the second time it was used it was meant to sound like Alisen said it, Though it was presumably Halley who said it.
 * Halley mentiones someone named "Jennifer" when she and Lisa were crafting. It’s unknown who Jennifer is, though she’s likely just a friend of Halley.