To think it is not poverty to blame.

[goneanddoneitnow]

I see in the news poverty being blamed for childrens bad behaviour and under achievement as well as for health problems.
I think it is attitudes that need changing not income.
If attitudes could be changed through education of parents and students then I think you would find that income and health will improve as a result.
If children are reaching school unable to sit still, listen, share etc, without basic skills and knowledge then what are the parents doing?
And secondly what is the point of free nursery places from age three?
Shouldn't nurseries be preparing children for school?
The majority of the wealthy are wealthy because of the time and effort their parents and family put in and the effort they them selves put in acquiring valuable skills and knowledge.
How many times have you seen big lottery winners lose it all in a few years?

The wealthy vary: as an exmaple, my family (or rather my sisters and I) who all grew up on a deprivation index estate with a decent enough IQ and parents who cared.

Sister One: married someone with inherited wealth: own very large home, works very hard as does her DH but they were given a deposit for their first house, no university debts, cash gifts, no car loands or finance at any stage. Private ed fees for har son covered by her FIL, and mroe than enough money already in his account aged 6 to cover university fees and living- all fmily gifts.

Sister two: married Joe Normal who worked ahrd in a manual job before getting ill; saved up and bought a sahred ownership home but her DH just lost his job from redundancy. She sat p[rofessional exams last week so is hoping she ahs passed but they ahve no savings left and theya re scared; her two kids have been raised well but won't get help towards university etc unless something changes soon.

Me: MArried DH, a manager who then became ill, lost the house we saved up to buy. both put ourselves through university but struggling as two of the children are disabled and there has to be a home based carer. All savings now gone, rented house, part time incomes and wondering what the hell will happen to us.

Seems to me, inherited wealth changes everything.

I do get worried about lack of aspiration. I do not mean that everyone should aspire to be wealthy, but I have to admit I always naively thought that most people aspired for their children to be happy and have enough of an income to fulfill their needs. There does seem to be a group of people who do not have those aspirations and fail to support and equip their children to be happy/succeed, either because they do not care, or because their lives are so chaotic that they can't. They may well have experienced similar parenting themselves, but they are still responsible for their actions. I do like the philosphy behind the Early Intervention and Family Nurse Partnerships that are running in some parts of the UK, because they acknowledge the impact of the cycle of deprivation, but challenge parents to do something about it and make them understand how their action affect their children. Long term results from pilots in the US are good.

notyummy HomeTsart as a charity have been working on teh similar premise of enabling aprents and therefore achieving family outcome improvements for 37 years now.

Shame some of their schemes in very deprived places are closing becuase of funding cuts, eh?

haven't had time to read the whole thread, but suprised there are no comments about schooling in the bits i see?

at least this gives some children a route out of poverty - my HB comes from a deprived area with poor parents (in monetary terms). went to a grammar school and then uni. this allowed him to get a well paid job.

it was the school that gave him his best chance. most of his relatives are still poor and have the if you don't want to work go on the dole view.

Yes I agree -- education is the holy grail of social mobility.

Sadly the failure of social mobility over the last fifteen years demonstrates the school policy cockups that have devastated children's chances.

I know you cannot stereotype people but my experience of working in a school in a support unit was that the people on benefits seemed quite well off.

One boy in this predicament told me he was getting £500 for christmas as were his other sibblings and had the latest mobile phone.

I think there is an inverted snobbery as well where the students tended to have expensive designer trainers whereas my kids would get the cheapish ones from sports world.

I think it is often bad management with money and buying the wrong things but you cannot generalise.

Both my parents were poor, working class but went to grammar schools, college, university and got good jobs.

They did not inherit any money.

There is other stuff as well playing in there Alemci.

For a start, ds1 is the only child in his class with a laptop but why would I tell him his Christmas present was paid for from his DLA on the advice of the teachers? DS2 will have a mobile phone at 11, not becuase we have money to blow but becuase whichever of us is at home won;t be able to collect him from school becuase we will be waiitng in for SNU transport and will need to be available to him.

It'll be cheap crap but DH and I are not bothered ny such things.

It's also acknowledged that people with low level SN have money management isues (hence the NAS training courses on just that) and are also more likely to end up in poverty, possibly the sort of aprents many equate with all this?

There's another factor as
well though- and this will get stronger with universal credits, and the reassessments of council house leases: that is if you save you lose benefit. So whereas someone from a different background or very strong aspirations might save for a mortgage deposit or holiday, if you are getting benefits and eventually TCs (planned) you will lose as you try to save for security. That's quite a barrier to aspiration indeed: especially when the changes to social housing come in. I would agree with a reassessment every five years (we know chidlren benefit from stability anyway) to allow people to get proper money togetehr but every two years will basically bribe people into spending and giving up surely? It may not be their house- as with any of us in private rented- but it si theoir home and the fear of losing that with no funds to cover deposits etc is going to be a big motivator.

Oh the other reason is simply culture: it's something that many a Psych would argue, that it's a survival instinct to fit in with one's peers and whether it's done by having a nice car, a certain sort of job, wearing Boden or the right trainers it's human nature and tribalism. I would hazard a guess that buying these right trainers is as important to someone from a different social grouping to them as me making sure I can afford for ds2 to keep going to Cubs each week: something I prioritise.

So Scram are you saying that you cannot save any money whilst on benefits because it will make you entitled to less. I am not having a dig. I don't know as I am very fortunate not to be in that position.

Also i think the tribal thing is spot on.

Great post the usual suspect.

Some of the worst parenting I have seen has been among the so called middle classes.

Pushyness and selfishness. Teaching children that only they matter. That kind of thing.

Op-What a load of bull.

Currently, there are limits that are highish but in truth, not that much when you think someone might be trying to build up house deposit / fees / moving costs or even to help their own child at ubiversity: the sorts of things MN would applaud.

There are sugegstions though about reducing these dramatically in 2013 when UC comes in, and taking them into account when assessing whether people still get a council house as well.

Am not anti limit but I don't think it should be reduced as there has to be some flexibility for savings if we want people to move forwards, no? Plus some savings is essential really: people in low paid work, carers etc still need to be able to fix cars, cover irregular expenses like anyone else.

I think the HB limit is about £8k which I think is fine but I know the Government considers that way too high. This is supposed to include for TCs too, so people in work who could be saving for a house deposit having that counted as income- seems messed up to me.

alemci - my Il's get pension credit and if you have over 16k in savings you don't qualify - so they give money away to their children every so often - which seems bizarre as we are fine financially and whilst BIl is not he spends it on expensive musical instruments.

I don't think you can say that poverty has nothing to do with underachievement. Eg if the family is very poor and the house therefore very small and overcrowded with no proper space to do homework then child might find it difficult to lourish as well as one who has these things. Parents may be unable to devote sufficient time to preparing their kids adqueatey for school if they are having to work long hours in minimum wage jobs just to survive.....

anothersplace - but surely working long hours affects your ability to spend time with children however much you earn?

we have loads of space, but my children still prefer to do homework on their laps or the lounge table and they are doing ok at school.

i can't help but think its lack of ambition passed down the generations; lack of care if there's a particular problem in the home; or poor schools. even at my son's decent school i was appalled recently at a parent/teacher session because i raised concerns about his poor science marks and the teacher actually said something like 'because his parents obviously had high expectations he would be allowed to redo a paper'.

'surely working long hours affects your ability to spend time with children however much you earn?

Sure it does, but if there's money you get say over quality of chidlcare rather than accepting whatever comes your way, eg neighbours etc.

I also noted that your children prefer to do their homework at the lounge table and that's great but we didn't have space for any table growing up and a lot of those very small starter homes do not (we have a large kitchen table now and I really value that). No table, no heating and a couple of loud sisters wandering about meant it was pretty impossible to concentrate tbh. Luckily for me there was always the library: not sure how many kids will have that in the future?

After all, the estimated 200,000 people displaced by HB changes into B&B's (and that's based on how many places the councils have booked) will include many children who will have minimal access to any study space or time at all- I used to have famillies at work in such places and it was one family per room, loud neighbours, and if you were unlucky no access until 6pm anyway.

Absolutely most children can get some kind of space, after comp age anyway (walking to library etc) but certainly by no means all.

The poverty-underachievement link is also maintained by what children see in their community - if everyone is in low paid jobs such as hairdressing/ builder/ binman/ unemployed, they are not likely to have high expectations of what they can achieve themselves. This is not to do with stupidity or laziness, it is a sensible assumption based on their observation of the available opportunities.

This is why maintaining diverse, intergrated communities is important.

limbo - shouldn't schools be motivating children as they did my husband - his father was unskilled and his mother on disability benefits as well as several of his relatives, yet he now has a very well paid job as a result of getting qualifications.

for him coming from a place with no money has actually motivated him to earn loads - but it was his school that enabled it. working with similarly motivated children at a grammar school - though i confess i don't like the pass/fail aspect of them

dreamingof that's fine but limited for many: my school treated me as useless, made me parade across the dtage becuase mys choolbag had broken and parents (working, well Dad did- different era) had to wait until pay day to replace so people could laugh at my carrier bag; my aprents did all they could to make me beleive I coulda chieve but school made me feel worthless and unable. I am now nearing the end of my MA.

I remember being called cretin by a teacher who then gacve a class a lecture on what a cretin was and why I ws one; being threatened with expulsion becuase my friend was rude and the teachers couldn't tell which of us was which ((I wasn't even present at that time); all sorts. I didn;t relaise how much it affected me until my friend told me stuff I didn;t even pick up on and apologised for letting it pass, and then followed by saying ehr son had been acepted at teh school- tehs trength of feeling that i would rather die than allow my children to attend there was incredible.

DS1 is experienceing something similar though at his posh state; after being written off becuase kids with AS can't fo anything, his new Base left him in a year nine class to see how he coped with the work (he is year six) and he came top: thank goodness I didn;t believe a word they said about him before.

My two big arguments against grammars BTW are (coming from an area where there are none):

1. Late developers; I was one physically and emotionally, partly clearly genetic (basics such as not starting periods until 16) but also as we had severe home issues and being stereotyped becuase of who I was at 11 woudl ahve been detrimental in so many ways;

1. Dad was child 15 / 16 and grew up pre state in absolute poverty- eating what they hunted etc. He was first to be offered a palce at Grammar (went on to be a Manager of a large factory with a workforce of 1000) but nan said no due to both the costs involved for uniform and the fact that her other kids couldn't have the same opportunity.

A decent comprehensive educatin with excellent teachers and differentiated learning is the best remedy. Now, I accept G&T or even just able chidlren need special attention but also value inclusion (I have two with ASD and one with dyslecia and dyspraxia) so i think a differentiated uni-campus approach integrating children for sunjects such as PE, RE, drama etcand witha degree of mobility between classes is preferential to separation.

agree grammars aren't the be and end all - but good schools are. as i said i don't like the aspect in my day, that if you didn't pass the 11+ you were written off.

The comp i have experienced does not seem to stretch or drive my son. he's just left to work at whatever pace he likes - so there's no ambition to succeed and try as hard as you can. if you have parents that aren't that bothered you are inevitably going to struggle - unless you are self motivated. at least in a grammar you had to work hard to keep up with everyone else - so it didn't matter so much what your parents were like

The Comp here is one of the top in wales; unusually I have opted out (!) as I know DS's needs will be best catered for elsewhere but it does show that state schools can do it- whatever 'it' actually is.

DS2 will probably go there is 2012, otherwise I suspect we are ASD-Base dependant.

@ alemci You can't have more than 3K in savings to qualify for JSA or income support, 6k for housing benefit. Approx- it was a few years ago I claimed benefit.

YABU to say poverty has nothing to do with underachievement. Attitudes to education are important in getting out of poverty, but kids from poor homes have a harder time getting a good education and good jobs for a variety of reasons.

I come from a poor background and went to a school that wasn't great. Nobody at the school ever pushed me, but my parents did encourage me. So I went to uni and now got a good job. Just a few points in response to other posters.

1. I used to use the library to study when it was diffult at home. And when I go to the library in the evenings I see teenagers working there. I know libraries are under threat, but they have been great at providing this kind of space.

1. Most parents don't want their kids to miss out. If families are poor, it is not unusual for parents to prioritise expensive clothes or toys for their children for this reason. Its all about showing that you are not that poor. There can also be a lot of peer pressure and bullying of children in poorer areas if tehy don't wear the right gear. And parents would want to avoid that happening to their children.

Expensive trainers bit no food in the fridge. I know people like that.