MovieChat Forums > Supernanny (2005) Discussion > Do you think its real or staged?

Do you think its real or staged?


I watch SuperNanny or Nanny 911 every now and then when I run across them on TV, and every time, I am just amazed between the out-of-control children and the parents who don't seem to have a clue (or a backbone) when it comes to raising their children. So I can't help but wonder if these families are real. Do people with such horribly behaving children really volunteer to display themselves on TV to thousands of viewers? Or do you think some/all of this is staged (either by having actors play the families or by having the producers coach real families on how to behave during taping)?

I'm 26 and do not have children (nor do I want them at this point in my life). But if I were a parent with a child who acted anything like most of those featured on this show, I would be hiding in shame rather than broadcasting it to the world. I would be embarrassed at the idea that my child had the run of the household, and yet most of these parents either don't care or don't realize how much they are controlled by their children. Also, if these families are real, what are these children going to think when they look back on this show as adults? I've heard adults who were child actors say they can't always look back on their early work with pride, but this show should take embarrassment about childhood behavior to a whole new level.

What do others think?

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I think it's real for the most part, maybe there are some scripted but I don't think so myself. It is sad what the future is because I work in a daycare and I can say that the children are so much more worse than they were when I first started 24 years ago. We don't have much trouble with them because they know we won't put up with guff, but sometimes I would like to slap parents, because I blame them. lol

I mean one kid did not want to wear his underwear to daycare, so he came without underwear, which I guess would be fine if he kept his business in his pants. The problem was his pants were two sizes too big, so we had to tie a string around his pants so we would not have to look at it all day. Same mom lets them sit in the front seat of the car because they want too, which is against the law because of air bags and such.



When all is said and done, more is said than done.

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Look at the McKeever family the kids were real actors before they were on Supernanny

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My friend's family was on the show and trust me it was definitely real.

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I would think it to be real. You usually can't get kids to cry on cue. But there is a lot of footage you don't see since its only about 40ish minutes long and Supernanny is obviously not there for only 40 minutes. So they only show the really bad parts and then some good stuff to show progress. So not staged, but edited and real is my conclusion

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I believe it's real for the most part. But I also believe there are times the kids are hamming it up for the cameras, particularly when they're at places like the grocery store. I've also caught multiple times on this and Nanny 911 where they'll use different days' footage for a couple seconds since they'll be wearing different clothes all of a sudden.

I ate a pear. I ate three pears. - Lizzie Borden

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