Recent study of children joining reception class

Really!?! I used surestart regularly and I always thought the thing it did brilliantly was bringing community together young and old rich or poor. Not having a professional job or a lot of money doesn't make you a bad parent. Letting your 4 year old sit around in nappies watching YouTube all day does, whether that 4 year olds home has a white picket fence or is on the 12th floor of a council tower block doesn't matter.

Absolutely! In the uk children from low income families get 15 hours state funded childcare, and thete is always such up uproar about 'why do the parents need it when they aren't working'. The answer is 'the parents don't need it but the children do'. If we invest in early development and learning we will have happier healthier higher-achieving children and adults which is good for society and the economy.
All the evidence points to nurseries being really important from 2 years old, they really need that social environment to learn the skills needed for school readiness. We were fortunate that I could go part time and we had family help,but we paid for nursery 2 days a week from 2nd birthday for the benefits it brings.

Hi. I'm a parent who failed "despite help".

My son is actually held back from receiving an education despite being enrolled in a school.

Thankfully the law does see not being toilet trained by age 5 as a disability in and of itself, and we've not been referred to social services.

In my sons case it is because he has got a disability but I would actually love to know what the "help" is you believe we receive that we should be referred to social services "despite" it.

We received additional speech and language appointments to understand my sons communication needs. We received referrals to the school nurse who referred to occupational therapy who... sent me a youtube video to watch. Yes. A youtube video. We were signposted to ERIC whom I've already discussed on this thread gave conflicting information and has not worked. We haven't yet had acknowledgement that we're even on a waiting list for the children's continence services.

We've had home visits where they have seen our set up to show we're not depriving DS of opportunities to go to the toilet. They've seen that none of us can actually go to the bathroom in peace so it's always modelled to him. They've seen we speak to him.

We haven't actually had any practical help. We've had a lot of judgemental comments such as "children with autism can still learn to use the toilet, so yours should too" and "just SPEAK to him" which we do till it feels like we've vomited a dictionary but it just shows they don't understand what a social developmental disability actually can present like.

My son was 4 before he could use the stairs. He's almost 6 and still needs to hold a hand. He has no risk awareness and will happily throw himself down. His legs work fine. He has poor proprioceptive recognition and doesn't understand spacial processing the same way you do. We are torn between letting him go down the stairs alone and risking falling and hurting himself and then having to explain to A&E and school he fell down the stairs or just carrying him because it's the safest option.

We let him practice climbing in a safe and controlled environment but no amount of practice will account for his neurological differences.

But I'd love to know what help we should have received to prove that despite that we are still abusive and neglectful and should be on the social services radar.

This is why universal free/cheap pre-school education is so important and such a huge social good.

I’m in South Africa and we only get 4 months maternity leave, so - after 6 months of an extremely expensive nanny arrangement - my 10 month old child attends a small daycare. You would not believe the judgement from people both in person and online about choosing to do this instead of having a nanny or being a SAHM.

At daycare he is happy, learning so much and developing his motor and social skills in leaps and bounds, and comes home well fed and tuckered out from playing and chasing around all day. I would struggle massively to provide him with the same kind of stimulating environment as the key thing is the social interaction and what he is learning from the slightly older kids.

There are no screens at daycare. We have only shown him screens for family video calls and for taking photos - he can’t get enough of the selfie mode on the camera. When the time comes they will help with potty training.

It’s awful that more people don’t have access to this sort of resource. But there’s also an attitude problem among the upper middle classes and mumsnet types which sees daycare/nursery as a necessary evil to enable mom to work, or even a failure on mom’s part, rather than an incredible resource for child development.

So you are suggesting that children who are failing to thrive at home, should stay longer at home, and fall further and further behind their peers? That is not the answer, why should the children suffer even more because their parents, for whatever reason, are unable/unwilling to meet their children's needs (for the children who are delayed due to social rather than medical reasons).

I absolutely agree though that parents should receive support first, and then if no improvement, there should be consequences, although it is hard to impose consequences on the parents which don't also negatively impact on the children.

Social services are overstretched and also often pretty ineffective, health and education professionals can be calling and emailing them ever day with concerns about a child, and their response is that we need 'try harder' ' do more' and we should be social workers as well as being teachers, nurses etc.

Teachers who find children are in this state should immediately report parents to Social Services. This is an unacceptable level of parenting and the parents need investigating, training supporting and monitoring. Society should regard this parenting failure as a form of abuse and show that we are not prepared to allow parents to act like this. What sort of future can those children hope for. It is not the job of teachers to fix such issues. Such children should be held back from education entry till they are capable of doing basic activities. Parents who continue to fail despite help warrant stronger action. Good to hear that this is a minority of children, let's deal with it before it gets worse.

I used to take mine to a Surestart centre and came across the same situation. Great activities and supportive staff but was only attended by better off /well educated professional parents

Sometimes we use a trip to the supermarket as an opportunity to talk about meal planning and healthy eating, let DD have input, convince her that blueberries are a better idea than biscuits and quiz her about money.

Sometimes we've been out all day interacting with my daughter, she's tired, we're tired, and then we remember that we need to do a "big shop" and want to walk around and get the stuff we need without having to spend the whole time chasing her because she's wandered off, trying to stop her climbing in and out and in and out of the trolley seat and negotiating with her about donuts, chocolate and fish fingers.

So if you see me in a supermarket and my daughter is sat in the trolley seat watching Gabby's Dollhouse, and you judge us for it, I'm absolutely OK with that.

I did this too and DD was and continues to be an excellent and enthusiastic reader. It was easy to teach her and she really benefited from the additional confidence.

The poster was reacting to a seemingly strong (negative) opinion on SAH parents. I do have sympathy with her view as, equally, some parents simply believe they are paying a nursery to socialise and potty train etc etc their children so they do not have to.
The truth is there are parents who will or won’t take responsibility for developmental tasks across all strata’s of society whether working or not.
I don’t think you get to demand to know a posters circumstances simply because you are both on a forum; it’s anonymous for a reason.

Whether it's true or not I just find it funny a poster on the first page of this thread tried to blame teen mum's for this recent issue. Um maybe they should look at some statistics and you'd see there's never been less teen mum's than now and the average age to have a child has gone from 23 in 1970s to 29 now. And still posters want to blame young mums 🙄

If you google the report it says that “1 in 4 children starting reception class are not toilet trained, according to teachers.”

directly below that it says “90% of school staff report at least one child in a 2023 reception class who is not toilet trained.”

those are two very different numbers given most reception classes have 25-30 kids? The study does not make sense.

Sometimes the kids scream and scream, (maybe additional needs?)
So parents give them the phones to shop in peace

It's fairly easy for some people to pick up accents.

How do you know all this info? And As you said;
my wee girl was still prone to accidents and I wouldn’t have called that potty trained but they said she was counted as such
How do you know the other 52 aren't the same?

But if you grow up in the UK with parents who speak British English and you have an American accent it's highly likely that you have spent too much time watching YT/TV etc.

That’s a good point. Several years ago now we were advised on starting school to include a change of underwear in pe bags because they expected some accidents. They were used (both by DS and by others because I was a reliable parent who after the first time told the teacher I absolutely did not mind the occasional loss of primark pants).

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

OTOH one thing I liked about Peppa Pig when Gdcs were fans, was that at least she doesn’t have an American accent!

No - just an unbelievably irritating Received Pronunciation one, like a porcine Verucca Salt.

I have read Drs saying severe constipation issues are much more common in children than they used to be

Same problem in our school. Children starting school without being toilet trained or able to feed themselves and don't know how to interact with others. It's quite frightening to see the effects modern life is having on children.
I know I'll be flamed and I know there are exceptions to the rule with some children having development issues etc but for the most part it's lazy parenting. Devices are taken everywhere and it's sad to see. Devices are at dinner tables, children holding them in pushchairs, in shopping trollies. Children need to connect with people and nature and real life. For the record I have young children and I work and I used some nursery. When I went to the shops they would be involved. Even as babies, I would pass them things to hold and study, we read books at bedtime, they helped with housework (as fun not chores). I talked to them and sang on car journeys. I listened to their stories. They helped cook dinner and Bake cakes. If we went out for food we would colour or play hangman or eye spy. Small efforts and big rewards. As toddlers when they got up at 5am they would climb into bed with me and I would give them a device to watch things if I needed a bit more sleep. We were not without Devices but they were the back up when needed rather then the norm.

My kid has ASD and didn't develop the nerve to tell them they needed a wee until aged five.

However, they had regular reminders to use the toilet and even though there were accidents at nursery was out of nappies at three. I don't know of any real reason why a child should still be in nappies at five other than a severe developmental delay.

The thing about muscle tone is really scary though. We used to be able to send mine on laps around the park because they had so much excess energy. And they had one of those three wheeled scooters they bombed everywhere on. You just don't seem to see that anymore. These kids are being pushed in pushchairs instead. Mine used to insist on walking to toddler group because they were fiercely independent. Now, they all seem to be lethargic in a pushchair before they've even got there!

Very common for autistic children

Looking at the wording it also includes those with trouble wiping and those with constipation issues that leak.

Both of which are common issues in the younger side of school starters.

Ah yes sorry I see it, thanks, although as previous poster mentioned having mishaps is quite different to wearing nappies. I stand by the other points as well.

No its not, and I hate it, although we have a wonderful nursery. I cherish the non-nursery days I have with DC and wish I could just send him 2 days a week instead of 4.
I'm finding potty training a trial as obvs some days he's at nursery and I can't leave him to run around barebum.