The Clause Family

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The Clause Family is the sixteenth episode of Season 4 of the American Supernanny show.

Episode summary[]

Jo visits the Clause family in Studio City in Los Angeles, California. Lorie (43) and Ken (44) have two kids: 11-year-old son Brandon and 8-year-old daughter Caila.

The kids run riot with their rowdy, controlling ways. They talk back to and fight with their parents and each other. Caila is the ringleader of the duo and is emotional to the point of throwing temper tantrums fit for a 4-year-old: she screams, cries, nags, hits, bites, swears, and flips the bird. Brandon, while not necessarily as bad as Calia, also acts up: he also throws temper tantrums, talks back, swears, hides in the refrigerator, throws things, and has to be carried by his father like a toddler. Both kids refuse to do there homework and do everything to get out of doing it.

Lorie is a pushover while Ken does nothing to help discipline the children. Lorie fears that she'll never have a close relationship with them. Can Jo help the Clause family out?

Recap[]

Submission Reel[]

Jo returns back to Studio City, California, after previously helping Wendy Wilson of girl group Wilson Phillips. As Jo watches the Clause Family's submission reel, she witnesses the kids running amok around the house. Lorie is a pushover while Ken tunes out. Neither of the kids do their homework and they procrastinate constantly. Lorie prepares dinner, but neither Ken nor the kids eat with her; she's left to eat by herself. Lorie breaks down in tears and admits that she doesn't know what to do anymore. She and Ken need Jo's help immediately.

Observation[]

When Jo arrives at the Clause household, Lorie is the first to greet her before introducing Ken; the kids are absent because they are at school. Lorie gives Jo a tour of the house and uses the moment as an opportunity to vent to the latter; she is treated like a slave, doing all of the laundry, performing 99% of the cooking, and cleaning up after her children. In the afternoon, Jo and Lorie head to school by foot to pick up the kids. As Jo is introduced to Brandon and Caila, the kids have Lorie carry their bags. Several times, she comes close to losing her balance and falling down. When the family arrives home, Lorie prevents Caila from eating candy. She answers back with sassy remarks and wants to eat the candy anyway, claiming that she got it from a swap. Caila finally demands her parents to leave her alone and let her eat whatever she wants. Lorie admits that Caila is sassy on a regular basis. Later that evening, Caila and Brandon procrastinate instead of doing homework. They watch TV and skate in the dark. As late as 9:15 PM, the kids finally acquiesce and start their homework, only for the parents to find loads of missing and urgent assignments. By 11:00 PM, the family is nowhere near finished. Jo has finally seen enough and leaves.

Parent Meeting[]

Jo has much to discuss. She declares that "You [Ken and Lorie] can’t function as a normal parent everyday. There are no expectations.” The parents have no time management, while the children have privileges and no chores. Ken and Lorie do everything for the kids and give in to them, yet the children are capable of doing them by themselves. For example, neither Brandon or Caila carry their own backpacks to school and back, and they allow Lorie to suffer.

Homework time was "absolutely ridiculous." Jo has never left the house as late as 11:00 PM to see kids do homework. She criticizes the parents for blaming the kids' procrastination and a project they were given two weeks prior on the school. Lorie defends herself by saying that she tries to help the kids on their assignments, but they resist. Jo dismisses Lorie's counterclaim and is fed up with the parents making excuses.

Finally, Lorie agrees that the family needs to change their parenting style. As Jo concludes the meeting, Ken gives his wife a hug while Lorie silently sheds tears, realizing that it is time to move forward and parent better.

Teaching[]

Trouble brews in the household before Jo even arrives. Caila starts the morning off by launching a spectacular temper tantrum - complete with screaming, crying, and physically fighting her mother - over not wanting to get dressed. She also demands her mother to give back one her toys that was confiscated. Ken says that every time they do something or go somewhere, they always get this behavior out of her. After Lorie struggles to get Caila to listen, she asks Ken to intervene, which he does by cajoling her. In a desperate attempt to end Caila's tantrum, Lorie permits her to get dressed in her parents' bedroom.

As soon as Jo enters the Clause house, she sees Calia's outburst. She is totally stunned to see her- or any other third grader, for that matter- hold control over the parents like a 4-year-old. She is even more appalled to see these parents not address the tantrum. When Jo confronts Lorie over the situation, the latter proclaims that everything was fine, but Jo believes that the parents chose to avoid this issue. Eventually, Lorie admits that she needs to regain control but doesn't know how, so Jo intervenes. In a firm voice, she tells Caila that her behavior was unacceptable. She commands her to go back to her room to get dressed immediately, and Caila complies. Jo believes that Caila has never been “spoken to very firmly. [She] has been molly-coddled with 'sweet-sweet sing-song voices', or she's been yelled at." Jo and Lorie discuss her demonstration with Caila. Lorie admits she does back down when she deals with Caila.

After Caila gets herself dressed, Lorie and Jo come into the bedroom. Jo then asks Caila why her toy was confiscated. Initially, Caila shrugs but admits it was the price she paid for refusing to get dressed. Once Jo is done speaking, Lorie sneaks in to comfort Caila because she feels guilty that her daughter is sad. Jo makes it clear that Lorie needs to take the discipline seriously and that following through will not prevent her from having a meaningful relationship with Caila.

Jo's next step is to build Lorie's confidence. She takes Lorie to a clifftop and instructs her to jog with a heavy backpack. Jo forbids her from stopping; she hopes that Lorie will develop assertiveness and stand up to her. When Lorie puts her foot down and declares that she no longer wants to endure this activity, she opens up the backpack to find that it is full of stones with negative words written on them. She throws them off a cliff, which figuratively and literally lightens her load, making her strong enough to take on her own kids.

The next day, Jo has privilege strips for Caila and Brandon, along with baskets with their names on them. Every time the kids act up, Lorie and/or Ken will tear off one of their privileges from a chart and place them in their baskets, but allow them to earn back each privilege for good behavior. Surprised at the prices the kids are prepared to pay if they break the rules, the kids appear ready to follow the house rules. Caila doesn't want to miss dance class and Brandon doesn't want to miss TV time. Lorie is prepared to follow through with the discipline, although she anticipates lots of kicking and screaming. Meanwhile, Ken and Brandon spend some father-son time at a gymnasium. They decide to make these outings a regular part of their lives.

Before Jo leaves the Clauses for a few days, she tells them, "Trust one another, work together, communication."

DVD meeting[]

Clip 1[]

Lorie picked Caila up from school, but it wasn't long before trouble brews: Caila tried to force her mother to carry her backpack, but Lorie steadfastly refused. After launching into a tantrum, Caila forcibly placed the backpack in Lorie's arms and ordered her to go. Lorie stood frozen for a few seconds before asking, "Who's in charge?", removing the backpack, and continuing with the walk.

Jo is pleased to see Lorie do her best to follow through, but she noticed that Lorie questioned whether or not to stay firm or regress to her old habits such as yelling or giving in. Jo reminds Lorie to remember confidently stand up for herself.

Clip 1, continued[]

Once Lorie rejected Caila's demands to carry her bag, Caila performed a tug-of-war on the belt of Lorie's trench coat, nearly ripping it. Lorie stopped her and announced that Caila had lost a privilege. She stormed home, angrily declaring that Caila has taken advantage of her for too long; she wasn't having any of it. The third grader continued her outburst, albeit running home and carrying her backpack by herself. Lorie switched to a more upbeat voice and praised Caila for carrying her backpack on her own and tried to give her a high five. However, Caila hit Lorie multiple times. Lorie announced that Caila had "lost some serious privileges".

Jo has nothing but praise for Lorie, which pleasantly surprises her.

Clip 2[]

Lorie negotiated privilege removal with Brandon, who was unhappy that his TV time was taken away for an earlier offense. He argued that Lorie could not take away his privilege. She responded that if he was unhappy, he could go to Ken.

This time, Ken is the one who has an issue with Lorie's actions. He explains that she should not have used him as leverage with Brandon; by doing so, Lorie had inadvertently undermined the discipline.

Clip 3[]

Lorie and Brandon got into another heated argument over video games and homework. Brandon hit Lorie with his controller, gave her an angry apology, and yelled at her to leave him alone. Lorie broke down in tears. In a moment of weakness, she lamented that her children will not respect her and that she just wasn't strong enough to continue Jo's techniques. She stated that the family will only improve if everyone plays their role; clearly, that was not happening.

Jo explains that while her kids had won these small battles, only Lorie would have the strength to decide if she wanted to win the war. Ken agrees with Jo and questions Lorie's lamentations. With a renewed sense of confidence, Lorie is ready to shore up her weaknesses.

Reinforcement[]

In an effort to get Brandon and Caila to complete their homework before it was due and improve their grades, Jo creates a homework station for Brandon and Caila. She gives Ken a prep talk before he supervises the kids' homework. Throughout the process, he keeps track of their work and encourages them.

With everyone's homework completed, the family plays a game of basketball. After Jo leaves, Ken says, "It’s great for the kids to see the program bearing fruit." Lorie, no longer a pushover, says, "This is a new beginning."

Events Post-Episode[]

Brandon graduated high school in 2015.
Caila changed her name to the more common spelling of Kayla.
Kayla graduated high school in 2018.

Family Members[]

Person	Age	Relation to Family
Kenneth "Ken" Clause	44 (born January 27, 1964)	Father
Lorie Clause	43 (born February 13, 1964)	Mother
Brandon	11 (born October 20, 1996)	Son
Caila (now Kayla)	8 (born November 24, 1999)	Daughter

Fan Reception[]

Fans generally hated The Clause Family. They vilified Lorie's tendency to be a pushover and Ken's laziness. In fact, many viewers were angered to see Ken criticize Lorie's shortcomings during the DVD meeting when he did not participate in any of the discipline himself. Viewers were also angered to see Ken smiling during the scene when Calia hit Lorie. Many were confused as to why Jo did not address Ken's laziness, something that they considered severely out of character for her. Fans also disliked how the kids behaved on TV. Some went as far as to call them immature, bratty, and compare their behavior to that of a toddler. However, they acknowledge that their behavior was the result of Lorie and Ken's pushover and lazy tendencies. Similar to Martin Williams, many fans claimed that Ken was Lorie's third child.

This episode has garnered so much negative attention that fans across a variety of platforms developed some very extreme- and outright unfounded- claims, which include the following:

Brandon and Caila deserved to be severely beat.
The parents were awful because they did not use corporal punishment to put a stop to Brandon and Caila's "evil" behavior.
Jo was sexist because she had Ken and Brandon engage in a bonding activity but did not extend that same technique to Lorie and Caila. Furthermore, she did not lambast Ken for not supporting Lorie when she was clearly at a low point.
Caila's tantrum over not getting dressed was the result of sexual abuse.
The parents should have sent their kids to Beyond Scared Straight, World's Strictest Parents, or Dr. Phil instead of turning to Supernanny.
Ken should have been slapped because he smiled when he watched the clips of Calia hitting Lorie, and Jo should also have been slapped for not addressing Ken’s laziness.
Jo should have refused to help the family.
Brandon and Calia's behavior was the result of a developmental disability or personality disorder.
Lorie died a few years after the episodes airing (this was proven to be false).

Trivia[]

This is the second episode in Studio City, California. The first was the The Wilson-Knutson Family, which premiered earlier that season.
- These two episodes are considered to be opposites: while The Wilson-Knutson Family is considered to be a great episode, The Clause Family is considered to be an awful episode.
- While The Wilson-Knutson Family was liked by fans, The Clause Family was hated by fans.
This episode is the first time Jo arrives at the house in the middle of a fight. This was when Caila was acting up when she was getting ready for school.
Like the McKeevers, another California family, homework was an issue. Since Brandon and Caila go to school, unlike the McKeever boys who were homeschooled, Jo created a homework station for them.
While not directly stated in the episode, because Caila neither studied for her test nor completed her project that took place during the Parents' Meeting, it is believed that she flunked her test and failed her assignment.
During the Submission Reel, a booster seat is shown in Lorie's station wagon. Fans speculate that the seat belonged to Caila; she was 8 and the weight/height requirements are 80 pounds 57 inches for kids to ride without a booster seat.

Behind the Scenes[]

This episode was filmed in January 2008.

Pop Culture[]

During the Submission Reel, Ken can be seen working on an IBM ThinkPad laptop.
During the DVD Meeting, Caila possesses a Barbie backpack. A brief closeup can be seen when Caila runs up to the driveway, although the image of Barbie being blurred.
During the DVD Meeting when Brandon hits Lorie with the Wii Remote, he was playing either Madden NFL 07 or 08.
Caila has a Webkinz Pink Poodle.
During the DVD Meeting, a Pikachu vase can be seen yards away from Jo and the parents.
Lorie strongly resembles the American actress Idina Menzel.
A copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar book can be seen next to Ken's desk.