To be shocked at ‘school readiness’

You don’t have to “timetable slots of time” with children during the day to teach them developmental skills, you do it organically through everyday interactions with them as a parent.

You ask them to repeat pleases and thank yous every time they ask for something or you hand them something. The first time they recognise letters and sounds, you start showing them their name. Every time you get them dressed in the morning, you set your alarm for ten mins earlier so you can budget in some time for showing them how to do up the buttons on their coat or tie their shoes. When you are getting dinner ready for the family, you call them in 5 mins before it’s served and guide them how to lay the table as you are serving up. When you are feeding the dog, you call them over so they can watch how you do it a few times until they can do it in your absence. When you are doing the weekly grocery shop, you actively involve them in talking about budgets, expiry dates, selecting items etc. If a kid spills something, you show them how to clean it up then guide them to do it themselves the next few times it happens and then eventually they can do it independently and instinctively every time they drop something. If kids see you read a book, they will read a book. If kids see you scrolling your phone, that’s what they will do.

Children are sponges and incredibly observant. So much skills and knowledge children learn is organic and situational and not explicitly taught. It’s learned through socialisation and interaction as you are going about your every day routine. You have to talk to and demonstrate and scaffold to your kids incessantly.

They were taught easy phonics at nursery. As were all the other children in their nursery class. That was all it took for them to learn to read. I accept that they were ahead of the pack at that age. Their sibling needed a lot more parental input, at age 5.
And what do you mean by literacy rates? I'm sure most people aren't reading Shakespeare for fun, but they can help a child to read "The cat sat on the mat". My 5 year old needed help with learning to read, as they weren't getting very far at school, but all it took was sitting down with them and going through a few books a day over the school summer holidays (and yes, I did work). I doubt there are many parents in this country who can't read books designed for 4 and 5 year old early readers with their child. It's a choice.

I'm with my children 24 hours a day - their waking hours make that pretty much 12 hours actual learning time, if my children don't know something it is a parental fault, working parents might be lucky to get a total of two hours a day with their children other than when they are asleep. Most of that time will be taken up by bathing, dressing, feeding and bedtime.

How much can they be expected to do in two hours compared to that? Like it or not child care is responsible for their children for the majority of the waking hours. Responsibility lies with the childcare provider to do most of the work. If it would be a failure on my part as a parent when my child is unable to complete a task, why would it not be a failure on the part of a working parents childcare provider who cares for them for so much of the day, if a child fails to learn a skill?

Do we expect 2 hours with a parent to be more conductive to learning than 8 hours with a childcare provider?

Why? My DC2 could read simple chapter books at age 3. They were taught some early phonics at nursery school and just took it from there, for fun. Don't underestimate what children can do. Children are not all the same, obviously, but plenty of people push them down with a culture of low expectations. Lots of other countries have higher expectations.

Many schools are having to teach dental hygiene. Parents should be around when their child is going to bed and so can monitor tooth brushing. No excuse

IME those who attended a good nursery and pre-school were miles ahead of their peers in terms school readiness and progression.

I'm with my children 24 hours a day - their waking hours make that pretty much 12 hours actual learning time, if my children don't know something it is a parental fault, working parents might be lucky to get a total of two hours a day with their children other than when they are asleep. Most of that time will be taken up by bathing, dressing, feeding and bedtime.

How much can they be expected to do in two hours compared to that? Like it or not child care is responsible for their children for the majority of the waking hours. Responsibility lies with the childcare provider to do most of the work. If it would be a failure on my part as a parent when my child is unable to complete a task, why would it not be a failure on the part of a working parents childcare provider who cares for them for so much of the day, if a child fails to learn a skill?

Do we expect 2 hours with a parent to be more conductive to learning than 8 hours with a childcare provider?

So much bashing of working mothers on here. Working full-time has no bearing on being able to teach your children bare minimum life skills. Likewise, being a SAHM is no indication that you will do this properly either. Second-generation children born to parents of Chinese, Indian and Eastern European origin have (by a wide margin) both the highest levels of educational attainment and the lowest proportion of school-related behaviour issues and these are the ethnicities with the highest proportion of mothers in employment.

If anyone did even a superficial Google search on the research and statistics, it shows that children of working mothers have ever so slightly higher educational attainment and skill acquisition over the course of their school time but it’s said that this is marginal and really there is no discernible difference whatsoever between whether the child comes from a SAHM or a working mothers. It’s not whether the mother works or doesn’t work that has the biggest influence on a child’s development and life outcomes. Correlation isn’t causation.

On a POPULATION level, after income and ethnicity/culture, the biggest indicator of a child’s future attainment is the educational attainment level of the child’s parents (especially the mother) regardless of whether she works or doesn’t work.

Most people on here seem to envision the average SAHM as being this yummy mummy affluent, trad, organic, free range, time-rich, engaged individual, like in a sitcom or American Reese Witherspoon TV drama. The vast majority of SAHM in this country are from lower income households, the kind that they used to show on Wife Swap in the 90s. The average household income in the UK when only the father works is £10,000 lower than the household income where both parents are working so most SAHM don’t have high-flying CEO husbands bringing in £500k. In a lot of lower income households, being a SAHM makes financial sense if you are unable to acquire a job based on your skills or educational qualifications that would surpass what you would have to spend on childcare. There are SAHM mothers in the former category who are raising utter monsters and SAHM in the latter who are bringing up beautifully behaved children and vice versa.

Whether you work or don’t work, you should be teaching your children basic life skills. There is no group of people (working vs SAHM) or working class vs middle class that is vastly outperforming the other in this area (if you control for poverty and neglect). There are utterly useless individuals in all groups and brilliant individuals and ones in between.

It always surprises me that people have a kid and then seem utterly astonished that they have to pay for them, teach them or raise them in any way and expect everyone else to do it. Mumsnet is full of people begrudging paying for lunch, uniform or making breakfast for their child, teaching them basic manners. Absolutely aghast that they have to buy their children a calculator or a pen or pay for any enriching or interesting experience for them ever. The mind boggles.

But there's a million and one people and 'experts' and influencers all with different opinions of how you should do things. It's easy to be left utterly bamboozled.

People don't know how to use the internet.* Instead of reading the million and one experts and influencers, go to a reputable website. I googled nhs child development and here you are:
https://www.nhs.uk/best-start-in-life/early-learning-development/
It leads on to starting reception.

*I remember once when there was an ongoing news story being discussed here, someone posted that she'd been Googling to see if there had been any developments. Why not go straight to the BBC website? (Other reputable news sites are available.)

I'm with my children 24 hours a day - their waking hours make that pretty much 12 hours actual learning time, if my children don't know something it is a parental fault, working parents might be lucky to get a total of two hours a day with their children other than when they are asleep. Most of that time will be taken up by bathing, dressing, feeding and bedtime.

How much can they be expected to do in two hours compared to that? Like it or not child care is responsible for their children for the majority of the waking hours. Responsibility lies with the childcare provider to do most of the work. If it would be a failure on my part as a parent when my child is unable to complete a task, why would it not be a failure on the part of a working parents childcare provider who cares for them for so much of the day, if a child fails to learn a skill?

Do we expect 2 hours with a parent to be more conductive to learning than 8 hours with a childcare provider?

I'm with my children 24 hours a day - their waking hours make that pretty much 12 hours actual learning time, if my children don't know something it is a parental fault, working parents might be lucky to get a total of two hours a day with their children other than when they are asleep. Most of that time will be taken up by bathing, dressing, feeding and bedtime.

How much can they be expected to do in two hours compared to that? Like it or not child care is responsible for their children for the majority of the waking hours. Responsibility lies with the childcare provider to do most of the work. If it would be a failure on my part as a parent when my child is unable to complete a task, why would it not be a failure on the part of a working parents childcare provider who cares for them for so much of the day, if a child fails to learn a skill?

Do we expect 2 hours with a parent to be more conductive to learning than 8 hours with a childcare provider?

I don’t understand this as a reason. My children (now aged late 20s/eariy 30s) also started school at 4. Pretty sure this wasn’t an issue then. So all the people saying it’s due to the school age being so young - why is this a growing problem now?

My guess (and I may be wrong if someone is able offer up a better, logical reason) is the rise of permissive/lazy parenting. Parents seem increasingly scared to put appropriate boundaries in place. Parents seem to have low distress tolerance thresholds & are unable to sit with their child’s emotions (eg. at being told no). Therefore. they give in to demands rather than providing a safe, secure and consistent boundary around appropriate behaviour and expectations.

I work with teens (mental health) and I’m seeing the growing fallout from this. Oh and a trend for pathologising these behaviours. As well as expecting professionals to wave our (imaginary) magic wands to fix the issues that they created/exacerbated.

That is a lot of expectation for a 4-4,5 year olds. In other countries they are not expected some of that until around 6.

Are parents never to blame for anything? We both worked full time from when our babies were ten months. We taught them excellent manners, toilet training, eating skills and some reading. Before they went to school. No time is often an excuse. It’s about attitude.

Barely out of toddlerhood? Even if you define toddlerhood as 1 to 3 (generous) they've been out of toddlerhood for a long time, during which time they should have been developing fast.

Just another thread judging parents and children 🙄

I assume the OP has noticed with their experience that the children this year are acting differently to what they are used to in previous years

Where is this school?

Being unable to do something, and being unable to do it in an unfamiliar, overwhelming and frightening environment are not the same thing! Surely a teacher of 4 year old children would recognise this? And some of these don’t seem that shocking to me - like a 4 year old who can’t read? (Because ‘recognise name written down is reading) - not unusual! The dripping coat to floor and manners thing again I’d say, these children are barely out of toddlerhood, if they are speaking, potty trained, able to use cutlery, dressed appropriately, holding pens and pencils etc they are school ready.