personal responsibility continued------------- are the parents not responsible for anything anymore?????

[stitch]

so parents are not deemed fit to teach their kids about making food anymore???? wasnt it bad enough when parents were declared unfit to teach them about the birds and the bees?

[LadySherlockofLGJ]

Food technology My Arse..............


Home Economics Yes please


OOOOOOOOOOOOh the world has gone mad, some days I really empathise with my parents generation.

[Caligula]

Well if parents were teaching their kids about making food, then you wouldn't get children mistaking tuna for donkey.

[Hulababy]

If that report is correct then it would appear that many parents currently are NOT teaching their children about food and cooking. Not fair to blame schools though.

TBH It would be bother me now if DD couldn't recognise at least common fruit and vegetables right now (she's 3 and half) let alone not knowing what they were when at school. DD knows most of these, plus other less common ones already - she has pretend fruit and veg she plays cooking with, she comes shopping with me and she helps me cook dinner sometimes. And I know I don't do that often enough really, but even so. That is how they learn, not though 50 minute school lessons!

That Jamie Oliver programme astounded me. Okay, some children might not recognise say a leek - but they must surely know it wasn't a potato!

[JoolsToo]

Home Economocs My Arse ...............

Domestic Science Yes please

[LadySherlockofLGJ]

[twinsetandpearls]

pmsl, has anybody thought that the kid who thought the bowl of pasta was a donkey just had better things to do than answer daft questions and was taking the piss!

[princesspeahead]

we called it "dom sci" jools

[twinsetandpearls]

But i do think it is a shame that schools (or the ones I have taught at) do not teach Home Economics/ Domestic science anymore.

I can remember being excited to discover I was covering a Food Tech GCSE class as I thought I might get fed! How disapointed I was to dicover they were designing convenience food labels and that they were yet to chop a vegetable or turn an oven on.

[twinsetandpearls]

I can't look at Ruth Kelly without seeing her as a spotty school kid thanks to Dead Ringers.

[ScarySkribble]

Its sad but many children don't get to learn about cooking and different foods at home. Its vital that they learn these life skills and if its not happening at home then at least they can learn at school.

At high school we all did 2 years of home ec. anyway and learned the basics.

[soapbox]

Well you just have to watch all the reality shows such as wife swop and Jamies school dinners to be very aware that some parents are not fit to cook for their children never mind teach them about good nutrition.

Did you see the woman on JSD wondering round the supermarket with no idea of what avocado was????

She said she have never bought fresh fruit and veg

No turkey twizzlers were good enough for her littlies

[stitch]

sorry, had to disappear and do houseworky things.

my 8 year old ds has bee n able to make himself a cheese sandwich, for hte past two years. he can bake brownies, ok only from the packet, and i do the oven bits, but if i left him to it, he could probly fend for himsself, and his younger siblings. why does it have to be school that teaches kids how to do this. what are the parents doing? other than buying turkey twizzlers?????

similarly, its good that schools teach sex ed, but imo, at the end of the day it is the parents responsibility to ensure their kids know that having sex means a baby is a definite possibility.
why do we expect schools and teachers to bring up kids?

[ScarySkribble]

My DS age 2 can put his pizza in the micro, put his twizzlers in the oven (with smiley faces) and he is learning how to make the perfect pot noodle (so he doesn't get all the powdery bits left. He also make his own tea for his bottle.

[stitch]

ss, what i meant is that my 8 year old has the life skills to be able to get food out of the fridge and feed himself and his siblings something if for some very strange reason i, or another responsible adult was not around. he has those skills because i have ensured he learn this.

six months ago i fell and sprained my ankle. he took care of me for two hours until dmil turned up to take them with her. he made his sister a bottle of milk, made me coffee, was very sweet and loving to me. got me babies changing things so i could clean her nappy. and when dmil turned up, made sure i had a bottle of water and some biscuits next to me so i wouldnt have to get up and walkon my extremely painful ankle.

[Chandra]

When DS's food is too hot I place it in the freezer for a couple of minutes. To my surprise, one day when DS was less than 2 yrs old and I was on the phone, DS interrupted me asking for a spoon. When I looked at the table I noticed that he had taken his food out of the fridge, placed it perfectly on the table, with his water on the side! So I can say that DS found the way to the fridge and the way to open it and get what he wanted since a very early age.

[ScarySkribble]

Sorry stich I wasn't taking the P out of you just trying to be funny about crap food. I am teaching my DS actually 8yrs similar skills.

[logic]

Tbh, I don't really understand why schools have cooking and sex ed as part of the curriculum. As far as I am concerned, they go to school to learn academic subjects. Everything else is the responsibility of their parents. Yes, there are going to be parents who don't pass on these skills to their children but schools aren't supposed to be substitute parents IMO. Worst of all, is that the schools seem to be imposing their own moral values onto the children and not just the plain facts...

[ScarySkribble]

In an ideal world maybe, but schools are not purely for academic subjects what about arts, technology, PE, Home Economics (Hospitality).

[Chandra]

No, they are not, but I belive that teachers have already enough problems to get the children to learn the basic subjects ( on which both children and school are evaluated)to an acceptable level as to expect them to do the job of their pupil's parents. I think that the basic survival skills (like get feed) are responsability of the parents.

[ScarySkribble]

It would be great if kids went to school with basic skills but they don't. Maybe thought needs to be put into the teaching of these perhaps not even by teachers if we are talking about Primary age.

At high school when we did Home Ec there was only about 2 boys who had any experience of cookery its not a new problem.

[HRHQoQ]

but girls who went to school always used to be taught to cook - in the early days it was cooking and sewing etc etc.

There's nothing new about the idea of our children being taught to cook at school! My mum has always cooked things from scratch - and her lovely pastry skills.........were learned at school.

School should be more than ABC, 123 IMO, hence the reason we're now getting more schools offering vocational exams instead of just 'academic'.

[ScarySkribble]

I thought the curriculum had to include vocational subjects anyway. It has since the 1950's. Literature and Numeracy are not the be all and and all.

[HRHQoQ]

well yes they do - but most schools places a MASSIVE emphasis on the 'academic' side of stuff, often to the detriment of 'vocational' subjects.

[ScarySkribble]

I think they key is to get a good balance, not every child is going to have an academic career and not every child gets taught much at home.

[Tortington]

abc 123 more important.

boil in the bag, microwave, pot noodles, instant mash, open a tin - order a pizza - not difficult