‘Confronting’ playground experiment footage leads to emotional walkout

“Confronting” footage of a “sick” playground experiment involving Aussie kids has led to an emotional walk off on 9’s new parenting series.

“Confronting” footage of every mum and dad’s worst nightmare has led to an emotional walk off on Channel 9’s new series Parental Guidance.

The show, hosted by parenting expert Dr Justin Coulson and Today’s Ally Langdon, sees 10 different sets of parents with different parenting styles go through a series of challenges to decide whose style is best.

On tonight’s episode, the kids of five parents were sent to the park with a nanny, and approached by an actor posing as a stranger with a dog, wanting to show the children his other puppies.

Footage of the encounters led to an emotional reaction from all of the families, none more so than from self-confessed “helicopter parents” Rachel and Sam.

The ‘confronting’ footage of strangers appproaching their children upset Rachel and Sam. Picture: Channel 9

An upset Rachel left the room. Picture: Channel 9

Followed by her husband Sam. Picture: Channel 9

Asked for her take on “routine parents” Brett and Tony’s four sons following the stranger from the park, a teary Rachel said: “Sorry, I actually just need like two minutes” before walking from the room.

The mum-of-two had previously said during video of the other kids that she felt “sick, really sick” – and after returning to the set, revealed why.

“As a survivor [of childhood sexual abuse at age 5], watching that challenge was so confronting because that was a small representation of a piece of my childhood,” she explained.

“It just got all overwhelming and it was pretty intense.”

The kids of five parents were sent to the park with a nanny, and approached by an actor posing as a stranger with a dog. Picture: Channel 9

Brett and Tony were also in tears after seeing their sons follow the stranger.

“Brett and I are very fearful – probably because I’m a social worker and he’s a teacher, we hear about these stories all the time,” Tony said.

Host Ally Langdon, who grew more emotional as the challenges progressed, apologised to the parents, saying “we knew this one was going to be really tough”.

“But it’s really important that we talk about it and break down each one,” she added.

“Every family at home watching is going to rethink the conversation they have around stranger danger. Because we’re all questioning right now what the kids would do in a situation like that. It’s an incredibly, incredibly difficult one.”

The challenge brought host Ally Langdon to tears. Picture: Channel 9

Parents Yann and Donna. Picture: Channel 9

Even for “French nouveau” style parents Yann and Donna, whose daughter Harper didn’t go with the stranger, witnessing the encounter was no less difficult.

“It’s confronting,” Donna said, wiping away tears.

“We’re really lucky that we could get into a situation where we could test it. I’ve said [to Harper], there are people who are really unwell, they could take you away, they could blackmail us. We’ve had those conversations, but you don’t think it’s going to happen to you.”

Asked for a strategy they employ that could help the other parents teaching stranger danger to their kids, Yann said the couple invite their daughter “to have a critical eye on everything, even on the parents”.

“There is nothing that you should follow blindly, no law, no authority, no nothing,” he added. “[We tell her to] question everything.”

Dr Coulson said that “teaching our children to develop their own critical thinking skills is invaluable”, especially in a scenario like the stranger danger one.

“It helps them to deal with the challenges that life throws at them, especially when parents aren’t around,” he explained.

“You can encourage critical thinking in your children by pretend play and role plays or by simply giving them real life situations and asking them, ‘What would you do if you were in that situation?’”

Parental Guidance airs on Channel 9 at 7.30pm on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday

Originally published as ‘Confronting’ playground experiment footage leads to emotional walkout