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.

You can't honestly think kids don't still regularly play games like that? My two certainly do.

I think a lot of the reasons that ND people can't work are man-made though, and could be fixed.

I can't work because I get headaches from LED lights and nausea from the constantly moving pictures on screens in the screen-based world we live in now.

If I had fluorescent lights and fluorescent backlit screens or paper to work from I'd do just fine,

The tv is full of fear and horror and intense music too, and it didn't used to be like that.

Everywhere is full of bright lights and intense stuff these days and none of it is necessary. If we could get rid of this stuff and make the world calmer and less full of sensory overwhelm then ND would be able to work again.

I think my son is partly in trouble because we've been under intense pressure to pursue academic excellence above all else, and now his skill of independence are terribly far behind.

In order to do what I need to do to bring on his skills of independence I've had to remove him from the school system because the schools were driving him relentlessly to try to get the best league table placing that they could.

They had no incentive to think about him as a whole child, or to care at all about his ability to function in society. When I did talk to them about how bad his situation was, they said I just needed to send him back to school or deregister and take on all responsibility for his education myself. He was having a nervous breakdown and they had no incentive at all to think about anything other than driving him hard towards GCSEs or getting rid of him.

I think the school system, the Gove curriculum and league tables really carry a lot of responsiblity for the mess our kids are in.

My son has never had a smartphone.

My 4 DC are just fine and they got way more attention from me than I ever did from my parents (grew up in the 80s to mid 90s). We were just left to figure stuff out more ourselves, walked to school, our childhoods were less stressful. My parents barely looked at my exam results, nor did they have to “Read” with me daily do spellings and Maths practice. Look KS1 and KS2 demand and GCSEs are tougher than they used to be. It is just not realistic to get many children up to that level. It comes with loads of pressure on kids and the parents. We don’t need a society of 50% going to uni. It is a waste of resources. We need those who need a uni education for their profession to go, the rest should be going into good quality apprenticeships. It is the one size fits all in education that is too much pressure, especially post Covid.
Covid has been terrible for social mobility and children with SEN. That will come out of the Covid inquiry. Numerous studies are already showing that.

As for screen addictions and diet and lack of exercise, well people need to inform themselves. The state cannot nanny everyone. The information is out there if you want to access it - loads of free work outs online, park runs, a massive vitamin industry. In many ways, health is at the centre for so many people.

Screen addiction is like any addiction. The state should do less interference and let people work things out for themselves and in their own communities. There should be much more local funding vs some state centralised model. It just does not work. People have relied too much on the “state”, NHS, teachers etc., the benefits system. Once you have a society like that you infantilise everyone. Plus “the Government” does not have anywhere as much control as the general public think. They are just some other humans making stuff up as they go along as well. Covid was the perfect example of that and so was Brexit.

And everyone deserves a good wage if they work hard. That is where it starts. If you are guaranteed a good wage as a builder/hairdresser/chef etc then you don’t have to go to uni to become an accountant or teacher. A fairer wage distribution for all would solve a lot of problems quickly. And finally, the state should never encourage those already struggling to have more kids via generous benefits. That is just not fair on those children. Parenting these days is difficult and precious because we have a low birth rate. Some more respect towards parents from the elderly generation would not go amiss. So if the state is going to encourage people to have kids, they should be encouraging those who are healthy, have less trauma, are not poor. Now I bet I am going to be accused of being a Tory. Far from it! But we need to think about the children being born too.

I think a lot of the reasons that ND people can't work are man-made though, and could be fixed.

This - certainly with schools.

I think my kids are very similar to me - ND - wise but I had much calmer less chaotic school environments to content with - my secondary could get loud and noisy and chaotic but lessons were clam and gave that break so could cope with rest of the day.

DD2 not getting that - huge classes, inexperienced teachers poor behavior and lots of supply - it's chaotic and loud the bulk of the time - toilet access is so restricted as to not be there - lunch was stressful time some senior more experienced teachers stared breaking rules and letting kids like mine eat quietly in their classroom. DD2 started to think she's the problem not the environment an attitude that's seems to get encouraged with emphasis on what she can't do - which we as parents that have to battle against.

Of course screens are a modern phenomenon. Last 10 years particularly.

I'm talking about all the 'kids were thrown out every day to do what they liked and only came home when they were hungry'.

'Mums fed their babies then put them in a pram for hours or pushed them to the bottom of the garden if they were crying'

'Dads weren't even at the birth, let alone changing nappies'.

'Parents didn't interact with their DC like now children were to be seen and not heard'.

'Kids were left outside pubs with a coke and a packet of crisps'.

At the same time as saying 'there were more SAHM back then so better parenting'.

There have always been parents that don't interact well with their DC and are neglectful.

But the things I've described above haven't been commonly accepted for decades.

I was born in 1978. My parents read to me, my Mum worked and was a bit dismissive about the 'baby wearing, hippy , co-sleeping Mums in toddler groups' because that wasn't what she was into, but it definitely was common enough.

Dr Spocks child-rearing books devised in the 1940s went really mainstream in the 1960s.

The 70s and 80s were when 'parenting styles' began to be a thing as there were many, many books published on parenting. Which became trends.

So, I'm sure there are still kids left outside pubs with a coke and kicked out of the home to find for themselves till they're hungry or it gets dark, but it certainly isn't common anymore, hence the MN posts to call social services if anyone saw a kid waiting outside a pub for their parent or even inside one.

I haven’t read the whole thread so don’t know if anyone linked this study yet https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/A-generation-at-risk-rebalancing-education-in-the-post-pandemic-era-1.pdf

I agree but I think the neglect (meant lightly) takes a different form now and I think it’s the type of neglect rather than neglect per se that may be a factor.

If mum turfed you out for the morning at 8, you would go and play with other children whose mums had also turfed them out. You’d be in the fresh air, chatting, playing. Now it’s handing them a tablet and leaving them on the sofa. No social interaction, no exercise, no vitamin D, no play skills.

Our concept of risk has distorted. We are much happier to coop our kids up on screens, risking social communication problems and obesity, than let them out to play because of the very small chance of a serious accident or kidnap.

“Our concept of risk has distorted. We are much happier to coop our kids up on screens, risking social communication problems and obesity, than let them out to play because of the very small chance of a serious accident or kidnap.”

The safeguarding at school encourages that though. We would be reported if we let our 7 year old DD walk to school with her friends yet her cousins who live in Zurich are doing just that. Every day. Their curriculum is much more based on physical and social & emotional development up to the age of 8/9.

I remember even in Year 1 my DCs here were sat at the desk most of the day and there was never enough sport provided in school. Thankfully their school introduced the daily mile a few years back and Chinese style morning acrobatics and brain breaks. We need lots and lots of this across all English schools. Sufficient exercise is critical for bone and muscle development. People who work until 6pm every day and live in a country that is cold most of the year need to be able to rely on the public education system to provide their DCs with plenty of exercise!

Not even in the 80s was this very common for new DC.

That's why it's ridiculous when people say 'well in the past, those DC would have been hidden away'.

In the late 19th and early to mid 20th century, DC with what we would now consider to be LD or high-needs ASC kids would routinely be offered placements in institutions but also, some families said no and kept their kids at home.

1980s - 90s was the slow dismantle of the institutions and asylums.

So 'these kids' that would allegedly have been hidden away, haven't been for at least 30 years, I agree.

So entirely irrelevant when we're taking about now.

The Children turfed out all day wasn’t done thing when I was child in 80s, we played out as a group but needed to be back for meals.
But the phenomenon of preteens and teens never being allowed out ever without an adult is very new, post Covid.
Eg Secondary school age children always driven to school and structured activities.
We are specifically stating now on Girlguide trips if girls will be with an adult at all times as some parents do now expect this eg rollerskating recently. We let girls (10-13) skate in groups of friends, one leader skating, leaders stood on side of rink watching. Let them go to cafe in small groups to buy a drink. One mum insisted she came and hold hands with her child on the rink, accompanied her to cafe. Not a one off incident.

They weren't in mainstream in the 90s. My friends sibling would go off to school and back in her taxi, apart from that she would be left to watch us from inside and stuck infront of the TV, whilst her siblings played out. I didn't mean locked away in terms of institutions (although they do still exist, even today) but very much segregated from the rest of society.

God I just hate threads like these.

I was born in the 90s. Yes I was turfed out onto the streets when they could unattach me from the TV.

Did I go socialise with the other kids? No because I'm autistic and they thought me a bloody weirdo. So I just kinda wandered along the streets instead.

I have issues as an adult now but now because of any screen time - because I was bullied by neurotypical peers.

IMHO, parents were far more neglectful back then. Kids could only benefit from being turned out if they already had the social skills in place.

And quite a few people on this thread have presumed just that! Now what about the children who were autistic back then? Like me?

The Children turfed out all day wasn’t done thing when I was child in 80s, we played out as a group but needed to be back for meals.

I wasn’t suggesting those kids weren’t fed.

Gosh do we really?

I think you’re missing the point of the thread. And I appreciate it may be more sensitive for some than others (due to having children with disabilities or a disability themselves) but that doesn’t mean we should lock the conversation up and throw away the key.

Any experienced teacher or nursery worker will tell you children now are more delayed than in previous years and the number of children with high level special needs has skyrocketed. If this isn’t true (unlikely) then some kind of survey would confirm that, but if it is, the survey is needed even more as we need to take urgent action to ensure society doesn’t further buckle under the need to make provision in 10-20 years time.

If you are a person demanding more resources while simultaneously undermining an effort to see whether actually providing it will be possible due to workforce deficiencies, then that’s denial and will have a bad outcome.

We need to listen to what early years workers are saying and act on it, not kick the can down the road and hope for the best because it’s a bit awkward. We’ve done that too many times in our society and this could be the biggest crisis yet

The issue is your lack of comprehension OP. There are more children with high level needs UNSUPPORTED and in MAINSTREAM school. Disability is not a new invention.

The government don't need to do a 'survey' because they are well aware of this fact. And they do not give a fuck.

The bigger problem facing early years workers is staff retention, recruitment, staff ratios and ultimately, funding.

More kids to fewer staff members means they are almost certainly more like to meet children with additional needs.
More parents must work in order to keep roof over head, means more children in child care.

Fewer special schools that Tony Blair had insisted he was going to build but never materialised and fewer special school places means more visibily disabled children in mainstream.

BTW, both Tory and Labour want more "inclusive" mainstream education for SEN children - so put your blame where it belongs, thank you.

And yes, more ND adults getting together thanks to online algorithms = more ND babies.

I don't think the conversation needs to be shut down entirely, but if I hear one more simple voice suggesting I give my disabled child too much screen time and that is the reason she cannot speak, I am going to vomit.

I don't demand more resources, actually, for my child. I request equity. I shouldn't have to do so.

I do still think that the biggest problem in society though are people stuck in the cycle of abuse, like yourself. But you wouldn't create a thread on that because it would mean suggesting you don't have DC rather than parents of disabled children that are genuinely doing their best, rather than the people who think you can smack a disability out of a person.

Yes it matters, I have one of those children.
it matters in a sense but not in a matter of other peoples judgements on what a child should be able to do and they the main reason people have stated is parents fault.
we can’t change our children we can only help them the best we can achieve to the best of their ability and that is an achievement when they make those little steps.

Lots of countries have more freedoms for their children and have diff ways of life but the actual stays on SEN especially asd is that it has increased everywhere and we are no where near the top statistically when factoring only children.

@Windthebloodybobbinup

Gold star.

I agree with the theory that a large chunk of the current cohort of kids have FASD.

Most women now drink some alcohol.

We aren't being given the public health warnings that ANY alcohol after CONCEPTION can damage the embryo.

Start a MN thread saying this and you'll get abuse left right and centre.

No one wants to acknowledge that they may have harmed their child.

But it's not the mothers' fault when we aren't being told this vital information!

The only ones campaigning on this issue are adoptive parents because that's socially acceptable.

There must be some Muslim countries where hardly anyone drinks where you could easily do a comparison if your theory is alcohol based? What about vitamin deficiencies, chemicals in the environment, chemical build up in the body etc etc, ageing parents, the list can go on and on, vaccines anyone… - people have a lot of “theories”.

And the fact that the younger generation is useless - well that kind of attitude can be traced back to the Middle Ages. Pretty sure there is an appropriate Chaucer comment to that effect somewhere…

Inclusivity is largely just a party line to stop providing adequate provision to SEN children. I know many SEN children who just aren’t capable of being alongside “typical” children (for want of a better phrase). For some it just isn’t fair to either the SEN child who has unrealistic expectations placed on them, the consequences of non-compliance they don’t understand and the NT kids who’s learning is disrupted and safety threatened. They might all be in the same room but they aren’t adding value to either one.