To think change is desperately needed in schools?

I also think screens are to blame. The kids have nothing to talk about other than videos on apps. They all know each others need because of group chats on WhatsApp and Snapchat. They don’t actually have to ask each other how their weekend was because it’s all there on social media.

As a parent and a teacher I think a massive part of this is to do with the cost of living.
I had to choose between going back to work full time when my kids reached 9 months, or taking a financial hit to stay at home / go part time. I’ve been teaching part time for the last 3 years and the time has been lovely but has been a balance of being exhausted on my working days and too broke to do much on my days off.

I went to gymnastics, ballet, swimming and dance class as a child - All in the local community halls or schools. This all exists for kids but gymnastics near us is £30 direct debit. Swimming is £54 per 30 min session etc. It’s all so unaffordable! There are no low price playgroups or social things it’s all overpriced soft plays.

Mine were both small during Covid so parks and being outside was limited - we still haven’t had all our swings reinstated!

I’ve now gone back to work full time, so affordability is a bit better, but now they are out of the house 7.30 - 4.30 and all of us are shattered. I’m still marking/planning for tomorrow and they are watching tv before bed.

It’s a world away from having a stay at home parent, friends/ aunties that live in the street and the safety to play out. Local/affordable groups and clubs.
My colleague made a comment about kids nowadays not being able to ride bikes and it’s given me a pile of guilt that I haven’t taken mine out on bike since last summer and they weren’t riding properly then so will probably have gone back a few steps!

It's screens. The current type of fast paced, flashing images, and the intense, isolating nature of the small screen held close to the face.

We watched a shit load of TV in the 80s, but a) watching a 23 minute cartoon with some semblance of a storyline and a moral, whilst sat on the sofa bickering with your siblings isn't the same as locking yourself into endless 1-3 minute, inane YouTube shorts of people yelling, and b) a "shit load" in the 80s was 2 hours, not 6-8(+) hours.

My ASD child hit me - for weeks I tried everything, time out telling off etc. My HV spoke to a child psychologist who advised me to ignore the hitting. I asked how that would work - he needed to know hitting was wrong. She asked how many times I had told him hitting was wrong - I said countless - she said exactly! He knows! So I followed the advice and initially he hit harder but I did not react - within a day he’d stopped. Never did it again either.

I agree with those who say screens are a huge factor. If I'm in a waiting room without WiFi and I don't have anything to read, I get bored so much faster than I used to. I used to be perfectly happy to just sit with my own thoughts. And I'm a grown woman. If I'd grown up with easy access to iPads and phones, able to watch virtually any video or listen to any song I wanted almost immediately, I know it would have affected my development.

It’s interesting this is a private school. I work in a primary school in an area which has seen rapid gentrification, but the behaviour issues we see coming through the younger years now are like nothing we’ve ever had before.

Previously we had parents who maybe had low academic expectations and that could be an issue, but we did not have the numbers of children who won’t stay in class, are violent, can’t/won’t sit still or follow instructions. It’s crazy!

I’m not saying these issues only affect middle class kids, but I do think it’s new that large numbers of MC kids are presenting with severe behaviour problems.

I think Covid is going to be conveniently used as an excuse for the next few years

This was happening before covid though.

I'll agree it's got worse but it was deteriorating long before covid.

And you probably came home and played outside with friends or family. Spent time talking to family because you had to be together - no separate screens for everyone to retreat to. A few more imagination and cooperation skills needed. Maybe one parent at home a bit more. Or grandparents involved in childcare. Perhaps a bit more community involvement too...
I could go on, but you get the idea! I wonder the impact of losing many of these things.

Nailed it. Almost every day there seems to be something else being pressed on school staff that used to be expected of parents...

Also if you ask people who have been teaching a long time they will say the cirriculum is much more pressured at an early age now.

This is also true.

Well here you go

Covid generation facing development ‘time bomb’

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/295e71b9-7967-47fd-bca2-678ba750b888?shareToken=1f225864a6af85ece17b67cb3515b45b

Children know their rights. We've had pupils saying "I know how to get you fired". Quite a few of the children with behaviour issues have to have 2:1 support as you never know what they might claim has happened.

A parent told my friend that her child misbehaved in her class because her lessons were boring. Children are used to being entertained non stop by stuff on screens so assume education is just a continuation of this. It isn't

IME, diagnosible conditions are not responsible for the worst behaviours in mainstream schools.

Yes, they can be challenging and it's shit because maybe those behaviours wouldn't occur as often if they were in a more appropriate environment where their needs were more appropriately met.

But a significant number of children who display the worst behaviours are the direct product of poor parenting and parental choices.

Parents who themselves have unmet trauma needs who are unable to regulate their own emotions who create an emotionally unstable home environment. My daughter has a friend whose mother would frequently tell her daughter to fuck off and kill herself. SS were involved.

Parents who have 6, 7, 8, 9 children who are overwhelmed and cannot parent adequately. They openly admit their homelives are chaos and then blame the school for their children's behaviour when the children also run riot at home. It didn't occur to any of them that, if they were finding 3 hard going, going on to have a further 3, 4, 5, 6 probably wasn't a good idea.

DV when the mum's won't leave because they don't want their children to come from a broken home. Parents who do leave then introducing their children to a stream of 'friends'.

There are childen who've been abused and who act out. I've been assaulted by children have experienced severe abuse. Pushed up against walls, punched and kicked. The only sense of control they feel is the reign of terror they pursue in school. And I can't do anything to defend myself because its a child.

We are seeing a lot more trauma based poor behaviours in school. Not a choice but completely avoidable had their parents been adequate in the first place.

I can think of so many things that have happened this week and conversations I've had with parents but I wouldn't detail them because it would be unprofessional to do so as those parents would recognise themselves if they read it.

But I am utterly agog at some of the things some parents expect me to be responsible, and take responsibility, for.

Only I'm not allowed to say any of this, not allowed to 'shame', not even on here really, where its all anonymous because it's judgemental and I've no right to stand in judgement and do I not understand how difficult it is..?

I agree with all this

I’m convinced that the problems with language acquisition and speech are linked to some adults’ behaviour with screens, as well as plonking their babies on them and not interacting with them. Pretty much everywhere I go , I see adults with small children glued to their phones : in supermarkets, public transport, cafes, restaurants, walking along with prams… Children won't learn to speak unless adults interact with them and watching tv/being on a phone won’t help children acquire language properly.

As a secondary teacher, I can really see the speech deficits playing out in terms of not understanding how turn-taking / waiting your turn in conversation works, shouting out in class when a teacher is talking to another student or not being able to listen to others. I would note, though, that there are many more children coming through with the SAL difficulties associated with premature birth. Sadly, these children would not have survived in earlier times so it isn’t surprising that there’s an increase in profound difficulties with these children and support has been cut to the bone under the austerity measures. We are also seeing many children with these difficulties in mainstream when what they need and deserve are specialist settings.

OP, I’m so sorry that you are experiencing physical violence at work - no one should have to accept that in their workplace and how distressing for you and the other children that witnessed it. 💐

This.

Development has fundamentally changed by screen time and we know nothing about the implications.

My kids watch some tv most days and play switch at weekends, so I’m not in favour of no screens, but it scares me how much tiny babies are on screens now.

Under 2s on the bus, at tables, in playgrounds…places they could be occupied by the place, the parent, stickers, colouring, water painting…I think the constant screen time is kind of like bubble wrap for developing brains. They’re simply not getting the sensory or social stimulation they need to develop.

I know people will come along and say Would I prefer them to run around screaming then? No, I’d rather they were imaginatively occupied most of the time, and I couldn’t care less about yelling, or crying, or jumping about, or needing to be told off, because that’s what kids are meant to do. They literally need it to learn how to do life.

I also think that the unpaid labour of women in the home AND the community was a large part of what kept society functional in the past.

I mean. Look at the threads on here. Someone the other day posted that their ASD child had hit them and they had simply walked away. One commenter said losing your cool at this child is abusive because “they can’t help it”.
surely stuff like this is part of the problem? Allowing your kids to hit you and excusing it due to their ASD… parents just seem so overwhelmed and there’s not enough time and no one is coping

I have friends who are teachers and what they tell me horrifies me. The worst were SEN staff being attacked literally daily and being told it was part of the job. The other horror story was a teenage child bringing a knife to school with the stated intention to injure other children, being suspended and then the suspension being overturned because it wasn't serious enough to suspend him.

The social contract is breaking down 100%.

Dunno. The genie is out of the bottle. I’m just saying how it used to be

I think because they are not being given opportunities to learn how to self regulate at an early age
When I was young, if I got overwhelmed, I was given the opportunity to seek options to calm myself - run around the garden, look at a book, some quiet play, jump on a bed, hug with mum. But now if a child is upset, so often a parent puts something on their phone to calm their child - and this is no judgement as I have done it myself many times. But children become so reliant on these things to regulate, that when they don't have access to them, they struggle to regulate themselves.

We are so 'helicopter' risk averse now, that children in turn take on our anxiety and are constantly on 'high alert' on 'fight or flight'

I think they START delayed because of screens and lack of community/ not enough time playing outdoors at ages of 1/ 2/ 3/ before school. And because parents lack social/ community spaces - ie. sure start centres - before sure start there was actual communities! community hubs. council estate community centres, parks /playgroups/ before that women didn't work as much and would have spent a lot more time with other parents

got to wonder also if childcare isn't always good enough ie. nursery before school.

Dread to think. I saw two little ones out for lunch with their mums the other day- about 2 years old if that. Even when their food came out, the children were stuck staring at mobile phones playing loud cartoons. I just don’t get the massive reliance some parents have on their phones to manage their children. It’s so sad. I saw the same happen 2 weeks before but with 2 older children - no one spoke to them, they just sat in the cafe eating and watching the phone.

@GoodnightAdeline it hasn't always been the case. School has only been around 150 years in any form at all - and it's only in the last 10/20 years that children have stopped playing in their own streets/ neighbourhoods - with rise of traffic and screens. Also if you ask people who have been teaching a long time they will say the cirriculum is much more pressured at an early age now.

but while children could play out regularly near home - they had that movement / play at least.