To think there needs to be a public inquiry into child development

[MaryMaryVeryContrary]

It really seems like we have a looming societal crisis in terms of child development and therefore the quality of the public in 10-20 years time. Experienced teachers across the board seem to be reporting an overwhelming increase in delayed, aggressive and disruptive children. I’m extremely worried about how this will impact society when they become adults - it seems (as a guess) at least a tenth of children will be incapable of work of any kind, and many more will need copious amounts of support to live any kind of responsible life.

AIBU to think we need an urgent public inquiry into this and what is going on? It seems to be the elephant in the room and anybody who tries to discuss it is shouted down.

I’m sure some of it is due to cuts in services but surely that can’t account for it all - it’s very sudden and extremely alarming.

For some reason, DLA seems harder to get for children with physical disabilities. I was referring to what I'd already comments about. Conditions such as ADHD and Autism, which are harder to prove.

Go to the media, if you can. They were very successful in a relative's failed tribunal case with their wheelchair using child.

Parents are more aware too and are more likely to seek help.
which of course media and the web have helped with.
things are easier for people to ask questions about reach out to others.
when I was small it’s not that people in the class were not acting out but their parents had no clue where to turn or it there was a problem.

She has autism to

This. With bells on. Appalling parenting, kids to run riot.

Working in early years, some of the advice and I put from professionals is absolutely laughable. I think there is some much conflict, we ba e children who spit and lash out (no obviously sen). We have to ignore the bad behaviour, offer them sensory toys and maybe rub there back to meet their sensory needs to help them self regulate. We aren't allowed to discipline them. They then get to secondary school and the teachers give them detentions over the most minute things like not having a pen! They just can't cope. The discipline and boundaries are not consistent. Parents are too scared to discipline their kids.

Just an example of the ASD rise in numbers, my youngest son has severe ASD & now as a family we know more about autism we’ve seen the signs in so many adults in our family. My grandad, myself (both ASD) & my sister (ADHD) have now been diagnosed. The Sara just said my sister was hyperactive & not to give her food colourings but she wasn’t actually diagnosed with anything officially as a kid. I was ‘advanced’, talking really early, very obsessive, very rigid with rules, not social, struggled with friendship groups but in the 90s autism was a ‘boy thing’ and not something girls had.

My brothers son (age 16) is in the process of being diagnosed & my sisters son (age 18) is also on the pathway but Drs not sure if it’s ASD or ADHD with him. When my eldest son was little I was sure something was there but was fobbed off as I was a young mum (age 19), constantly told it was all in my head etc. He’s now 23 & says he knows he’s different & sees so much of himself in his little brother, he’s being referred for ASD assessment.

It’s massively profound in my family. My boy is now 12, ASD was suspected at 9months his autism is that severe so in the past 11 years we’ve realised that so many of us have gone under the radar when in reality it’s pretty bloody obvious & I can’t believe it was missed. But it just wasn’t something that was really diagnosed, we were just the weird/odd kids that needed ‘a smack’ to sort us out, I honestly lost count at the amount of times we’ve been told that either about us (as kids) or our kids. There will be loads families like mine that don’t realise that so many of them will be on the spectrum

I wonder if smaller/more so dispersed families aren't helping either. If you haven't had Siblings/Grandparents/Uncles/Aunts/Cousins near by when growing up, it's much harder to learn how to parent and pass those skills on. You also don't have childcare on tap so that occasionally you can have a breather from the children or clean without them wreaking the place whilst you do so, etc.

It's electronic babysitters.

To follow on from this, because I haven't seen it mentioned yet, we have also seen a rise of the only child families.

Having elder siblings helps with social skills and speech.

Bit harder to do if you don't have siblings, especially in lockdown!

Could it be because of lockdowns? If a child could not learn social skills at a key stage in their development, might it not be very difficult to make up for it later?

Are lots of children delayed, aggressive and disruptive today? and if so, is it because they are badly parented or because the expectations on small children in schools today are unrealistic?
Your teacher when you started school at the age of five in 1980 was essentially a nursery nurse. Your early years foundation stage teacher when you start school today at the age of four, is a degree educated professional.
LOL at the idea that kids in the 60s 70s 80s etc were better parented than today. Lots of 20th century kids in the UK were largely free range at weekends/holidays/after school from the age of approximately 5 and up.
Oh and I know this will fall on deaf ears, but judgemental parents of NT kids, please consider that our late talking kids are drawn to screens because they have brains that are more inclined for visual-analytical learning - in the early years at least - over the more typical social-type learning style. Not because we are worse at parenting than you are.😆

I would say everyone is on the spectrum if they actually read up on it but unless it's significantly impacting your life why would you. This is the reason wait lists are so long. Anyone who has ever watched tiktoks talking about signs you may have adhd/ add/ asd ect it's literally describes everyone.

Permanent expulsions from state schooling (and imprisonment in criminal cases) need to return. It breaks my heart that Brianna Ghey was murdered by an utterly evil, criminal child because the original school couldn’t be bothered to contact the police (or tell the new school) when she roofied a girl.

I also believe, from what I’ve seen outside of London, is that the problem here is (mainly) white british parents don’t tend to enforce boundaries or parent their children (or even potty train) before they start school. And that sets them behind for life.

Yes - I think so, it takes a village…we dont seem to have the communities we had even 20 years ago.

No, not everybody is autistic.

A diagnosis is useful for knowing yourself if you're at later age and to be able to devise strategies to help.

Besides, we all know anybody who self diagnoses gets absolutely slaughtered on SM for doing so - to then question why they would be assessed, means people can't really win!

Anyway to avoid completely derailing this thread, I would say to OP that a true thorough investigation needs to not just look at the past decade of parenting, but at least the past 30 years. Plenty of parental blame to go around, not just for the modern era.

Covid has a lot to answer for but also I think a lot of young people lack resilience presumably due to upbringing. I’m on a kids going to university group on FB and the amount of kids having panic attacks in exams is surprising. I’ve sat countless exams and never known one person have a panic attack in one. Obviously i think it’s right that people with MH problems get appropriate support but it seems so prevalent now, not even talking people with diagnosed illness but that can’t cope with the curve balls life throws at them. That said i know lots of young people who are also great so hopefully as a society we’ll be OK, we’ve always had wasters after all.

Parents used to talk to their children from young age much more in the past than now from what I can see.
Nowadays I see people pushing a pram and talking on their phone rather than talking to the child and capturing their interest.
I see parents out eating with their very young children, giving them an iPad to play with rather than engage in a conversation with them .
These are opportunities when children have to hear, digest what is said and respond. This impacts on their listening and communication skills.

I absolutely* *agree with this, however people in general seem to be becoming less tolerable of children out in public, so a lot of parents use devices to keep their children quiet. Plus, God forbid you interact with your children too enthusiastically in public people accuse you of performance parenting.

Imo society is on a downward spiral in so many areas.

I am autistic.
Autistic children didn't go into the Apple Store and buy iPads themselves. Those kind of electronics didn’t always exist and being autistic is no excuse for using an iPad as a child. They are drawn to screens because iPads and the like are designed to be addictive!! It is better to show them picture books or get your child to be doing things hands on. I think iPads are unhealthy and shouldn’t be used as a teacher or nanny

No.

Things got worse with covid but it was happening for several years before.

My son barely got any screen time when he was a baby and toddler and he still got an early autism diagnosis.

When we started allowing tv, his speech developed because he's a GLP, now he's still not conversational, I couldn't say "what did you do at school today?" And get an answer, but he's extremely verbally adept, and when people work with him and his gestalts that he's picked up, you can see the cogs whirring and he learns how to use words in sentences outside of those gestalts.

I certainly don't think technology is the devil's work or that technology is the primary factor that some people believe it is.

The existing extremely expensive covid enquiry needs to be asking this; but so far the rhetoric is still “we should have locked down harder and longer”. Yes, I know lockdown is only one thing that has harmed children’s development, but it was extremely obvious to many of us from the very beginning that months and months of school closures and blanket lockdowns were going to cause massive harm to children. Children were thrown under the bus to protect the older generation.

And some us tried to say this at the time, but we were told to shut up and stop murdering grannies.

I doubt screen time is causing autism or all speech delay. There have always been children with asd. You see them as adults and they weren't recognised as such. And there are links to older fathers, although this isn't nearly as well publicised as women ' leaving it too late'
But I do think screen time is related to generalised lack of concentration and poor behaviour. It is designed specifically to be addictive, and to ensure people have constant dopamine hits. That is bound to affect young children when they are taken off screens for school.

Judgement from across the board then. 🙄

FYI, my child when a small toddler, would happily stim over picture books. 😆

With their dad outside fixing a drone

Exactly, I just don’t understand why everyone needs a label even if they’ve lived life perfectly without it. I know people in their 60 - 70 ‘s getting tested, it’s ridiculous. Apparently it’s become a money making business now diagnosing Autism etc, everyone wants a test, it’s a trend.
It’s ridiculous it makes those who genuinely need help pushed to the back of the queue, it seems as if parents somehow want to label their kids with something/anthing! The financial side of it definitely drives some people, as mentioned in other posts.