The Carsley Family

The Carsley Family is the eleventh episode of Season 2 of the American Supernanny show.

Episode summary[]

Jo Frost is in New Hampshire to meet Cheryl Carsley (33), a single mother of five children. In addition to being divorced, her children include two sets of twins. 7-year-old daughter Chantal, 5-year-olds twins Caleb and Nicholas and 4-year-old identical twins Bobby and Elijah are driving her crazy!

Cheryl had a bitter divorced a year before calling Supernanny and the children are now emotionally scarred as a result, the house has became a classic case of mob rule, The kids fight constantly, physically abuse Cheryl, disobey her, and have destroyed their whole house! Even the basement.

With a so many kids in the house and one busy mom Cheryl finds it hard to tend to all of their needs. Especially Chantal who feels left out because she's not a twin and an only daughter resorts to violence and tantrums to get attention and take her anger out.

Can Jo save this outnumbered single mother ?

Family members[]

Person	Age	Age (Now)	Relation to Family
Cheryl Carsley-Doubleday	33	52	Mother
Chantal	7	26	Daughter
Nicholas	5	24	Son
Caleb	5	24
Robert "Bobby"	4	23
Elijah		23

The child was disciplined via one of Jo Frost's techniques.

Other Members[]

Matthew Putnam (Cheryl's ex-husband)
Stephen Doubleday (Cheryl's current husband)
Isabella Doubleday (twin daughter; born after Supernanny)
Abigail Doubleday (twin daughter; born after Supernanny)

Transcript[]

The Carsley Family/Transcript

Submission Reel[]

Jo is in Colorado helping another family. Cheryl Carsley (33) is a divorced mom of five kids. The oldest is Chantal (7), but the other four kids are two sets of twins: Caleb & Nicholas (5) and Bobby & Elijah (4). Jo is surprised by the amount of kids. Cheryl hopes to go back to school, get a degree, and become a teacher.

According to Cheryl, Chantal does whatever she wants. All five kids have a mob mentality and no respect for Cheryl. She feels outnumbered by them. The house is constantly a mess, as the kids draw on the walls and break things. The chaos has gotten so bad, Cheryl doesn't even want to walk in her own house.

Cheryl has tried everything to control her kids, but nothing ever works. "You can really use another pair of hands," Jo declares. "I'm on my way."

Observation[]

When Jo arrives, Cheryl is the first person to greet her, followed by all of her children. All the smiles and giggles, however, disappeared rather quickly. The kids began running around the house, screaming, roughhousing and throwing things.

Trouble brewed at lunch as Elijah and Nick began fighting over a chair they begin throwing cups and plates at each other. Even though Cheryl steps in, she was stressed by the situation. Her attempt to calm the kids down fails as they continue to fight for her attention. Once Nick pushed Elijah into a window, Cheryl ends up dragging Nick to his his room whillethe other kids scream for Cheryl and spread Grape Jelly on the table.

Jo takes Cheryl into a different room, and the latter admits that she is stressed out and tired of being pulled in six different directions.

As Jo walked around the house, she noticed the utter mess and destruction. Clearly, Cheryl had lost control; she couldn't even walk through the older twins' bedroom.

Everything went fine while Cheryl prepared dinner until Chantal found out what Cheryl was making. The two begin arguing, but Chantal does something incredibly dangerous: pull a pot of boiling water off the stove, nearly burning herself. Afterwards, she gets violent with Cheryl, who has had enough of her behavior and sends her to her room. When Chantal notices the CCTV cameras, she yells, "You children, my mom's a big, big... poopy butt!" Cheryl feels bad for Chantal because she doesn't get much attention.

Once Chantal calmed down, Jo sat down and had a talk with her. Chantal admits that she is jealous of her brothers and wishes that she had a sister to play with.

Parent Meeting[]

Jo compliments Cheryl on her hard work and determination. However, she isn't sure if Cheryl enjoys being a mother. Furthermore, she is horrified by the chaos and mess. As Jo describes it, "everything around you (Cheryl) is like a tornado." She isn't pleased with the disrespect and aggression coming from the children, and she is confused as to why Cheryl doesn't discipline the kids.

Jo also talks about Chantal's anger and the lack of attention she is receiving. Although Jo acknowledges Cheryl's selflessness and love towards her family, she explains that all of Cheryl's kids are vying for attention and quality time. Cheryl is upset that she is having a negative effect on the people she cares about the most: her kids.

Teaching[]

Jo comes in the next day to start her Teaching segment. While the kids are in school, she puts in a routine for the family to follow. Jo then surprises Cheryl with a huge surprise: she invites everyone on her block to help clean the house. Cheryl was surprised but embarrassed at the same time. Everyone works together to deep-clean the house.

When the kids got home from school, they were wound up and fighting for Cheryl's attention. Jo has had enough of the chaos and introduces a set of House Rules. Due to the sibling rivalry, she also implements a new technique called Home Team. Bobby & Nick are in the Green House, Elijah & Caleb are in the Red House, and Chantal & Cheryl are in the Blue House. Each house would earn a point for behaving and doing chores, but they would lose a point for misbehaving. The first team to win ten points would earn a prize. Hearing about the rewards made the kids' faces light up.

With five kids, tempers can flare, so Jo introduces a form of Timeout called Thinking Pond.

Later, Jo gives Chantal and Cheryl a makeover kit as a way for the two of them to spend some time together. The bonding time was initially successful, but it took a sudden turn when Chantal abruptly began spitting and freaking out because Cheryl put eyeshadow on her. Jo steps in, tells her that she should think about the behavior, and asks Cheryl to put her on the Thinking Pond. After Chantal got off the Thinking Pond, Jo reminds her that she should treat her mom with respect when spending time together. Chantal apologizes to Cheryl.

Because the kids wrote on the walls, Jo set up a technique called Chore Challenge. The first challenge was to get the writing off the walls. All five children responded well to this new responsibility, completed the chore, and earned a point for their teams.

In the evening, Bobby was roughhousing and was sent to the Thinking Pond. Since Bobby misbehaved, Cheryl removed a point from his house. However, Nicholas, who was on Bobby's team, became upset and tried to explain that he did not misbehave. However, Cheryl was overwhelmed with the other kids running around and wanting attention, so Jo intervened. The two adults told Nick to encourage Bobby to behave so that they would not lose any more points.

Jo leaves for a few days.

Family Test Run[]

Things start out great with Cheryl and the kids spending time together by coloring a safari. All the kids had fun.

However, things quickly went sour when Elijah threw a fit and punched Cheryl. Rather than remaining calm, she yells at him and sends him to the Thinking Pond. Elijah continues to escape his timeout and act aggressively, prompting Cheryl to shout at him. He then turns his aggression to Cheryl again and starts smacking her. Cheryl initially runs away from him, but turns around and throws him in his bedroom.

Chantal desperately wants to earn a point, so Cheryl suggests that she runs the vacuum. While she vacuumed, Cheryl requests that she complete the chore a certain way before taking over the process entirely. When Cheryl gave out the points, she gave one point to Chantal and another to herself.

Jo is not happy and comes back to the house.

DVD Meeting[]

Jo returns to the Carsley house to show Cheryl footage of her time without her.

Clip 1[]

Cheryl spends time with the kids by painting and coloring jungle scenery.

She praises Cheryl For getting creative and being relaxed.

Clip 2[]

Elijah attacks Cheryl, who ends up yelling and losing control of the situation.

Cheryl realizes how mean and angry she looks, and Jo tells her that she needs to have the self-discipline to just walk away.

Clip 3[]

Chantal begins vacuuming but she uses the part that cleans crumbs, Cheryl begins micro-managing.

Cheryl thinks she looks negative and regrets not praising Chantal

At this point, Cheryl is in tears and feels like a failure as Jo explains to her that she needs realize how hard Chantal is trying.

Reinforcement[]

While Cheryl has quite a bit of progress, Jo needs to rectify her lingering issues. When Cheryl ran the kids' bedtime routine, Chantal was rowdy and refused to listen. Cheryl attempts to put her on the Thinking Pond, but with the two sets of twins running amok, Jo steps in to give Chantal a little talk. She tells her that if she wants attention and quality time, she should display good behavior. Heeding Jo's words and taking her advice, Chantal apologizes to Cheryl and says she is ready to listen.

All of the kids earn a point on the Home Team Chart for putting their coats and boots away, but Elijah didn't put his boots away. To earn another point, Caleb encourages Elijah to put his boots away. Since the two children earned the most points, they won a reward. When Caleb spins the wheel, they get to eat out at a restaurant. All of the other kid cheer with joy.

With the kids happily tucked into bed and Cheryl confident she can be a single mother of five, Jo leaves.

Behind The Scenes[]

This episode was filmed in January 2006.

Trivia[]

Many people joke about Cheryl yelling "That is not OK!" in response to the kids' misbehavior, no matter how minor or severe.
This episode introduces another form of timeout called the Thinking Pond.
All of the children share the same surname: Putnam.
But the reason why this episode went by the moms surname instead of dads is unknown.
The Carsley Family and The Quinn Family are the only episodes in New Hampshire.**This was the second episode to have two sets of twins. The first was the The Burnett Family, and it would be followed by The Simmons Family.
This marks the first U.S. single parent episode of Supernanny
The second one was The Mihalik Family (Donna was widowed but it still counts)
The third episode was The McAfee Family
The fourth episode was The Williams Family (U.S.)
The fifth episode was The Terrill Family
The sixth episode was The Newsome Family
The seventh episode was The Hallenbeck Family
The eighth episode was The McKinney Family
and the final episode was The Evans Family
It appears that Caleb was the best behaved child in the family, he even helped Elijah up when Nick pushed him on the window.
This episode is deemed Jo Frost's most extreme U.S. household.

Fan Feedback[]

Due to Chantal's random outbursts of screaming and aggression, especially during the mommy-daughter segment, some speculated that Chantal had untreated ADHD, ODD (Oppostional Defiant Disorder), or Bipolar. However, many viewers called Cheryl a great mother for taking care of five children all by herself, with no help or support. Some even said that Cheryl's ex should never have divorced her. However some people said that it's possible maybe Cheryl divorced her ex and not him.

Pop Culture[]

One of the interview sections has Bobby wearing a shirt that is based from the animated series Bob The Builder.
A Winnie The Pooh plushie is seen in the background.
In the submission reel, a Winnie the Pooh beanbag and a Tigger beanbag was seen.
In the Observation, Winnie the Pooh wallpaper is seen in Bobby and Elijah's bedroom, and a Finding Nemo pillow is seen on one of the twins' beds.
On one of the twins' beds. there was also a Spiderman blanket.

Events Pre-Episode[]

On April 16, 2004, Cheryl and Matthew finalized their divorce.

Events Post-Episode[]

In 2008, Cheryl remarried to a man named Stephen Doubleday, making her name Cheryl Carsley-Doubleday.
On July 11, 2009, Cheryl gave birth to another set of twins, two daughters named Abigail and Isabella. This meant that Chantal's wish of having a sister finally came true.
Chantal, Nick, Caleb, Bobby and Elijah's biological father, Matthew Putnam came back into their lives in 2012 after 9 years.
As of 2024, Cheryl is 52, Chantal is 26, Nick and Caleb are 24, Bobby and Elijah are 23, and Isabella and Abigail are 15.
Chantal has two children, Roberto (b. 2020) and Carlie (b. 2022)