The Krolikowski Family

Episode summary[]

In the Season 5 finale, Jo visits the Krolikowski Family in Delray Beach, Florida. John (43) & Shannon (40) have four kids: 9-year-old Kaleigh, 7-year-old Johnny, 3-year-old Karly & 2-year-old Thomas,

Both John & Shannon have extremely high profile jobs at a local church (a parish manager & a cook respectively), but their home is a far cry from a peaceful sanctuary. You'd expect good godly kids but the saying the pastors kids are the worse kids is the totally the case here.

The children have issues. Kaleigh is a bully towards her younger siblings, Johnny is defiant and hard-headed when he wants something he wont stop fighting with his mother until he gets it. Thomas throws extreme tantrums and hurts his siblings. Pool safety is another issue, when the pool is opened, the kids ride their scooters and bikes around the pool which make them at risk of drowning

Johnny and Kaleigh squabble like every brother and sister but there squabbles usually ends in fights-- they punch, kick, scream, rip hair out, bite, scratch, wrestle, and use combs, tennis rackets and other things to beat each other with.

Shannon is at her breaking point and has power to her violent kids. In the Observation she laments about how the love in her home is gone. --But with John, he is against the modern parenting style as he calls it and has his own way of discipline: tell the kids to do something nicely at first. If it fails to reach the kids, he yells at them. Should the kids continue to disobey, he uses a wooden spoon or belt to get them to obey his every command.

To make things worse, John is controlling- he often has long meetings after church and doesn't let anyone eat until he comes home which is usually past the kids bedtime leaving everyone hungry, tired and angry. We even see that "personally", John thinks he doesn't need Jo's help & when she shows up, he chooses to fight with her every step of the way rather than go with the flow.

Can Jo help Mom recover & get Dad on the same page with properly disciplining these kids or is she too late to help this family?

Episode recap[]

Submission Reel[]

John and Shannon are a Catholic family that resides in Delray Beach FL. John and Shannon are both involved with their church a parish manager & a cook respectively. They have four kids who all fight and have behavioral issues.

Shannon describes Kaleigh (9) as a bully, John disagrees, Kaleigh is always pushing around her younger siblings and assaulting them.

Johnny (7) is very relentless & "goes on and on until he gets his way" according to Shannon who he fights with frequently.

Karly (3) is very sneaky and is always doing something she isn't supposed to be doing.

Thomas (2) has seemed to inherit Johnny and Kaleigh's anger issues. Thomas throws extreme tantrums and appears to be violent, he bites, kicks, and hits his siblings.

Shannon says she doesn't handle any fighting with the kids -- Johnny and Kaleigh fight, they rip hair out, throw things, wrestle, punch, kick, scratch and bite. Shannon says "If they're not bleeding then what do they need me for?!" Jo is livid.

Shannon has no discipline methods and allows the kids to disobey her requests. But John is against "modern parenting" as he calls it and would use corporal punishment to handle the kids because when he was a kid, he didn't have timeouts or talking. "Gladiators!" Jo coos at the laptop.

Shannon says that when things are at it's worst, all she does is cry. Shannon tearfully says that it's hard when you don't wan't your kids around it's hard.

Jo braces her self for a rather challenging intervention.......

Observation[]

Parent Meeting[]

Teaching[]

DVD Meeting[]

Clip 1[]

Clip 2[]

Clip 3[]

Reinforcement[]

Family Members[]

Person	Age	Relation to Family
John Krolikowski	43 (born November 12, 1965, died July 5, 2011)	Father
Shannon Krolikowski	40 (born August 30, 1968)	Mother
Kaleigh	9 (born December 19, 1999)	Daughter
Johnny	7 (born December 11, 2001)	Son
Karly	3 almost 4 (born April 25, 2005)	Daughter
Thomas	2 (born December 3, 2006)	Son

Shannon has clarified that Johnny is not John Jr.

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

The child was disciplined, but not via one of Jo Frost's techniques, and only a warning was given (though she didn't approve of this warning).

Behind The Scenes[]

This episode was filmed in March 2009.

Events Post-Episode[]

John passed away on July 5, 2011 at 45 years old, after suffering an allergic reaction from a yellow jacket sting.
Johnny got paralyzed in June 2021 at age 19.

Trivia[]

This episode was criticized due to John's lazy behavior, such as thinking that Kaleigh wasn't a bully despite her aggressive behaviour, avoiding the bulk of the discipline and most infamously, saying that he personally thinks he doesn't need Jo's assistance.
- Despite him not wanting Jo in his house, he never kicked her out despite disagreeing about timeouts, unlike Heather and Todd from The Jones-Nickolich Family.
- John's admission that he scares his children thanks to his short fuse has also been compared to John from The Nitti Family, Roy from The Naszkiewicz Family, Allen from The Griswold Family, and Chris from The Potter Family, given they too also use this tactic to get the kids to do things.
- John is also the fifth parent in the series to disagree, or be against Jo's techniques. He follows Arthur Webb, John Nitti, and Mike James, and preceeds Kristin Hallenbeck and Danielle Colombo. (the fourth parent is not mentioned due to a privacy request from their family).
John is the second parent who didn't feel like needing Jo's help, despite calling for her, after Aaron Newton Sr.
This is not the very last episode (unless if you count the Hulu Plus versions of Season 6) to have the 2005-2009 opening sequence, before a new theme was introduced and the intro is shortened for next season.
This is the third episode where the parents witness an accident: Thomas hit his head after jumping on Johnny's bed. The other instances include:
- The Amouri Family: Julian fell from a cabinet during bedtime because of Hailey.
- The Addis Family: Eden slipped and fell on the sidewalk because she ran in the rain.
- The Phelps Family: Aiden fell down the stairs during the Observation.
- The Van Acker Family: Dylan hit his head on a cabinet when he tried to run away from eating his food.
- The Corry Family: Blakely jumped from the couch, resulting in a head injury, which further resulted in getting stitches. In this instance, rather than the parents, it was a cameraman who saw the accident occur, who later informed Jo about what happened.
Karly and Ella Prescott share the same birthday (April 25, 2005).

Pop Culture[]

During the Submission Reel, an episode from SpongeBob SquarePants was seen playing. Despite the TV screen being blurred due to copyright issues with Viacom (now called Paramount), fans recognised the colors displayed. It has yet to be determined which episode was playing however.
When John walked into Karly & Thomas' room to tell them to settle down, a TV show could be seen playing however it’s unknown what tv show it was because it got blurred out.
John mentions the restaurant/entertainment center Chuck E. Cheese's when he gave mail to Karly.