Recent study of children joining reception class

[Liveandletlive18]

A recent study by kindred2 of a 1000 teachers resulted in finding a quarter of children today joined reception class when still in nappies. Many children are unable to climb a staircase or sit properly on the floor due to lack of exercise & muscle tone. The children used expressions more common in America such as trash & vacation due to excessive screen time. Teachers stated covid is no longer an excuse. They say a lot of this is due to busy parents working & having less time to interact with children & teach them basic skills. Is this a worrying trend.

We're not blaming lockdown instead of other things, we're including it in the reasons!

I agree with you. I also cannot help but be shocked when I see kids in prams with mobiles or iPads and showing no interest in their environment. Sad indeed.

Logical thinking.

The other thing I'd add to your list is widespread WFH, which may result in parents being more likely to attempt to work while caring for children, resulting in really substandard parenting (albeit possibly motivated by genuine financial desperation).

Stats also suggest that children cared for by grandparents while parents work tend to have worse outcomes on average because some grandparents will be unwilling or unable or just too busy to give dedicated and stimulating care.

That situation might perhaps be more likely post pandemic due to COL issues, and because we now have a higher proportion of 50+ people economically inactive and hence perhaps available for childcare.

Sorry to burst your bubble but my "Covid baby" was born in a tiny flat and we followed the rules. We also talked to our child, read to her every day, took her out for a daily walk as the rules allowed, did tummy time and built up her muscle tone and potty trained her. The first time she saw stairs she climbed them with no problem because she is strong and healthy. She met all her milestones on time or early.

It was a year, and even then, not the whole year, just a few months in spring and some more in winter. It's had more of an impact on children who were taken out of school. Babies only need their parents really. Unless their parents are rubbish.

I don't read all of the comments here but some..

DD just started reception, had some issues with number 2s but seems to be getting out of them. It was psychological due to having some constipation issues and therefore toilet = pain. Number 1s she's been excellent with though, very quickly.

I went back to work full time when she reached 12m. She was in nursery.

Reflecting on potty training, maybe I have left it a little late (won't make that mistake again) as I started around two. The information out there I found very confusing for a first time mum.

My own mum and MIL kept pushing to say that I should've potty trained her from 12 months and all the information elsewhere said 'when your child is showing signs of interest'. Although those signs never really showed…

Like I say, she was potty trained before starting reception, had a couple of accidents but not consistently. I think I should have addressed her fear of the toilet a lot earlier than I have, but the device constantly given to me by health visitors and nursery staff was that it was just going to correct itself at some point...

I'm definitely not a lazy parent, I just didn't know what I didn't know and had to figure it out with all this conflicting information online, NHS, other peoples experiences. I found it quite hard to navigate as a first time parent.

With second DC I feel I'm equipped to do better

Too much screen time and lazy parenting.

Yh, I feel like this is getting lost in the many threads on this topic. It's not really hard "data" so I'm not sure how useful it is to start a panic on child development. I think there's been a massive social malaise since lockdown and it colours everyone's perception.

There's a reason why the government have over the years significantly increased their contributions towards childcare costs. Government-funded research shows that children in nursery or formal childcare during their early years on average have better outcomes, despite some comments here disagreeing. My son has been part of one of these studies (SEED) for over 10 years so I keep an eye on the results.

Is it not immediately obvious when a child is wearing a nappy? My child's class is very small, so it has taken me less time to get to know all the children, but my husband or I see them almost every weekend at birthday parties and every morning/afternoon and I would definitely notice if one was wearing a nappy.

I agree with nappies being bigger sized. Size 6 used to be the biggest.

Alarm bells went off when my son was being assessed for ASD and ADHD a few years ago. He rocked up to his first appointment with a perfect American accent. Then the developmental paediatrician met with myself and DS's dad, revealing our own American born, native accents 😁 and she thought..."Oh."

He was diagnosed with both ASD and ADHD, and oddly enough had formed a perfect British accent by age 12. High school peer influence does count for something...

This is so true. Whenever parents start potty training, there is so little support available if your child doesn't just 'get it' after however many attempts, just conflicting advice and judgement.

In our area there is an 18 month waiting list for the children's continence service, which doesn't accept referrals until children are 4, so basically useless for what should be their primary purpose - supporting families in getting children toileting confidently before starting school.

Recently talked about this on a Safeguarding course - it's called 'Affluent Neglect' apparently- very sad

I don’t understand why this has to be yet another class issue. There are good parents and bad parents, neglectful ones and helicopters ones, kind, cruel, and so on, from every social background.

I don't think if I wad the parent of children in an average sized Reception class that I would know which of the 30 children were in nappies. I certainly wouldn't socialise with 29 families every weekend or be able to tell who was wearing a nappy under normal clothes. I might notice parents going into the bathroom with their 4 year old (of those families I did socialise with), but again I wouldn't automatically assume they were in a nappy.

My DC go to special schools. Every child in their Reception classes was likely to be in a nappy.

Yes I agree @Cornflakes123 sorry wasn’t clear! I work full time too and potty trained my daughter - if started over a bank holiday weekend and ended up taking a day or 2 off on the second week to focus on it a bit!

the nursery worked with me on it too though which was super helpful to keep consistency.

as anecdotal as this study

i live in the south east. No one I know can afford to be a sahp due to housing costs. what I see is children being in nursery and formal settings from a young age. Weekends spent either working or catching up with house work and the odd day out as a family. The “lazy sahp” mentioned here, I do not see.

28 days annual leave doesn’t go far to teach your kids all the things you need to.

This might be a controversial thing to say, because WFH has been so so useful for mothers and I do think it is brilliant. But I do also think it has led to kids not being put into nursery (because it is bloody expensive) while parents work. And those kids are often plonked in front of the television. It's a shit system and can only really be resolved by cheap good childcare.

@chojoko I don’t know anyone who WFH with a preschooler.

How would it be possible to do your job?

The benefits of WFH have been being able to drop off / collect from nursery later / earlier in the day - not to not use childcare at all?

It does but two of these people I went to were born in Ireland , had Irish parents and never lived in America. They had an American accent all the way through school (I’ve been friends with them since then) and they still have American accents. Some people seem to have a tendency towards an American accent for some reason, I’m not really sure why. It’s not new though.

Ihave noticed some changes around potty training that seem more cultural.

One being that there was a big push, maybe about 20 years ago, that it was bad/stupid to try and train kinds under about age 3. I think this is largely incorrect and has actually made it harder for a lot of parents. There also seems to be less understanding of what's really involved in training in many cases, and parents can't seem to deal with the "accident" phase, which means they try and take shortcuts like pull up diapers which undermine the project.

In general, many people seem increasingly uncomfortable with being really firm with kids about expectations. I don't mean mean, more, consistent. They seem to think when kids are "ready" development will take care of itself.

The poor muscle tone - so many kids get little time outdoors now.

By your smug tone I gather you don’t work

It's time we start getting real. Tie benefits to children hitting milestones. I'm not talking about anything ruthless, but if you're kids in nappies by 4, perhaps your benefit should be reduced.

We allow people to get away with so much under being fair, 'SEN', etc. We're doing our kids a disservice.

A lot of my peers who have older kids keep saying ‘just leave the potty training until they are 3 then it’s a lot easier’ whereas my mum and grandma keep saying ‘she’s nearly 2 and should be potty trained by now’

Our private nursery won’t let them move up to the preschool room (unless there is other needs) if they are not of nappies.

What would you do for intellectually disabled children who never hit any of their milestones?

A lot of assumptions going on there.