To be shocked that this documentary is almost 20 years old?

[MrsOverTheRoad]

The Eyes of a Child was made in 1999 and highlighted the terrible neglect and poverty experienced by some children in the UK.

I remember it coming out...it's just as shocking today as then...I am surprised there hasn't been a follow up!

Bumping this...

Nobody cares!

I could have my own private thread here couldn't I?

Just use it as a diary...entering my deepest, darkest thoughts on a daily basis!

Nope, you are not getting a thread to yourself :P.

I haven't seen it, had two young children at that point in my life, no time for sitting watching TV! Not sure I could face it now, but agree it is the kind of thing that would be good to follow up and see if things have changed.

Damn I was just about to add some confessions!

I watched it again...yesterday...and it did affect me more now; being a parent makes you much more emotional about this kind of thing.

I suppose I wanted to find out if anyone knew of any updates about the kids...there's one family on it who really affected me.

We had to watch this as part of our Child Protection training at the school I work at. It's really stayed with me. m

I've not seen it, thanks for sharing the link, will definitely give it a look.

Remember watching it way back might rewatch

It's very grim. I was attending raves in and around Manchester in the early 90s and I remember kids like these sellling sleeping pills in club car parks after the clubs shut.

I remember being horrified by that. I worry about them all. :(

Me too, @ClemHFandango. I remember a couple of young staff members becoming visibly upset.

Didn't have a tv around that time so missed it entirely.

Watched a bit on the link - wonder how life has turned out for the children - they still won't be that old now.

I haven't seen it but I will watch it later on.

There was a programme last year I think about children living in poverty it was very well made but bloody awful to know there are so many children living without many of the bare basics.
I can't remember what it was called though I'm pretty sure it was mentioned on a thread on here that's how I ended up watching it.

Oddly enough, I re-watched this the other day when it randomly turned up in my youtube recommendations.

I skimmed through the comments afterwards and, amongst the usual poison and weirdness, somebody claimed to know the youngest of those sisters from Bradford and said she was now happily settled with children of her own. No word on the twins though. I hope they all made better lives for themselves.

I hope they did too. The twins in particular seemed quite bright, in some ways helped by being in a close family unit with their granny not that the conditions were at all ideal. Very sad.

Sometimes the problems are very complex - parents with drink and alcohol problems, not always just lack of money.

Just watched it, although I felt it wasn't so much about poverty as neglect. Those twins were filthy and the house was disgusting, that wasn't poverty, that was neglect

LordTrash thank you for that! I hope it's true...she was the one who moved me most.

I did wonder if the programmer makes encouraged the adults and the children not to wash the faces of the twins to make better TV. The fact they could walk up the corridor walls with legs apart - very fit girls. I am afraid I think one main difference in the last 20 years since it was made is that children don't seem to be quite as active although they are probably cleaner. My mother used to think dirt on us meant we had had a very good time outside climbing trees although I am sure she encouraged us to wash it off later.

Lucysky I grew up on quite a rough council estate and still go back there regularly 44 years later and one thing that marks the very poor kids out is that they're quite physically active. Kids like those in the documentary dont have many or any toys...certainly not screens in their rooms.

They play out a LOT. As for their dirty faces...did you see the filth in that house? I'm sure the parents wouldn't need to be encouraged to not wash the kids.

That's true.

It always seems so hard to sort out the problems of these families. I know the Coalition set up a scheme were 100,000 families with particularly complex issues were concentrated upon and I don't think it worked.

Lucy the tragedy of it is that many spiral downwards and subsequent generations are each more traumatised and affected.

I don't know the answer either. Drug and alcohol abuse aren't helping of course...

That programme isn't about poverty........it's about child neglect. To say it's about poverty is an insult to thousands families who raised their kids on a shoestring yet still managed to keep them clean and get them an education.

I sometimes think about the young people on Growing Up Poor, if anyone remembers it.

Skint it is about both. As I said in my opening post.

Sounds interesting, I'll give it a watch later when the kids are in bed. Thanks for sharing.

It's always the difficult issue. if anyone read the Tuppence to cross the mersey books ( middle class family many decades ago lost everything, became very poor, no soap etc, the oldest girl wrote about it later - she was well educate) it was similar - the family might just have managed a bit better had the parents had good mental health, not spent all the money as it came in, not been so traumatised that they actually instead cared for the children with the very very little that they had.

Lucy yes...that's interesting. I read those books too...Helen's Mother got away with a lot due to her lovely accent didn't she!