Have parents given up parenting

[Dearparents]

So I was just watching some news.
And apparently their is a rise in reception school children, that 1 in 4 children are not potty trained ,can't eat or drink independently and try to swipe pages in books.

Some parents are saying it's down to the teachers to teach these thing's.

Most say it's because their child has some sort of SEN.

It got me thinking of a family member that has 3 kids 3/4 and 5 that are all in nappies and sippy cups and all glued to a screens.
The 4 and 5 year old dont go to school as teachers said they have to be potty trained first.
I said to said family member the teacher is right, it's your job to parent ther job is to teach.
But im wrong apparently because her kids all have SEN.
I just see 3 normal kids that have not been taught the basics.

Now i do understand some children are unwell and can not do these things.

But im talking about kids that can but parents are playing on the sen to back out of parenting the basic things.
Am I wrong about it?

To offer a different perspective, I’m from a country where children don’t start school until 7. Before that they go to nursery and pre school. Yes they’re expected to be toilet trained and be able to use cutely by a certain age (3 or 4 I think) but it’s all a lot less formal. Accidents are expected and kids get help to eat if they need it. They play all day, do a bit of informal learning and go for a compulsory siesta (in proper little beds with mattresses, bedsheets and PJs) from 2-4pm right up to age 6 when they leave to go to school. There’s no expectation to be able to read before age 7 or be “school ready” at 4.
Many countries are like this (actually most in Europe) and it’s wild to me that kids barely out of babyhood are strong armed into being “school ready”, shoved into school uniforms and pressured to meet all the milestones when they might just not be ready.
They’re shattered by the time they get home from school because they’re on the go all day and aren’t getting a siesta (it doesn’t even need to be sleep, just a couple of hours of down time after lunch).
I love many things about the UK education system but starting kids so young and expecting them all to be ready is just nonsensical.

I'm not in UK so I'm wondering is early years gov funded and is it one or two years? I'm familiar with the EYFS curriculum but not the structure of it all. If children from 3 to 5 have two years of early years after initial training that's plenty time to allow for accidents and become more independent. It seems the problem from reading this thread is children not having a pre school experience and being too young, all of which is solved by a funded 2 year pre school cycle.

I am an early years teacher and I agree with all of this. We have gone too far with the “school readiness” idea and lost sight of normal, patchy, variable child development, to the detriment of very young children who are expected to hit the ground running and cope. Schools, in my opinion, need to be “child-ready” - and that means slowing the fuck down and understanding that not every child is the same. We don’t expect all adults to be the same!

No sorry but that's not the case. Expecting a child to be out of nappies at 4 really isn't going too far is it?

For some children, yes, it is. Surely you must know that?

How many is some children? There will always be exceptional circumstances but a general expectation for children to be starting school out of nappies is not remotely extreme.

It varies from class to class 🤷🏻‍♀️ of course, but any early years professional who considers intimate care beneath them is in the wrong job. Teaching children this age is about holistic practice and meeting children where they are. The toilets are a part of the learning environment, like the playground and the dining hall.

None of this is new, btw, despite all the trendy online screaming about it. I remember kids in the 80s who wet and soiled themselves. They were usually smacked, shamed and shouted at. My father in the 1950s was regularly sent home, on foot, in disgrace because he’d soiled himself. He had an undiagnosed milk allergy and he still remembers the shame at 85 years old. The current pearl-clutching and blaming parents is just the 21st century iteration.

Oh, I couldn’t agree more! By the time I was in the equivalent to today’s year 1, in around 1980, none of the children in my class were in nappies, but a couple of them definitely weren’t reliably clean and dry - and the situation could have been handled much more sensitively