Whole families on UC, PIP, DLA and carers' allowance for each other?

One of my siblings actually said to me that she wouldn’t get out of bed as early as me for a salary. I thought she was stupid and far too comfortable on her benefits. Her £4,000 per month on benefits made her ignorant to the real world in terms of minimum wage and living in a budget. She has no rent or council tax to pay. She is comfortable in her little bubble. She has made 4 children who all have the same disability therefore PIP.

That's shocking, @Ethelspagetti. She should put them all in care and get a bloody job.

Oh, hang on ... Google tells me it costs around £6kpw to keep a child in care in the UK, so that would be far more costly than your sister getting £4k a month to care for them herself. She's saving the taxpayer a small fortune.

You are demonstrating my point.

Neither I nor the OP are talking about you.

Yet you jump in to derail the conversation. You are defending those who abuse the system. You are trying to prevent a discussion about how to help those who are stuck in a benefits rut and don’t want to get out of it because that is what their community does and all they know.

Your defensiveness is blinding you.

Because I don’t believe people do abuse the system.

No en masse like the OP says.

Im lucky that my upbringing was generally middle class and so k was raised in an aspirational household. I’m intelligent so did well at school and had a fairly ok school experience.

It gave me the tools I needed to cope and manage when things went tits up and unprepared in my adult life.

Some people aren’t that lucky .

One of my siblings actually said to me that she wouldn’t get out of bed as early as me for a salary. I thought she was stupid and far too comfortable on her benefits. Her £4,000 per month on benefits made her ignorant to the real world in terms of minimum wage and living in a budget. She has no rent or council tax to pay. She is comfortable in her little bubble. She has made 4 children who all have the same disability therefore PIP.

That's shocking, @Ethelspagetti. She should put them all in care and get a bloody job.

Oh, hang on ... Google tells me it costs around £6kpw to keep a child in care in the UK, so that would be far more costly than your sister getting £4k a month to care for them herself. She's saving the taxpayer a small fortune.

This isn't a bashing, rather a genuine observation and we're privileged in the UK to have support with benefits and disabilities.

Having adopted 2 siblings with special needs over a decade ago it opened me up to a whole new world to me. With DC in specialist schools and needing a lot of intervention from agencies and medical support I've met so many parents and children. As a teacher this was so insightful and, while having always been extra devoted to students who had difficulties, my own experience as a parent took it to another level.

Teaching, I was always aware and sympathetic to those who barely made it to lesson, almost fell asleep but professionally had to adhere to the 'not participating' and when told to 'fuck off' it was call out. I knew there would be further investigation as to why they act like this by more able and senior colleagues. Didn't take it personally but, as you can imagine, it's difficult when you have several students like this while under the pressure of teaching a tricky maths part of the syllabus.

So as a parent of ND DC I experienced it from the other side. It was very difficult because our DC were causing disruptions due to their severe diagnosis.

Throughout our journey and specialist schools I saw a lot of reality. This comes (finally) back to my point. Year after year it became blatantly obvious that the vast majority of children have parents with their own issues, whether hereditary or learnt behaviour.

I got a job at the primary school as a liason officer so met most parents. All lovely and care about their DC but sadly struggled with managing themselves, their homes etc. Those few who weren't eligible for taxis and escorts (walkable distance) relied heavily on GPs to take and pick up from school. There were some parents who did drive and drop off, like me, but it was about 5%.

So mostly the parents were on UC, claimed PIp for anxiety and MH, got DLA for all DC and also carers' allowance for looking after DC. While i visited it was clear they were were reclusive, their days were spent watching TV, gaming, DC picked up in a taxi and they had struggled to get out of bed, knew they are provided breakfast at school, went back to bed. Yes I've seen this on an early morning visit multiple times.

I understand but also a part of me felt frustrated that they had fallen into a rut, able bodied, could have long conversations, but have had so much support that has enabled this.

As a school we reached out to parents to come and integrate, provided workshops, held informal educational classes how we can help our DC. As a parent and before being employed there I attended these and it so nice to meet other parents. The reality... they just sat there, being served coffee by an already busy TA, talked all the way through the presentations then left, after already leaving several times for a smoke during an hour and half get together. Still as an attending parent at this point I could see TA was struggling so stepped in to help serve the refreshments, set up equipment and clear up afterwards. One Mum asked me to open a window, another asked to give her some biscuits...I was the same as them, a parent, but they were just totally oblivious to the situation.

Then walking out, having cleaned up and they were chatting outside, all I heard was that was so boring, I know how to bring up my kids, waste of time coming out, so what you doing now, probably Netflix.

Then getting the role and seeing deeper into their lifestyles it confirmed that actually so many of these parents had come from a generational cycle with low aspirations and no encouragement within modern education, social workers or support from us all could change their mindsets of behaviour. Sadly it really is a case of we get money, DC have their consoles, school provides meals and exercise, bags of amazing stuff at Christmas and end of year which we don't even say thank you for, we can complain online if we don't like something etc.

This is just the basic circumstances, delve deeper and you would be shocked at how some of these poor kids live. A whole different thread would have to be made about drug dealing, violence, not allowing DC in the house so they have to become one of the balaclava gangs and so much more.

As parents, even if we have our own issues, we all need to put our DC first, not rely on others to do it for us.

These threads always descend the same way. Posters take it personally and start rattling on about their personal circumstances defensively, listing condition after condition as evidence of why they dont fit what OP is talking about

Then people use examples of very extreme conditions/illnesses like the quadraplegic and make out people are expecting him to spring out of bed and do a days work on the bins or something

The very point is, those examples dont fit what OP is talking about, the observations are about a very large minority who conditions are fluid, vague, based on years of apathy, poor lifestyle, easy to manipulate.

The example above of the woman with anxiety is a good one, living a full life, yet posters are convinced 'there must be a lot more to the claim than you dont know about'. Im sure there is more to 'the claim', that doesnt mean there is more to her condition, the evidence is there in front of your eyes, living a full life, no doubt work or the thought of it brings on anxiety symptoms. That is not a reason to be paying someone in this situation.

And, just an observation on this thread, for the love of god, ASD/ND is not 'hereditary', the current working theory is that its genetic, they are not the same thing.

These threads always descend the same way. Posters take it personally and start rattling on about their personal circumstances defensively, listing condition after condition as evidence of why they dont fit what OP is talking about

Then people use examples of very extreme conditions/illnesses like the quadraplegic and make out people are expecting him to spring out of bed and do a days work on the bins or something

The very point is, those examples dont fit what OP is talking about, the observations are about a very large minority who conditions are fluid, vague, based on years of apathy, poor lifestyle, easy to manipulate.

The example above of the woman with anxiety is a good one, living a full life, yet posters are convinced 'there must be a lot more to the claim than you dont know about'. Im sure there is more to 'the claim', that doesnt mean there is more to her condition, the evidence is there in front of your eyes, living a full life, no doubt work or the thought of it brings on anxiety symptoms. That is not a reason to be paying someone in this situation.

And, just an observation on this thread, for the love of god, ASD/ND is not 'hereditary', the current working theory is that its genetic, they are not the same thing.

Exactly, if I read a thread about lazy and entitled mothers, I don't assume it's about me because I'm a mother. I don't list all the ways I'm not entitled or lazy as if someone has personally accused me. I certainly don't suggest that mothers can never be lazy or entitled just because I think I'm not. The willingness of some posters to go out there to bat for other people that they know nothing about is alarming. Especially when by doing this they are potentially defending and denying situations that are actively harming children. Defending these terrible parents is diabolical

I would rather that UK paid for these services than forking more or less random out.

It seems to work a lot better in other countries not to have all these paid family members. One benefit would also be useful to hand out. My native country it's a benefit a bot more than minimum wages. Not a open pot of money. At all.
No pip no extra money for being your partner's or mum's carer. No first to council housing. Not all that fuss.

Hmm, what to say without it being outing.. shall we say I know of someone claiming for a child but no-one but them apparently sees symptoms, inc school.. brand new car (Motability) & loft stuffed with (unused) wheelchairs etc..
If there's one person doing this, there's many more.

On the other hand, I had to do a Parenting course for my youngest, despite bringing others up successfully.. my child was eventually diagnosed ASD! In fact I can go back much further than that, to my eldest who had colic as a baby. The Health Visitor (somewhere near God to me, as a young mum) told me to use less formula & more water in his feeds, which would help. I talked to another mum in the clinic & she confirmed she'd been told the same, until her husband had put his foot down & said not only did their baby have colic, she was hungry too.. we both mentioned this to the doctor who insisted a Health Visitor wouldn't have said that & we must have misunderstood..

It is hard to see wrongdoing & people scamming the system.
Some parents ARE thick, tbh, BUT have a level of cunning, to take & take. But some of the courses, meetings etc ARE boring & treat adults like children. Unfortunately I don't know the answer.

As@JLou08 says Do you not realise that those parents you're referring to are more likely to have their own learning difficulties/ND which makes it difficult for them to engage with training and impacts their executive function? I'm sure most of them are doing all they can for their DC but they don't all have the same level of capabilities that you do.

I would guarantee that all these parents will have undiagnosed SENs/NB. And I know in-generational families on benefits. From the outside what we see are people who live limited lives, eat unhealthily, spend money they don’t have getting into debt, and too much time on technology.

But before you cut their benefits @Hutinthemiddleofnowhere driving them further into poverty, and as you’re a teacher, why not campaign for better education that meets the needs of children with Sen? An education system that would enable them to not only get an education, but experience one that hasn’t destroyed all vestiges of self belief when they got their weekly spelling tests wrong week after week or couldn’t perform their fast paced mental maths in front of the whole class. Where art, music, drama, industrial design wasn’t removed from schools or school fields sold off to enable students to succeed in other areas.

Why not support political parties that will stand up to the tech bros who have deliberately designed technology that is addictive, destroys young girls self esteem, and exposes everyone to the worst of humanity all in the name of obscene profits? Why not campaign against a food industry that has deliberately engineered calorie dense HPF with salt/sugar/fat combined to give dopamine hits and which is cheaper than fresh food? Why not campaign against the firms that have off shored the well paying jobs that required skills but not a degree in theoretical physics or campaign against betting firms using sophisticated marketing techniques to encourage problem betting? Did you argue against the ridiculous white elephant of HS2 sucking up £100 billion that could’ve been spent on so many better projects? Fight to highlight the corruption and waste of our taxpayer money going to friends in every political party (none is immune)?

Lift your head up op and instead of focusing on the families, look at our wider society and our economy that has slipped from benefiting a majority to creating wealth for a few. I don’t know what the answer is because the welfare bill is likely unsustainable but thanks again to technology, the remaining jobs can be done with fewer people and will be highly work intensive. Not suitable for those with MH problems or physical ailments or those with undiagnosed and unsupported SENs.

This trajectory has been allowed for decades now, no government has seemingly been able or had the will to address the issues given the need to rely on private donations. The evidence against cryptocurrencies is dire with its negative consequences for society but if Reform got elected, then we’d see that brought in to further damage our economy and society.

What we so desperately need is for all our politicians and our business elites to actually want to serve the whole country instead of themselves, their party, their business mates. Let’s hope Burnham’s cabinet can create miracles though I’m not holding my breath. More taxes, but same problems.

Hmm, what to say without it being outing.. shall we say I know of someone claiming for a child but no-one but them apparently sees symptoms, inc school.. brand new car (Motability) & loft stuffed with (unused) wheelchairs etc..
If there's one person doing this, there's many more.

A loft stuffed with unused wheelchairs! Were these wheelchairs purchased by the Mother, or prescribed by the NHS? How would you know what the school is witnessing?

I want to claim as I wear hearing aids in both ears but I work and even though I still struggle to hear customers it will probably be a nope.

You are talking bollocks
To get High rate mobility under DLA the child either wont be able to walk at all
Be blind
Be blind and deaf
Have no feet or limbs
Have a condtion that means that walking severly impairs their health
Be virtually unable to walk ( this can include severe challenging behaviour that makes walking any where safely extremely difficult
Or severe mental impairment
My son got it under severe mental impairment i had to go to tribunal for it
He goes to a specisl school for children with severe and profound learning disabillties its blindingly obvious to everyone hes severly mentally impaired
Nobody gets HRM
On just the say so of the parent.

Benefits are the worst thing that ever happened to this country, and I know I'll get called all the names under the sun for saying that but it's true. It's created a sense of learned helplessness and entitlement amongst so many people that is going to be very hard to eradicate.

What are you proposing instead for those that will never be able to work ? The workhouse, asylums or the final solution?

What are you proposing instead for those that will never be able to work ? The workhouse, asylums or the final solution?

Quit your job and claim benefits then.