Jo Frost takes on families with new TLC show
Jo Frost is losing the nanny moniker and getting up close and personal with families in her new series, "Family S.O.S.," debuting Tuesday on TLC.
The English star, who shot to fame on the hit TV show "Supernanny," takes on some of America's most troubled families, using her skills to pull them back from the edge of self-destruction. Some families are breaking apart over marital issues, others have teenagers in the house causing a lot of stress.
"Some of the families I'm working with -- for the first time in like 12-15 years -- they have never sat down and said, 'This is a problem. We need to talk about this,'" said Frost, who noted that the families she meets tend to blame lack of time or too much work for not addressing their own issues.
Frost, 41, said her latest role isn't too much of a stretch from what she did as the "Supernanny."
"When I filmed the 'Supernanny' show I was helping parents with toddlers who had unruly behavior," she said. "But all the work I was doing with the adults, as well as the children and the adults, was never on the show. When you film for 200 hours and you're trying to pack that into a 48-minute show, there's a lot that gets left in the editing bay. This time, I was like, 'That needs to be seen.'"
For the new series, Frost, who now lives in Los Angeles, traveled across the country with a team, visiting homes in hopes to getting families to face their problems head-on.
"We are a family in ourselves, traveling across America. That's what we hope to continue doing. We're like a little circus. We go from one state to the next, helping families. I'm passionate about what I do. For me, it's about educating America about how we can put families on the map and prioritize our family in a way that allows us to not procrastinate about everything that's wrong....I feel like I have a tank that never runs out of gas. You just want to keep working and going and educating.."
Frost said the filming of the new shows was "demanding with respects to the travel you do and the amount of time you spend on planes and in cars getting to the families. Easily, we can spend 18 hours a day in a home. Easy. I'll work with a family for three days and I'll may not see them for a couple of weeks and then go back for a return day. It's loose...you're not going to be watching the show going, 'I know what bit is going to come next.' You really do feel like you're peeking into the families' home."
Nothing is scripted, says Frost, who describes "Family S.O.S." as "down to earth" and "real." "It's life as it is."
In the end, Frost hopes families watching at home can learn a thing or two by watching the show. "And then they can switch that television off and say, 'We've got a few of those issues as well and this is the first change we can make'...Families I've been working with are ready for the honesty," said Frost, who insists family needs to be priority, but it often isn't.
If all goes well, Frost plans to launch a live tour later this year, where she will sit down with various families in the U.S. in front of a live audience -- something she hopes will be both informative and entertaining.
"Family S.O.S." airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on TLC. For more on Frost and the series, check out the video above.
