Recent study of children joining reception class

This doesn’t mean children are there all that time, it’s to accommodate people’s working patterns.

It’s not a school with compulsory attendance times - children arrive and depart at their parent’s convenience.

Such strong opinions, with absolutely no knowledge or experience!

Really? I think the problem is people making decisions at every level, from governments to individuals, based on what is really little more than propaganda, rather than looking at evidence.

The Rowntree foundation's study into intergenerational unemployment, found that half of 1% of unemployed households were of two generations that had never worked, and found none that were of 3 generations. If they do exist, the amount must be even more miniscule.

Maybe there has been a breakdown, but it would seem more likely to be because of a break with the social contract by the Thatcher government; the increasing insecurity of work, housing, healthcare etc.

It's something I've seen talked about in relation to ASD, sounding like you're speaking with a foreign accent. I used to get asked if I was South African as a kid, apparently I sounded like I was, lots of ND in our family. There's also the autism accent but I don't think that one sounds specifically American. My autistic kids do tend to use YouTube to zone out when overwhelmed and exhausted, but haven't developed an American accent,the odd mispronounced word, which gets corrected and that's it.

Oh and I’ve witnessed some absolutely appalling interactions between nursery staff and children. Toys being snatched off children by staff, staff not wanting to change nappies so leaving them wet/soiled, staff leaving children to cry because they want a longer lunch break or are just fed up.

All in a very highly regarded, top fee paying school.

@Liveandletlive18

A previous poster said the “majority” of potty training was done by nursery which is probably where the response came from. But glad your experience was diff!

Yes I agree..
The book 'young children learning' (Wizard and Hughes) is a study documenting the conversations and interactions that happened between a child and engaged caregiver at home vs the conversations at nursery. It's getting on a bit now (pre phones and screens) but was a real eye opener.

I work and had to take a few weeks off to potty train dc. Nursery were supportive but certainly didn’t “pick up the slack” all of the hard work was done by me in relation to it. But yeh I totally agree it’s just bad parenting whether or not the parent works or not.

@Liveandletlive18

What frustrates me is that I work in Early Years, and I have seen a very, very worrying trend - not only in parents but also the schools themselves.

About 15 years ago, more progressive methods came in where we are pushed to be ‘scaffolders’ rather than teach. Any teacher showing a child a technique is deemed to be stifling their creativity.

Preschools have turned into just a mass of toys being distributed around rooms and not actually played with. Children aren’t encouraged to listen, and a lot of educators are just on their knees.

Senior managers tend to be in meetings, in offices or on a computer rather than having a full overview and leading things forward.

Data protection, bureaucracy, ‘new initiatives’ etc means that everyone is scared to move in case they do the wrong thing, so no one takes accountability.

Very young children are being pigeon holed as being this, that or the other - rather than addressing the environment they are in and the support they are given.

If you don’t have time to potty train your child then you are not fit to be a parent and should have refrained from having them.

wtaf is this?

Has it actually been confirmed that the children this study is talking about are the children of teenage parents? I had my son (now 22) as a young single mum and he was toilet trained, could recognise some words/numbers way before reception age. I was at home with him for the first 3 years and I taught him all of these things. You'd think parents who were at home all day have the time to do this aswell.
The biggest change I've seen is babies:toddlers in front of a screen 24/7 with parents who do the same. Also a change in attitude towards parenting, my SIL (who's 41) had a little boy 5 years ago and she's only just got him toilet trained, she wouldn't take advice from
anyone on how to do it and the support I used (health visitors/ play group schemes seem to have disappeared. (Or she chose not to use them)

She said (sorry it was churning out babies not breeding):

I assume she and the generations before her claim benefits and churn out babies to stay on UC with no requirements to look for work and therefore can be a SAHM. That is why I asked the question!

you are excused thanks. I didn’t see that comment. Someone said you specifically are breeding children for benefits ?

surely it’s down to Lazy parenting - weather that’s a stay at home parent or a busy working parent ! It doesn’t matter - loads of stay at home parents do all the potty training, teaching, get the kids out of daily for exercise - have them school ready! If you work and have them at nursery the nursery picks up the slack surely 🤷‍♀️

so it’s bad lazy parenting that’s to blame not one specific group

"While I agree ‘readiness’ is probably overplayed and used as an excuse to delay…

… potty training from birth is pointless. As you discovered, as they weren’t out of nappies until 2 anyway!"@MidnightPatrol @GreenTeaLikesMe

The point the poster made is that her babies were taught from very little what the expectation is - using a potty. Not teaching them that nappy is the default and there are no other options until 3 and then suddenly wanting them to do something different at the age when they are learning defiance.
Teaching gradually with everything makes better sense.
And I'm sure when she says her babies were in nappies until two, she would've had far less messy nappies than the average parent who doesn't put them on the potty earlier. Definitely not pointless.

Nobody said this

I just googled. The 3 closest to me are open from 7.30am-7.00pm so that’s 11.5. So I was wrong, it’s not 12.

Exactly. The system is not attuned to individuals. It's just pile' em high and crowd control.

In theory nurseries are supposed to provide stimulation and on paper they will, but when I've toured them that's definitely not the case for all. Some have very high staff turnover and disinterested staff sitting watching the children but not interacting with them - the pay is not high and when it's difficult to get staff, this can happen.

As for most things, the cheapest nurseries will in most cases be the worst. This idea that nurseries are always going to be fantastic for children just doesn't stack up with the economics or reality always.

It's just never going to be the case that all nurseries are better than parental care, nor the inverse.

I don’t think you can blame WFH. After all there is no way I could get any work if they were at home while I worked as they always want me to get involved with playing with them.

WFH means I can pick them up from nursery on time without finishing work early.

Excuse me I was told I was “breeding” children to be a SAHM on benefits on this thread.

Interested at the finger of blame pointing at… working parents that use nurseries.

There seems to be some misunderstanding by those who don’t use nurseries what they’re like. They don’t stick Peppa Pig on and hope for the best.

I also am surrounded by dual-income households and don’t know anyone that’s got their child in nursery 12 hours a day. There are very few at my child’s nursery that are even there five days a week.

The nurseries are actively engaged in the child’s development, and that includes potty training. It’s actually a brilliant environment for it - all potty training together, seeing other children doing it etc.

It's a mix of technology development (screen time increasing), cost of living crisis (working from home with kids watching TV in order to save on crazy childcare costs) and growing individualism/selfishness/isolationism of the people (not wanting to go out and interact with family/friends). It will not get better, it will only get worse as the society and technology have been evolving in that direction for decades now but it has sped up in the last 10 years due to smartphone/VoD popularity and then Covid.

Someone saying “kids don’t watch tv in nursery” isn’t the same as saying “it’s the SAHP to blame”. Of course it isn’t there are bad stay at home parents and bad working parents. There have been really nasty direct comments about working parents doing no parenting and booking extravagant holidays I have not seen a single comment criticising stay at home parents in the same way.
I’m sick of SAHP on mumsnet making snide remarks like for example “I’m sick of the idea parents leaving their kids in nursery for 12 hours is the ideal” . For most people it’s not the ideal I don’t know anyone who says it’s “ideal” .

I think it is easy to generalise .my D’s Asd/adhd was fully toilet trained when he was 3. He had delayed speech but when he did spoke like he was posh . I realised he got it from cbbcbies. He also went to nursery 15 hours a week , swimming once a week from a couple of months, could read before he started school, attended weekly groups . But had low core strength .

i do think lots of people who think they are positive parenting aren’t and yes I do think personal screens are given children far too young they are missing out on the real world .

I think that there are reasons for everything..

My daughter couldn't walk up and down stairs when she started pre-school. We lived in a flat with very steep steps, so I carried her up and down. She never needed to walk upstairs. She certainly couldn't have practised on them. They were pretty dangerous. She was potty trained by 2 1/2. She could speak in full sentences, knew the alphabet and could write her name.

I know lots of people who worked fulltime during Covid with the kids at home. I don't think that putting the TV on was lazy but a necessity.

I don't judge people letting their kids use the phone or tablet. My kid have screen time. They also do day trips to the zoo, museums, park ect. You have no idea what those kids were doing 5 minutes ago.