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.

Most women now drink some alcohol.

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

I thought drinking rates had fallen in the younger generations - I see media and surveys and https://alcoholchange.org.uk/alcohol-facts/fact-sheets/drinking-trends-in-the-uk saying this - and DH in HE says it's noticeable in his students more don't drink at all and one that do drink less.

Also my youngest is 15 and I absolutely were told no alcohol at all in pg- as were mothers with younger kids than mine - though I concede that may be area dependent.

This is exactly what I am seeing too. Secondary schools used to be quiet academic places that were great for ND kids.

Now they're all videos and excitement and roll playing and it drives my ND kid crazy.

I also don’t think it helps that some men seem to not care anymore about the implications of walking away from their family home and their children.

I think there are higher numbers of children being bought up with crap fathers (or completely absent ones) and some of these children will have no consistent positive male role model in their life either.

I think both parents play a very important role in the individual growth of a child (emotionally and socially) and when one of them barely shows an interest in their child (99.9% of the time it’s the father) then that has to have some impact on their self worth, their confidence and in turn their behaviours.

The same goes for children who are raised in the homes of unhappy marriages and dysfunctional relationships. It all has an impact.

To be honest I haven’t looked into a rise in other countries, just the U.K. although I have heard anecdotally the States is reporting the same.

I can see how kids who are sensitive to noise/chaos are probably living in hell in 2024. I’m not ND and am pretty sociable but even I don’t like blasting dance music in supermarkets. Everything seems designed to heighten emotions now rather than let the brain have peace and time to process

I think there is an increase in children with quite complex additional needs in main stream schools who would have previously gone to specialist schools this lets down these children as they often get insufficient support, but also lets down the other children whose education is often disrupted.
I used to work in early years, when I started in the early 2000s we played and talked to the children did crafts and organised games. By the time I left we had so much paper work and observations to do the actual interaction with the children was suffering.

I agree. I knew disabled children growing up, they were at home (early to late 90s). Among the conditions were Downs (there seemed to be more presumably due to more primitive testing), cerebral palsy and cystic fibrosis.

What there seemed to be less of (happy to stand corrected at least anecdotally!) is children simply failing to develop as expected for no discernible reason.

I think we’ve slowly become used to seeing children lagging to the extent we don’t really recognise it any more. I was chatting to a lady at work who is back from maternity, her child is 18 months now and cannot walk and has no proper words. She didn’t seem to think this was anything out of the ordinary, and it probably isn’t and her child will likely catch up, but it is unusual and this is the stage where some input from a HV or similar should happen.

DS is 14 months and had his check at 9 months which I thought was far too early given the crucial communication window is around 11-15 months. A 15 month review would be much better in catching the children who are lagging a bit, it seems to me anyway.

You are correct my DC is medically complex including more than one tube and machines, ASD, CP, speech delay
was placed in a mainstream primary and now going to be forced in to a main stream secondary.

This is exactly the problem. We can't move for videos and gifs and images and things that are intended to shock. Even if you look at the home page of the BBC iplayer, it's full of really quite shocking stuff. The days where you could rely on the BBC to produce "Open all hours" and "Wogan" are long gone.

In the old days a pop concert saw people holding up candles at the very most and now the pop concerts have crazy bright lighting.

In our house we've had to go back to the 80s way of living to dial my DC back to a normal state and it's working remarkably well.

Screens are out here now, except for bake-off type stuff. We're using books and playing the piano and going for walks and it is so much better, But when I tell schools this they say "cannot meet need".

They just can't accommodate kids who can't be constantly babysat by screens in school.

I think there are likely very many jobs that wouldn't involve LED lights or screens, that would be fine for you though?

That doesn't mean you 'can't work', just that you can't work in certain roles.

I can't go into buildings though, because they are all lit by LED lights. That is quite limiting.

If the world would create a wfh role where I literally never need to go to any other building I would like that a lot.

I'm a SAHM at the moment btw, so not actually looking for work or claming benefits.

Could we invite the Labour shadow education secretary on to discuss this with us? I think it would be good to do that.

Or we could write a letter to the British Medical Journal, signed "from the Mumsnetters". I would be willing to write and send it. I'm a biomedical research scientist.

I'm not claiming benefits and never have.

There’s loads of WFH roles now.

Okay it's fine, you can forget this discussion. I'm not currently looking for a job and have never claimed benefits.

You can relax. Get back to the OP's question.

But you 'can't work' so have possibly never contributed as a tax-payer and you're currently saying you couldn't work because of LED lights and screens giving you a headache and nausea.

You might not be claiming benefits now but you are certainly benefitting from the 'system' as a SAHM. Your prenatal, maternity and postnatal care. Your
GP. Your DC future education..

I don't need to 'relax' .

How do you think all the public services you're using are funded?

If you didn't realise, it's from people working and paying tax.

Even if they don't like LED lights..

Everybody benefits from " the system". Disability or no.

Sounds like a brilliant idea.

I would be all for it.

This is so infuriating because there is so much bad messaging out there about drinking during pregnancy. The message now seems to be that a small amount of alcohol is just fine, and there doesn’t really seem to be enough evidence to support this (lack of evidence of harm is not the same as evidence of no harm). And honestly if someone can’t control themselves for 9 months and say no to alcohol, what can you hope for in terms of teaching their child boundaries and self control?

There is no reason to believe FASD is the issue.

If it’s FASD though why the rise? I think the alcohol message now is stronger than the 70s and 80s.

It absolutely isn’t. There are endless posts on here about how it’s okay to have some wine or champagne or whatever when pregnant. It’s seen as very unfashionable to abstain. People were constantly telling me it was okay to have a small drink when pregnant and I was absolutely not having it. There are fashionable pregnancy books that say it’s fine. I think this is especially the case among more educated/wealthy women who would have abstained in previous generations.