To think that surely this is child abuse?

[FiveFarthings]

An episode of Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over is airing tonight which features a family with three children aged 8, 4 and a baby and the parents let the kids do whatever they want and it’s so extreme I think it’s verging on abuse.

The kids are ‘home schooled’ but the 8 year old cannot write his own name. The parents say it isn’t a priority and that he will pick it up eventually. The kids all sleep in the same bed as their parents, they have no set time for bed and they can eat whatever they want whenever they want. To be fair the kids do seem to eat a lot of veg so I can’t knock that. The four year old is still in nappies.

They don’t enforce teeth brushing- tooth brushes are available to the kids but if they don’t want to brush their teeth, they won’t make them. They also don’t believe in main stream medicine (including antibiotics and vaccinations).

Surely this is child abuse?! Also aren’t there any checks made if children are home schooled to ensure they are actually been taught properly?

Here is a link to an article about it- www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7473545/Father-lives-social-housing-insisted-no-intention-finding-time-work.html

I can’t stand Stacey Dooley but I’m going to have to watch this tonight because I really can’t believe this!

There's not enough support workers out there to monitor the quality of home education and unschooling.

The parents themselves are quite open about what they are doing. I wonder how their children will feel if and when they have their life chances limited and/or end up I'll from preventable diseases because of their parents' desire to be yooneek.

This sounds bizarre. Will deffo watch.

The thing is I home educate my children, if I went on to the tv and stated my children weren’t receiving an education I would (rightly) expect the LA to be in contact which leads me to suspect that there is some education going on even if it isn’t a traditional school education.

All home educators I have met over the last few years work hard to ensure their children are receiving a good education. It really pisses me off that we get lumped in with this family who clearly are wanting five minutes of fame.

I would suspect social services would be involved if it was considered abuse or neglect.

Personally, I think not making a child brush their teeth and not vaccinating them is absolutely neglect. But I don’t think it would be neglect in the eyes of the law.

I went to school with a girl whose mum was this sort of parent. (Sending them to school was something she only did because she couldn’t homeschool them when she was at work.) I went to their house once with another friend from school when we were about 12 and we hated it so much at her house - the chaos, poor hygiene and lack of structure and boundaries was insanely stressful - that we never went again. About a year later the girl and her sister got taken into care and I remember my mum saying “If they hadn’t been middle-class they’d have been taken into care five years ago” and I think she was 100% correct.

You are being unreasonable. There are lots of theories of education which state that writing is not an early priority. Other cultures often don’t enforce bedtimes (this insane UK ‘bed and bath at 6 or 7 pm’ seems laughably ridiculous in many countries). Having lived and worked abroad I don’t enforce these early bedtimes either. I also sleep in bed with my children as I think it is safe and reassuring for everyone. This is also common in many cultures and actually I personally feel that putting a young child in their own room is cruel and in the parents best interest and not the child’s. It sounds like their approach to tooth brushing is just to not make it a battle and gently remind children to brush their teeth rather than forcing them too, because making things a battle with children means it seems like a less appealing thing to do! You sound very narrow minded.

Also most doctors try to avoid prescribing antibiotics unless they absolutely must, as they do more harm than good except in extreme cases, and have been incredibly overused to the point where it’s dangerous. Avoiding antibiotics for children is not only a good idea but it’s also recommended by lots of healthcare professionals (again, except in severe cases).

And if a family avoids processed crap/jarred convenience food/junk etc then does it matter if the children can choose their own food?! If all the options they’re choosing from are healthy? I let my children help choose their meals as we always cook healthy food from scratch and never use anything processed or ready made, so I know that whatever is chosen is going to benefit them! And if they want to take a snack then of course they can because everything on offer is healthy. Is it really better parenting to bang a plate of processed crap infront of your child, or even a home cooked meal prepared with regularly used ingredients like jarred sauces or pre-made convenience food? Or is it better to provide your children with a selection of healthy options and allow them to choose their own food, thus teaching them about healthy eating while also respecting their opinions as individuals?

I’m just saying. There are lots of different parenting styles and you should be more open minded. My mother was militarily strict with bath/early bedtime every night, made me sleep in my own room every night from almost birth, even if I was scared which I often was, fed regular meals but gave us no say in what we ate and made us sit at the table forcing down every mouthful even if we felt sick. She also was crazy strict with other stuff like teeth brushing etc and very forceful with education, with very high expectations. In theory, written down, she was a ‘good’ parent in terms of traditional UK parenting - with all her strict routines and rules etc. you’d probably have approved of her if you read about her. in reality, I found her parenting style to be cold, oppressive, forceful and unsupportive. To this day I suffer from severe anxiety due to not being given enough freedom, independence or respect as a child. I can’t sleep in the dark because I still associate bedtime with the complete fear and stress I felt as a child being in my own room when I wasn’t ready. I have issues with food due to being forced to eat things I didn’t want to eat (or amounts I wasn’t comfortable with) as a child. I have low self esteem and anxiety due to the pressure she put on me about education and the importance of being better than other people. When I had my own children, I vowed they’d never be parented like I was, that I’d also do my best to make them feel safe, strong, independent, confident, healthy, and have faith in themselves. Already my children are better people than I am because they DO feel this way! And yet like I said, if you read an article about my mum as a parent, and then about me as a parent, you’d probably approve of my mum as she’s more traditional. But I don’t care because my children are happier and healthier as a result of my parenting decisions and that’s all that’s matters to me!

Is this the same family that was crowd funding to go to Costa Rica ?

Even Wikipedia won’t accept that propaganda rag as a source anymore.

Wikipedia itself isn't exactly a reliable source.

I read the article and apart from the children, the one thing that stood out to me is the father saying he's not looking for full time work as it's 'not in his psyche'. He could use his spare time to sort out their garden, it's a midden.

I can't comment on the school issue, although children in many developed countries don't start until they are 7.

However cosleeping as a family is a biologically natural thing to do and there is nothing abusive about it. Same with the food whenever/whatever. If the parents have made healthy food available and don't just have a house stuffed full of junk then there is nothing wrong with children regulating their own appetite. In fact, children are very good at knowing how much they need to eat and it's the interference of adults and pressure at meal times that causes fussy and disordered eating.

Obviously I've not seen the program, and would agree it's insane not to vaccinate your children or give them the medication they need, not everything you've highlighted is abusive.

I’m torn. It’s not how I would parent, but the children seem happy and healthy, and whether they sleep in the same bed as their parents/learn to read early or late/eat at meal times - not really my business. I think there is a hugely conformist lobby on MN that sees things that are very different and starts dreaming about bringing it back into line.

So at 1 the little girls wasn’t in nappies (I assume they were doing ‘evacuation communication’ when she weed on This Morning), but now she’s 4 and still in nappies?? They overcompensated then 😄

If they aren't learning to read and write that isn't home schooling, it's Unschooling. There were a few families near us in the US who tried it, and failed miserably. The kids ended up enrolled in Homeschool, which held the parents accountable for making sure they actually learned.
Of they aren't teaching basic hygiene and don't believe in mainstream medicine and one gets sick, that can be classed as Medical neglect and is child abuse.
Co-sleeping and late bedtimes no problem it's not like they have to get up for school.
From the little snippets I'll reserve judgement, they sound a bit batty, but I lived in rural California where people lived very different lives to me and my friends and no one batted an eyelid.

The not enforcing dental hygiene or ensuring adequate meals are provided I would say yes, are both forms of neglect. If I let my 4 year old choose what she wanted to eat for every meal, she would survive on biscuits, sweets and potato smilies Which funnily enough, is why I do my job as a parent and provide proper meals at regular times throughout the day....like most normal people do
The family bed thing doesn’t really make me raise an eyebrow, because it was my set up with two co-sleeping toddlers up until earlier this year.
I’d be interested to watch the episode though

I can't get too bothered about the co-sleeping and late bedtimes - they don't seem to have much the need to get up for!

I don't understnad why you would make so little attempt to educate your children, though. Did these parents have a particularly bad experience of mainstream schooling?

I also don't understand how somebody can announce on TV that they actively aren't looking for work, (beyond a few hours of yoga teaching), and still receive enough benefits to pay for their home, bills, and food. I am NOT having a pop at people who need benefits, I just thought there were some kind of expectations of a long-term claimant to at least try to support themselves!

And surely he would need to claim a fair bit more than £190 a week to keep a 5 person family and pay rent for a HA home in Brighton? Surely that can't be right?

Think I might retrain as a yoga instructor.........

I may change my mind after watching ,but from what I've read the parents are incompetent and neglectful. The fact that their 8 year old is not able to even write his own name is bloody awful. Also I believe kids need structure and routine, which these kids are not getting.

It annoys me that working is no in his physce! Stop his benefits and he will soon get off his arse

They sound like typical Brighton people to me, it's down the road but I avoid it like the plague

Bollocks. That is an absolute stereotype and harmful to perpetrate.

I've lived in Brighton on and off for the last 30 years. My kids and vaccinated, have healthy boundaries and clean their teeth. Just like all the other kids of families we know in Brighton.

You sound delightful.

Nor sure about this family, but we know a family here in America who have very alternative ideas to education and parenting. Their kids are very bright and were homeschooled up until high school when the oldest twins requested to attend a private school for the sports opportunities. The mother now runs a very succesful unschooling school with its own building etc and about 30 students. Each kid has access to an ipad, learning toys, outside. Science equipment etc and they choose what they want to study. So some get obsessed with coding and spend a few months working solely on making programs. Others get into lego and spend weeks building things. They seem to all do really well under her scheme... her own kids are chess champions and generally all round good at everything.

They were also alternative in terms of discipline, and the kids would often play on a building sute or with dangerous sticks etc outside. If they got injured they lesrnt a lesson from it. It isn't for me, very much a Spartan sort of childhood, but can't really fault them since all the kids are doing so well.

Poor dental hygiene can affect other areas of the body, so that is neglect.

It is lazy bull shit parenting by parents who no doubt were taught reading writing and arithmetic.

The couple have been assessed by SS, so i think what the media portrays is exaggerated.

My sil and bil children have been under the watchful eye of social services for the last 6 years, more for the sil older children. They live in a disgusting hovel, with no sheets on their beds, cat shit all over the house (don't even think they own a cat) and just generally manky. The mother is an alcoholic, the now absent father is a smack head and they are completely neglected. Social services still haven't taken the children away and they never will. They were sent to special nurseries for vulnerable children and now at school. Just because social services are involved, doesn't mean all is well.

It is the Costa Rica family, they obviously didn't go
www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/lifestyle/these-unconventional-parents-want-your-money-to-fund-self-sufficient-lifestyle-1.3004355

@Trebla thank you!!! Why does everyone on here hate brighton so much?! That's the third thing I've read this week!

The article says the father has an autoimmune disease.

I wonder if he can't work long hours or chooses not to work long hours due to health?

I know what he says but some people are so determined to defend their alternative lifestyle they act all front.

I don't agree with not attempting to teach basic literacy or not even cooking a meal for your children.

I've met plenty of people like this over the years, dying to watch it. What channel is it on?