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.

One of my DC speaks with an American accent because we used to live there and whilst it’s definitely faded, it hasn’t completely gone. Bit worried now that random strangers are judging us and assuming she spends all her free time on YouTube 😬 Which she doesn’t watch.

If anything, lockdown children should've been more likely to start school toilet trained, able to read simple words, climb stairs, do up their coat zips etc because their parents were at home!

With my first child, the health visitor said not to start potty training until 3. We had a conversation about being a bit old for nappies and they just switched to pants with only one accident the first time we went out as they forgot they weren't wearing a nappy.
One of my children was 18 months and just couldn't stand being wet. They started waking me and demanding to be taken to the toilet, so that was that. Dry day and night from 18 months and nothing whatsoever to do with their parents.
One of my children was just turned 2 and had far more accidents up until the age of 3. To be fair, all children were in cloth nappies and trying to potty train the last child a bit before ready probably was lazy parenting as I was ready to do away with the extra washing and carrying heavy bags of nappies around.

I never understood the pressure on potty training. I think if you watch your child there is a point where they're ready.

the health visiting service has been completely run down,
they phone to do checks,
the nursery of course needs to improve in their child care
and of course screen time is such a cop out for parents who are so busy!

DGC goes to nursery 4 days a week. DGC's nursery have not worked with us over the potty training.

DD had taken a week off work to to the potty training, it was so close and after one week back Nursery asked that they went in nappies and not pants. DGC regressed and 6 months later DGC is refusing to use the potty. They are in a group where the rest are all out of nappies so they have timed visits to the toilet which is not really helping,

DGC is 2.1/2 and we are all concerned they will be one of the ones going to reception who is still in nappies

Indeed - with more available hours to read to them and play games.

It’s phones. People are on their phones constantly and not interacting.

OP if you read the actual survey and report you'll see that teachers do precisely put it down to the Covid lockdowns and all the measures and screen use which became out of proportion due to them.

It changed behaviour for years to come.

Children starting Reception or those now in nursery, years 1, 2, 3, 4 and most of primary are the babies, toddlers and very young children of exactly that generation.

And you'll remember that life didn't return to normal for a year or two after all the Covid stuff officially was ended. Even now, still, there are people who are testing, wearing face masks and see a running nose as something to be weary of.

People don't hug and kiss that much and socialising behaviour has changed. So much more time is spent indoors. Read the threads about playdates not being a thing, etc. Social workers still often dont come out, working from home etc. Appointments online (which isn't always a bad thing, of course).

Consequences of the three years of the measures will span years and children are the most affected by all.

It also taught parents not to pay for nursery or before/after school and holiday clubs instead plonking the kids in front of the devices.

dont forget the study shows a quarter of children.
not 50%
or 75%

many children struggled with stairs?
how many?

I'd imagine a lot of it is due to ND DC that have gone under the radar. Lazy teaching as many on this thread would call it. My DS was potty trained at reception but struggled to do lots of things his peers could do. He was labelled 'naughty' by his teachers and excluded. She was the SEN lead for the school. He moved schools in Year 1 and had an EHCP by year 2. Whilst I appreciate funding is tight, there are lots of poor teachers and schools. Many people have the same experience as me. There are lots of parents that are doing twice as much as most, but get labelled lazy by people that are lucky to have much easier DC to parent.

Interesting the ones who blame parents who work FT - where's the logic there?Their kids will have presumably been in nursery a lot, so won't have been stuck in front of a screen!

Thank you for saying this. I really don’t like this SAHP vs working parent culture. SAHPs are perfectly capable of looking after their children properly. I’m not sure asserting that your children are fine and hit milestones because they were in a nursery all day and nursery did the majority of the potty training really bigs up the argument that therefore their parenting is better?

If they’re 2.5 years old there’s still plenty of time before starting school. I’d just take another week off and try again personally.

Has it occurred to anyone that the results of these "studies" are obvious ragebait designed to generate more PR and business for the organiser? In this case, Kindred2 is a charity aimed at early child development so it's absolutely in their own best interests to prove how terrible young children are at the moment. If you look at their board of advisors and trustees, it's a mass of old white men who come from business, venture capital and investment backgrounds. Charities are technically non-profit, but obviously a very good way to funnel tax money and also generate salaries for staff & board members.

UK schools start incredibly young. In almost every European country, 4 is kindergarten (nursery) age. A significant number of children also need nappies at 4. However since they are still in kindergarten, it's not seen as a big issue by the staff nor parents and all the children grow out of it by the time they start school. There are no fear mongering studies or hand wringing or charities attempting to fix the issue because it's a non-issue. European schools do not expect kindergarten kids to be fully potty trained and all nurseries are equipped to help kids make the transition. 99% of them do and have no problems with moving onto school.

has the study been linked?

This

We really shouldn't be making sweeping statements about accents. They are recognised to be a factor in neurodiversity and language disorders. Many of the autistic children I know have different accents and it's absolutely nothing to do with screen time.

Rather ableist to jump to the conclusion of poor parenting.

surely then it is also down to the care of the people they ARE with. SO Nursery schools that are not including exercise in their schematics - everything is choreographed including outside play time, outside play time at home is curtailed by need to watch them every single minute.

I think we need more adventurous playgrounds a la the German style ones, a focus on fitness for all a better focus on inclusive for all type sport ie not always football and rugby and all girls and all boys having to fall in with those sports, bring back country dancing ha ha - it was actually really good for fitness and co-ordination, might have to be ballroom these days but that is too

Stop carrying stuff for kids

the rough and tumble games that get banned in the play ground should be reconsidered as well, even tag is frowned on these days

I dont think its lazy parenting just overwhelmed parenting and trying to parent single handed be it as a single parent or sahm with no partner help, parents working two jobs to cover the cost of lliving (even if its a sidehustle as opposed to a go out of the house second job). We also have nurseries and childminders not involving themselves in things like potty training as they "dont like it" rather than acknowledging it as part of their job.

Great the way this thread has turned into a barrage of insults towards working parents and snide remarks about sending kids to nursery. It’s just really bad parenting full stop. People can be bad working parents and they can be bad stay at home parents.
Anecdotes of “well I’m a SAHM and I toilet trained at 2” are completely pointless

Nah, she’s ages away from school. My 2.5 year old wears nappies and has gone back and forwards a bit with potty training (nursery are very supportive though - possibly time to complain/ change nursery if yours aren’t). I have no concerns that she will be wearing nappies past 3(except overnight). I think the fact that you are aware and engaged with the process means she will be fine. The issues are either genuine medical issues OR lazy parenting- so unless she has a medical need you’ll get there soon ish.

Great post. I've just had a quick skim of the report and you're right.

https://kindredsquared.org.uk/school-readiness-survey/

It's such an ignorant assumption tbf.

If the kids are in nursery for 12 hour days the when do they have time to potty train etc and shouldn't the nurseries be doing this in loco parentis?

I used to work 4 days a week when DDs were small and they were with the childminder for three days (and in pre-school part of the day for three days from aged 2.5) and with grandparents for one day, then there was a run of three days with me, and DH at the weekend. Even then it was quite challenging to potty train them and it pretty much had to be done in holidays and with the childminder, GPs and pre-school being supportive. Nowadays you often hear about pre-schools not changing nappies or pull-ups etc and being generally unsupportive, so I'm not surprised other parents have it worse, if I found it a challenge in a well educated middle class home.

Yes I think our expectations around safety have changed so much. Those of us that don't wrap our children in cotton wool still feel outside judgment weighing down, even though we've done a pretty balanced risk assessment.

My grandson was 2 at the start of lockdown and his sister was born in August 2020, so right in the thick of it. Their parents were key workers WFH so life was a bit of a nightmare until DD started her mat leave. Both my grandchildren are very well adjusted, can climb stairs, were toilet trained by 2 1/2, speak in an English accent. They both love watching YouTube kids 😂

The not being able to climb the stairs comment was apparently 1 comment - from 1 person out of 1000, (and I doubt they said every child in their class struggled with stairs!) So is it actually a common issue?