...to be annoyed by suggestion that children joining reception are getting weaker and weaker at doing what should be expected of them ....

[MoreVegLessCake]

.....because basically parents are rubbish????

I am a trustee of a grant-making charity and today we had a presentation from an organisation that runs nurture groups in local primary schools. We have already funded them, and they were reporting back on their work, though suspect they would like to get more funding for the future.

I am 100% supportive of work in schools to support the (hopefully fairly small percentage of) children who struggle for whatever reason - family difficulties etc. But the language used by the presenter and the way the whole issue was discussed really irritated me.

As parent of children still in/just out of KS1 I found myself feeling very cross at the message that the current generation of parents are more crap than those of even the recent past. Quoting from memory, we were told something like "children when I was teaching 10 years ago did not have nearly so many problems" e.gs cited were not being able to use a knife and fork, do up buttons, hold a pencil, concentrate for long enough, share toys, communicate in sentences.

We were told that nationally 40% of 5 year olds fail to meet the expectations of the EY Foundation framework, and in our town last year 47% did not. I get it that some families really struggle, as do some DCs, some parents probably are a bit crap, and extra help for all these kids is brilliant but if nearly 50% of kids don't meet the expectations at 5 years old, surely the expectations are too high??!!! It makes me feel really sad and cross that so many kids should be labelled as failing to achieve at such a young age.

Didn't help that my fellow trustees are either parents of adults or don't have children so they seemed to lap up the "feckless parents" talk .

So am I getting unreasonably upset or not?? Views from teachers in primary schools particularly welcome - I do really want to know.

Thanks in advance.

I teach 3-5 year old and have definitely noticed that children are coming in with less skills than they did ten years ago.

There is a definite increase in the number of children with speech and language problems. We are also experiencing more children with behaviour problems and have a lot
more children starting in nappies.

I do also think the expectations for children in reception has also increased so the gap between the two has widened.

We have many children who struggle to use a knife and fork.

I think families are generally busier and the pace of life is much quicker now so parents do tend to dress children and not as much conversation goes on.

Our children are also starting nursery and school earlier than ever before so of course that has an impact on skills too.

Time is key! They need time to learn. The thing is, if you push parents to work, by providing childcare, then that care is a replacement of parental support. Child care settings are not targeted with buttons, teeth etc.

In a recent information-sharing sheet filled in by our Foundation parents, less than half reported that their children were independent at toiletting (including wiping, flushing and hand-washing). Many more than that took pains to point out how competent they were on the ipad/laptop though.

Make of that what you will.

My kids were prepared well for school, went straight in able to read write, count and communicate well. They had no screens as there weren't any.
They go do your list and more besides. Two of them could do their tie, no problem. dd could tie laces.

Apart from dd whose only 11, this gave the two no advantage academically or socially in the long term.
Children at this age vary so much in their development.

Well firstly, you are never a parent. You are either a child's mother or father.
There is no such thing as parenting, but there is mothering and there is also fathering-
Sadly the 13 years of champagne socialism and social engineering in the UK has removed any concept of being either a mother or a father and has replaced it with "parent", who could be anyone caring for a child.

Actually, I think most dentists now advise parents to brush their children's teeth for quite a long time, because most kids don't do it properly and a bad job can mean cavities.

When I consider how many ADULTS even do a shoddy job at toothbrushing, I am not going to trust my 4yo with the job for a while, sorry. I brush her teeth properly and then let her have a go by herself just to start developing the skill.

I don't think parents are deliberately standing there saying "I will just let the school toilet train my child," but people (including on Mumsnet) nowadays do seem to be obsessed with starting toilet training as late as possible out of convenience (better disposables and washing facilities have probably increased this feeling--a generation ago, people had a stronger incentive to get their kids out of nappies sooner).

Look at any thread on TT here and it is full of posters urging people to wait as long as possible. "I don't know why anyone bothers before 3" "The later you start, the easier it is--my child started at 3.5 and it took a week!!"

Trouble is, for every late-starter who takes to toilet training nearly instantly, there will be another late-starter who has got very, very used to the convenience of leaking whenever they want without the need to interrupt play activities, and has become psychologically so accustomed to the concept of defecating in a nappy that they can't "go" when a nappy is not on. I started putting my kid on the potty very early, because I'd seen too many cases like this, where it ended up causing SO MUCH stress for the family. The kid would start hiding to poo, and refuse to poo when the nappy was withheld, leading to constipation and bladder problems. Many times the family just gives up and waits for school/peer pressure to sort them out.

But of course, parents who are struggling with these embarrassing problems are a lot less willing to tell you about it than the ones whose 3.5yo toilet trained in two days without any fuss.

Well I would disagree that your interaction with your child should depend on what sex you are. My DH does plenty of what would traditionally be termed mothering and I do my fair share of fathering. We are parents.

And I really can't see how this can be pinned on labour.

I don't think it's anything to do with women working.

If anything it's do with dc being babied and not having to work things out for themselves. Also smaller families and less community. In the 'olden' days young dc even if not allowed to play in the street were most likely making mudpies in the garden with their sibling/cousin/neighbour and being generally left to get on with it.

So meh can blame it on the torys for selling the council houses and getting rid of the community if we're being petty.

I agree that today parents seem to think that training is a no-no.

My DC1 was the youngest of the NCT set and I was quite used to being the last to see "natural" milestones (eg first tooth, walking) reached but then I was the first to start potty training, as the DC seemed absolutely ready for it. I was met with utter, utter surprise and astonishment to have started potty training before the age of 2. Everybody seemed to expect it to just happen and to happen at the time of the child's choosing with absolutely no decision-making on the part of the adult.

vdbfamily

Families have incredibly stressful morning routines which usually involve everything happening at top speed. Many of my friends admit to dressing their kids for school and not having the time to let them fiddle with laces and buttons.They get them breakfast, clean their teeth for them etc. If kids are to learn they need time and encouragement.

That is poor time management and disorganization for the most part (obv not including people who have SN/Disabilities that mean mornings are a different ballgame), not much to do with them working. They need to get to school regardless, there is always a time limit, if the parent can't get their shit together enough to have enough time for their kid to brush their own teeth and button up their own jacket then it's their issue, not the fact that they work.

Beautiful absolutely my experience.

Yet strangely, by the time they are 7 or 8, kids have timetables packed with training; for sports, musical instrument and to pass exams. No one ever says, "Well I'll just let little Finbarr develope a longing to play the clarinet and learn Mandarin in his own time, when he is ready for it".

I have seen the other way round. The earlier children can do things the better is the view locally. You can't be spending ages pandering to your kids when you have a few of them.

I've been a teacher for nearly ten years. Over this time I've seen entry to school ability slipping significantly. Significant numbers of families are struggling and sadly significant numbers if families don't have aspirations for their child. This is a huge issue and it's getting bigger. We can put in all the effort, resources and money we have but until the government realise family life is having such a huge issue on educational achievement schools are on a losing streak. I've seen ability dropping, aspirations falling, preparedness to learn fall and behaviour and concentration are atrocious in a huge percentage of children. This is a problem and we can ignore it if we want but it won't go away. New curriculums won't solve this. Helping families might.

I seem to see a lot of children ignored.

CHiuldren used to have to come out of a buggy on as trip in to town so would sit on mum or dad's knee on the bus and naturally there would be interaction.

Now they stay in their buggy - which is probably much safer and more comfortable but you have to make the effort to interact.

Children in buggies seem to often be 'parked' in shops.

Family meal times just don't happen in a lot of families, not everyone even has space for a table let alone have a meal where everyone sits around it.

A lot of food is now eaten with fingers rather than knife and fork eg burgers and pizza.

It is much easier to teach a child table manners if you are sitting round a table as a family.

10% of my son's reception class (including my son) would only recently have been allowed in a mainstream school. Another 10% had significant sn and a diagnosis within a few years of starting school.

The vast majority of parents on this site,by the very fact that they are interested enough to discuss parenting issues, are incredibly highly motivated to bust a gut for their kids and work exceptionally hard to do their very best to raise them as well as they possibly can.

Sadly, this does not reflect many other areas of society. While practically every parent loves their children, there are a significant proportion who do not prioritise them. Unfortunately when messages like this come out, it is the parents who are connected in with news/education etc who receive the message and feel upset as they feel they are being slated. In fact those messages are really not aimed at those parents at all.

So YANBU to feel upset because the message should be more carefully targeted but YABU to feel think this is about you because it's not. If all parents prioritised their kids in the way so many here do, the issue wouldn't exist.

I haven't got time in the mornings to pander to dress each biter individually. Buttons, laces and even thin, ladderable tights are handled with ease by the youngest biter at 6 and were handled with concentration at 4 when she started school.

I openly admit that dresses weren't always the right way out when there was no double checking after PE at school and sometimes trousers were backwards but she could dress, feed (with utensils) and 'toilet' herself no problems. She knew numbers, shapes, colours, the alphabet, a large number of phonics, recognised her name and could hold pencils to draw, although she wasn't very keen on writing. Communicate in sentences? You'd have trouble shutting her up once she started..but then she's biter 5 so she's used to making herself heard amongst the herd and if you want to play with the bigger biters you have to learn to concentrate too (and concentration is learnt-it's not automatic).

I agree with other posters when they say that fast paced lifestyles and a lack of 'home life' is contributing to any lack of basic skill set. As Saash quite rightly pointed out, you can't teach knife and fork skills and good table manners effectively without a table. I was horrified at how children behaved when I first invited little friends around for tea with DS1 some 12 years ago..and it hasn't improved any over that time believe you me.

I don't think you need to feel personally affronted (although admittedly I would probably have been having a quiet seethe too). These groups have to justify their own existence and they'd be pretty stuffed for funding if they said that all the children (and hence parents) were doing a grand job now wouldn't they?

I am not sure about the WOHM/SAHM argument. I'm 34 and growing up every single one of my friends' parents worked, no one had a mum who stayed at home.

We haven't got an actual table as haven't got the space. The children sit at a mini ikea table and small chairs.

I don't think things have changed all that much.

It's just that years ago there weren't all these frameworks and measurements.

Poverty still exists. there are still good and bad parents. Most People still doing the best they can.

It really pisses me off when people start getting sniffy about after school activities.
wTF is s ft working parent supposed to do, at least I know my kids are I some sort of safe activity while I'm at work.

Otherwise I could just leave them to run free on the streets and the A roads or have some culturally enriching experiences in the chunky chicken.

And yes work is a necessity.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/22-things-your-child-should-354782

I remember this coming out and I wanted to get it right. I think I ruined a couple of years of dcs life trying to do so. It turns out she is 3 years delayed and autistic. I really regret every reading this,as it makes you push for perfection. You just make them feel bad about themselves.

bloody hem the comments on this thread are so contemptuous of working parents.

I volunteer with parents and am surprised at how many don't know any nursery rhymes, who are too embarrassed to sing or make up stories, who refuse any sort of messy play because they can't stand their house being untidy, who don't share their children's play ever. Lots of parents lack confidence in their own abilities. I suspect that there is a bit of a vicious cycle, as these skills are lost or outsourced to professionals generation after generation.