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.

I have adhd so far passed it on to 3 of my kids. One is extremely disruptive in school and is moving to a sen school finally. The other 2 cope okay in school seem to be alright grade wise.

What I have noticed in some people who know my children, they are very quick to label their child the same as mine and say their child has the same issues. Where I see children who are unmotivated, stuck on tablets, parents leaving them to do whatever they like. No guidance, basically terrible parenting. I think in a way it's become an easy thing to say about your child.

If I had known my kids would be like this I'd of stopped at 1 but we are where we are and it'll be okay. It's very hard work our house is extremely chaotic but also full of happiness and laughter so it's a crazy balance.

I agree OP.

The loss of free play ( children playing together), loss of mixed age play, rise in screen use meaning children play remotely rather than in person. Parents being busy - two income households- but no free play with peers to compensate for that lack of interaction.

I think all these things are having a massive impact. Some of this we could address, early years and schools settings could reconfigure to facilitate mixed age play ( get rid of bloody ‘age rooms’ in early years. Some is harder to address, but I do think we as a society need to take a good hard look at what is causing these problems

Agree. Parents on smart phones ignoring young kids, later the children having early access to social media. Children gaming, so they seem calm for hours but are disregulated after. Two children we know who are basically dangerous - hurting animals and other kids - have a father who plays Call of Duty infront of them. All anecdotal, but also have a friend who is a professional in this area and says similar.

It is not poverty alone.
There has always been poverty. Arguably the poverty was far worse decades ago.
The difference is that back then a child from a poor family would be sent out to play on the street, where there was lots of interaction with other children and some adults. Now they are kept indoors, frequently on a screen.

Parents in the past were also exhausted, working multiple jobs, or long hours, or women having far more work to do at home (no washing machines, microwaves or fridges). But when they finally collapsed into a chair they were available to talk to their children.
Now the parent collapses into a chair and promptly starts looking at a phone screen.

Studies have shown that babies want nothing more than to look at human faces, and then later toddlers want nothing more than to interact with people.

The parent is no longer looking at the child, they are looking at a screen at every opportunity.

Yes there have been other changes, in processed food, premature babies and SEN, school curriculum, etc. etc.

But the biggest, most overwhelming change, what is REALLY different now to even a decade ago, is PARENTS looking at screens.

Overworked and exhausted parents. It’s impossible to do everything, we are not superhuman, I now know very few people who are able to stay and home, and are instead coming home after a 10 hour day and having to start again. No wonder our mental health is rock bottom, no wonder the I pad comes out.

Add to that nursery, with parents having to work, babies are at nursery for hours and hours, with high ratios of staff, babies and toddlers are not making the attachments and having their needs met. We need to support a parent to stay home.
Nurseries are fantastic places where children can learn so many skills, but it’s not such a great place to be for 10 hours a day.

People are going to hate me for my comment. The first is obviously more family breakdowns and both parents working full time. The 2nd is the over diagnosis of adhd, asd ect. Conditions like this are very common but it's a scale children on the lower end of that scale don't need to be diagnosed and drugged as this takes help away from children who genuinely need it and is often used as an excuse for behavioural issues.

I've worked with teenagers with both diagnosed and SEN and those who are undiagnosed but 'SEMH' or those with global unspecified learning difficulties. Personally, I think Foetal alcohol syndrome is a silent crisis in our country that is under diagnosed and under recognised. In a society where binge drinking is huge, this has a permanganate impact on babies, children and adults.

Where are your statistics to evidence these statements?

A comedian said that 14 year olds were once paid to baby sit.
Now they need babysitters.

We see it on mumsnet all the time, we as a society in the west, and as parents are keeping our children young for as long as possible by never letting them grow up, accept responsibility, understand that the world is a tough place, avoiding chores, always taking their side and being oblivious to the true impact of social media.

I try my best as a parent - I know I’ve slipped up, I work, can be on my phone. I also take a holistic view when my daughter is in the wrong but I have seen many parents take their children’s side and defend poor behaviour; you then wonder why these children are cheeky and poorly behaved. I have tried hard to delay when my DD uses socials but I gave in and made sure we constantly have open discussions about how to use socials. Plus we go out, cook together, arrange play dates, (she’s 11) and spend time with family.

I’m fortunate that my job and lifestyle means I’m very aware of the good and bad of social media - but I’m shocked at the amount of parents that are so oblivious to the dark side of socials and let their children on it without monitoring - and I then hear stories about how “so and so is doing x on socials” from my daughter. Social media can be crippling as the brain does not differentiate emotions stemmed online vs in person and I am waiting for the day a huge white paper/report is finally realeased to show everyone.

We also don’t look out for each others children like we used to. Most people don’t want to hear a negative word about their children from others. So there is very little accountability. Family values are out of the window as we are so individualistic- when you are younger family and identity are very interlinked but now young people feel forced to be something, to be a star etc when they should just focus on growing up and playing.

The west isn’t very child friendly anymore - I can’t p it my finger on it but I’m glad you raised the question OP.

My family is in this situation too.

It started with wheat intolerance coupled with lack of access to NHS health care and NHS dentistry, which cause really damaging long term health problems.

This led to reliance on screens, as we couldn't cope.

The latest problem is that the schools are so short-staffed that I have had to stop sending my son to school entirely. This is fine academically, but it is yet another barrier to him learning good social behaviour and conflict resolution.

So for us the problems are lack of access to safe food and safe basic public services.

Thinking back to the 80s, I remember so many things that were good then. Food basically worked, and the school was good. However, more or less all my friends had mental health problems and all the mothers were on tranquilisers, so I'm not sure it was all fine then either.

I do think it's great that we are talking about this here because something needs to change. The public services are on their knees, and kids have no where safe to play.

We need to get the labour party to come and talk to us about this asap I think.

@twodogsbetterthanone

I have never understood why the assessment for ADD doesn’t also include a screening for trauma. It makes zero sense.

My ex husband has so far refused to be evaluated. I did the evaluation. I didn’t fully meet the diagnosis of ADD, just displaying issues with inattention. I was given a situational anxiety diagnosis at the same time. I took this to my lawyer who said hmmm that looks like trauma response. I took the testing to a specialist in trauma who confirmed yes it’s trauma response.

No one can seem to link this to my children’s issues because it doesn’t fit the narrative of ‘father’s rights’. The research courts rely on is deeply flawed because it takes a small sample of children from homes with functioning fathers. I’d love there to be an inquiry such as this require a research project to track the outcomes of homes where the parent is not functioning/trauma is present.

This sounds like my DC and I can ensure you that unfortunately for her although she looks absolutely perfect from the outside because you can’t see what they went through
she fought to survive and you know back in 70s 80s she wouldn’t have been here at all.
you can’t know a child’s reasons just by looking at them. She didn’t have bad parents / constant technology or anything like the above suggestions she just had a really crappy hand dealt to her.

Really? As in, pregnant women drinking, or women drinking around conception before they realise?

I agree with those who have said screens are a massive problem. I know someone whose children have not been back to school since the pandemic. They are absolutely addicted to screens. They sit up all night gaming or scrolling or on tictok then she can't get them up in the morning. They are utter exhausted so they sleep all day. They wake up late afternoon and then stay up all night again. I honestly believe if they lived in a time before screens they would have gone to school. They would not be staying up all night because there would be nothing to do!!

Thank you!

When I look at the way children from 0-5 are cared for has changed in my lifetime (I'm 68), it's massive.

The vast majority of mothers were SAHPs. They had no choice, as there was little child care outside the home. What child care there was was mostly informal, although I went to a nursery school 2 half-days per week.

Processed food was barely a thing, most of our SAHMs cooked almost entirely from scratch.

There was no such thing as "screen time", there wasn't even daytime tv, apart from the lunchtime news and "Watch With Mother".

Children didn't start school until after their 5th birthday, and children with additional needs were often placed in "special schools".

There was a lot more input from health visitors, who would visit regularly during the first couple of years in a child's life.

I'm not for a minute suggesting that we should go back to the 1950s, the but societal changes in the way that pre-school children are cared for have not been met with additional support and provision that makes up for the downsides of those changes.

Very well put

You do realize that it was Conservatives in charge the whole if the 80s lol

Back when I was studying the child development module of my paediatric training (1970s, I am really old) we were told that we should advise parents not to have the TV / radio on as background noise because it could contribute to speech delay. The child needs to hear your voice and see your face in order to learn to speak, process and converse.
I have a friend who is a retired speech therapist who is just in despair at the damage screens are causing, not just to speech development, but to all levels of interaction with other humans.
It is an addiction and it is evident that for many children, during the time they are separated from their screen, they are experiencing withdrawal symptoms and are distressed, angry, unable to cope.

@Windthebloodybobbinup

Not just alcohol. I think drugs is a major major issue. I’m fed up of people saying weed is nothing. Here in the U.S. the narrative is that weed is better for you than alcohol.

The problem with drugs is that your brain is encased in a fatty layer and deposits of what you consume remain in this fat. It affects the neurological system and I am quite sure these same deposits are in fat elsewhere in the body and passed to the baby while in utero.

My children behave very differently if I can keep them on a very clean diet of fruit, vegetables and high quality protein (wild fish from pollution free water, chicken raised properly, grass fed beef and proper lamb. They go to their father every other week and it’s hot dogs, pizza, peanut butter jam sandwiches and cereal with milk. I am left with no choice but to medicate my children. No one in the family court system thinks diet matters. I have one child in particular who I’d love to leave with the judge who told me I was being controlling by demanding their father not feed the child crap. Literally the child wets themselves when they come to my home and I start the detox process because they are so hyperactive after eating processed food full of additives for a week.

There is a lack of studies but recent stats indicate approx 17% of the population are impacted, with the below life long issues.

Totally agree with you OP, also with @Differentstarts re the over diagnosis of ADHD, I know people hate you saying that but it is the elephant in the room and has to be faced plus all the other labels parents seem to want to have put on their children these days. You only have to read the threads on here about parents queuing up to obtain a diagnosis, which I suspect in certain cases is inspired by the extra £500 a month paid out to diagnosed children, which would be far better used working out scientifically as to why so many children appear to have problems.
I also think it’s a mistake to mix children with disruptive problems into main stream school, it disrupts the whole class and the teacher then spends the whole time concentrating on the disruptive pupils instead of being able to do their job and teach the children who want to learn.
If parents were to teach their children to have respect and contain their language in the home we would hopefully have less filthy mouthed teenagers roaming the streets. You only have to see the derogatory language used on here daily.
Its obvious there is something seriously going wrong, it could well be linked to smart phone, screen use, and general social interaction, how many parents would be happy taking their children on holiday for a week leaving phones, screens, at home, I suspect not many!
Something needs to be done, and soon or we will be living in a very unstable unruly population in fifteen to twenty years from now.

100% agree.

The increase that was needed in possible ND/MH awareness in e.g schools went too far. So you have DC in schools or on school rota who only attend an hour or few hours a week. Who don't have to attend lessons they don't like, don't have to engage with teachers they don't like and have a card to enable them to leave lessons or school when they feel overwhelmed or just pissed off.

And I work with admittedly, an extreme minority of DC involved with the criminal justice system and have been horrified by the lack of actual tangible consequences for these kids that stems from what should have been a useful way to help vulnerable kids with neurodiversity, trauma or suffering from criminal exploitation but has led to a widespread mismanagement of these kids, with little or zero boundaries or consequences put in place.

Which is what people, particularly those under the age of 18 NEED. You can't expect anyone to change their antisocial, abusive or criminal behaviour if the 'system' continually treats them as victims or vulnerable and does little to put boundaries or consequences in place.

I lol sometimes at the MC Mumsnetters who tell a worried Mum that their DC who's been arrested for shoplifting will receive severe consequences in the court.

Kids found shoplifting, assaultng kids or adults or even Police or in possession of knives, are often dealt with out of court 🙄 let alone there be the severe negative consequences that MNetters think are happening.

And even if they're the few given a youth caution or even a youth rehabilitation order (community sentence) they'll likely have a lovely worker taking them Go-karting, to McDonald's or whatever and those aren't bad things in themselves, but they're seen as rehabilitation and they're really not in most cases.

Hence the reoffending rates. Many of us live in cities with shocking rates of youth violence and murder. It's rare those youths aren't previously known to the criminal justice system.

I 100% agree that ‘screen withdrawal’ needs urgent investigation. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if all the ‘anxiety’ suffered by teens now is actually separation from their phones, hence feeling anxious in class where they don’t have it, and comforted and calm at home where they do.

By the way I would like to thank everyone for a courteous, rational discussion which hasn’t descended into a bun fight about neurodiversity or accusations of ableism/actual ableism.

OK - well you clearly haven't read it because it does but I'm confused, because you seem to be talking about medicore parenting, and parenting at this level can cause speech delay etc but doesn't cause a full blown disability.

If it's parenting then you should be able to undo it with therapy, ie the American Early Intervention model, except in cases of extremely severe neglect e.g. Genie / Romanian orphans - children who have been left without any interaction at all in appalling conditions for years of their lives to the point that it's actually caused irreversible brain damage.

Are you seriously suggesting that screen time, lunchables, and lax boundaries are the same thing as this level of neglect and deprivation? I don't buy it. For sure there are neglectful parents in Britain. And our social services are underfunded and so children fly under the radar but if I understand correctly you're talking about children who wouldn't be considered neglected by social services.

I thought we were talking about an increase in children who exist between these states - they can't cope with a mainstream classroom and so (the assumption, which may not be correct, is) may not be able to cope with work in adult life. But these children usually do much better in an environment which meets their needs, which doesn't seem to be what you're talking about.