The Swift Family

Episode	3
Air Date	November 19, 2010
Location	Sacramento, California
Techniques	Naughty Spot, Same Page
Season	7
Previous	The Peterfreund Family
Next	The Young Family

Episode summary

Jo visits the Swift family in Sacramento, California where stay-at-home mom 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) calls Supernanny for help and when she visits, Jo ends up met with the laziest parents that she has ever had to deal with. Jenny and Tony openly admit that they expect Kadie to do everything for them when it comes to the kids. 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 feel as if they're in the right.

Josh, Sean and Max all run wild in and outside of the house, completely unsupervised from their parents, which puts them in danger. Max also throws massive tantrums. Jack, on the other hand, usually stays out of all the chaos and plays video games.

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. Among all this, the pool alarm is left off.

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?

Recap

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 crying.

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' and 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, and Jenny told him to hold onto the shopping cart, but he kept letting go & wandering off. Jenny told Max that he would be put on timeout when they got home, which caused him to immediately get upset. When they were checking out of the store, Max demanded to get a gumball, but Jenny refused to let him have one as he let go of the cart, causing a massive tantrum. Jenny and Tony were beside themselves in embarrassment, and Tony said that if they had allowed Max to have a gumball, it would have told him it was ok that he let go of the cart. Max's demanding to get a gumball only stopped once Jo stepped in and firmly told Max to hold on to the cart and stop messing around. When the family got home, Max's four-minute timeout began. He continued to move from the spot, but it took him about 13 minutes to stay put. He then finally apologized, and 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.

Parent Evaluation

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 his 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. Afterwards, Jo left the Swift Family.

Family members

Person	Age (2010)	Age (2024)	Relation to Family
Anthony "Tony" Swift	34 (born October 8, 1975)	49	Father
Jennifer "Jenny" Burnett-Swift	34 (born May 30, 1975)	49	Mother
Kadie	22 (born 1987 or 1988)	36	Nanny
Gloria Burnett	69 (born June 8, 1940)	84	Grandmother
Jack	11 (born September 8, 1998)	26	Son
Joshua "Josh"	10 (born February 22, 2000)	24
Sean	7 (born September 14, 2002)	22
Maximillian "Maxi" or just "Max"	4 (born January 15, 2006)	18
Mia	9 months aka ¾ (born July 5, 2009)	15	Daughter

The child was disciplined via one of Jo Frost's techniques, however the reasoning for the method's usage was criticised.

The child was disciplined, but not via one of Jo Frost's techniques.

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, Jacob from The Harmony Family (even though he disciplines when he thinks it's needed), Doug from The Doyle Family, Shawn and Shannon from The Kerns Family (who also let their kids roam freely where they wanted, they could've faced child neglect charges), and Kristin from The Hallenbeck Family.
• This is the third episode to have someone who is not the parent(s) be the one to call for help, the first was The Chapman Family, and the second was The Hallenbeck Family.
• The scene where Max threw a tantrum was filmed in the defunct Goore's Department Store. Additionally, a video of someone capturing footage while Max's store tantrum was being filmed can also be found on YouTube. The link is in the External Links part of this page.
• In addition to how lazy Tony and Jenny were in the episode, this episode was criticized because of Max's timeout being given when he let go of the shopping cart. Alongside Matthew being sent to timeout for getting mustard in The Nitti Family (though this was done during Observation, and Jo didn't approve of that timeout), and Brandon crying over skateboarding shoes in The Kerns Family, many sight this as one of the worst reasonings for a timeout being given.
  • Whilst Jen was the one who told Max about the timeout, it was Jo who said he needed one. Many have pointed out that in The Doyle Family, Jo said "When you should and shouldn't use timeout", done to signify when a timeout should be granted. Many believe that because 4 years (due to The Doyle Family being finished in 2006 but airing in 2008) had passed since Jo helped the Doyle's, she may have forgotten about the saying.
  • Jo should've implemented the Roaming technique on Max before the family entered the store. That way, the events that played out would not have happened. It's likely she simply didn't think of implementing the technique.
  • Detractors posit that Max needed a valuable lesson.
• This episode was posted on YouTube through a different channel before the official Supernanny YouTube channel uploaded it. Other families having this include The Atkinson Family, The Peterfreund Family, The Colombo Family, and The Potter Family.
• Similar to Tyler from The Williams Family (U.K.), Max bullied another student at school.

Events Post-Episode

• Tony and Jenny had a 6th child, another daughter born in 2013 named Coco.
• Max got in trouble at school for bullying another student. It is unknown whether or not Jenny and Tony did anything about it.
• In 2024, Tony and Jenny are 49, Jack is 26, Josh is 24, Sean is 22, Max is 18, Mia is 15 and Coco is 11.

Gallery

External Links

• Full Episode (Complete) on YouTube
• Behind The Scenes - Observer films Swift Family during Supernanny taping on YouTube
• Getty Images of Swift Family - Supernanny Season 7
• Jenny's Instagram
• Jack's Instagram
• Josh's Instagram
• Sean's Instagram
• Max's Instagram