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.

First of all you have to determine if there is actually a real problem. This was a very poorly reported study. If you actually read it, it doesn't say 25% of kids are in nappies starting school for example.

There have also been concerns about 'lazy parents' and the development of children for decades. I remember a child who repeatedly soiled in Reception and Year 1 nearly 40 years ago. My own sister cried at drop off until Year 3. Just like EBSA existed in the 80's and 90's we just didn't call it that or manage it well.

However if there is a real problem what has changed

• increasing use of screen based entertainment, particularly individual screen based entertainment, When you used to turn Postman Pat on the TV for your toddler, you were watching it as you went past and interacted with them over it in brief ways. When you hand them Cocomelon on an iPad, it's individual not a shared experience. Perhaps this has a negative impact

• increasing nursery use. Sure good nurseries provide a positive environment for young children but many are spending hours 5 days a week in them. The research is pretty clear that young children from poorer families get better and broader language exposure at home than in nursery which makes sense, 2 year olds do not learn mature language from other 2 year olds and 1 adult cannot provide individual focused conversation to four children at a time.

On the other hand overall we know children in nursery care have similar development to other children with some advantages and some disadvantages so this seems unlikely to be a sole factor.

• increasing pressure on parents to work. Most families are 2 income now. Some of them send their children to nursery but often they are the privileged ones who can afford this and whose work fits nursery schedules. Many others are juggling childcare round shift patterns, if Mum works the night shift and catches up sleep in the kids' nap times and Dad works the day shift, neither may be a very present parent much of the week. They're exhausted. Many families are doing shift switches, using as hoc bits of childcare, family, older siblings, working from home with the toddler in the next room. None of this is optimal for children's development and these families are stretched financially and in time. They are exceedingly time poor. The idea that both parents should work full time is new, the last time it happened pre First World War there were the exact same complaints about children's development.

2 parents working full time may work great for parents who can afford and have access to high quality childcare but pushing it down to families for whom childcare is either unaffordable or just does not fit their shift patterns (where are the night nurseries?) is not great for anyone.

• failure of services. Health services are stretched thin at the moment. Health visitors barely see any children but the most at risk. Most families when see are seen by less qualified staff. They may receive no advice or support on development, potty training etc

There may well be other factors. For example id argue the rise in autism in young children mirrors the rise of online dating, a societal change that seems far from child development but makes sense. Now autistic people meet each other and the genetic risk of autism in their children is high. My husband and I met online, we'd probably never have run across each other otherwise. Two autistic parents=autistic children and not 'ND affirming', 'autism is a superpower' autism but significant challenges in development autism than requires societal support.

Yes exactly we played out a lot and were sometimes sent outside. We'd always find neighbours to play with.
My children have never played out in the street, because none of the neighborhood children do, but additionally it's often frowned upon these days

The Kindred survey I’ve just looked at does not say that a quarter of chikdren joined Reception still in nappies. It says that about that number had "frequent toileting mishaps" (no definition given of "frequent").

Still too many "accidents", but that is not the same as "still being in nappies".

Unless we are looking at different studies, you are misrepresenting the survey's findings. Why? Because it makes a more sensational story? Accuracy matters.

And it's much less safe too, since there are many more cars.

My son sometimes speaks with an American accent and is almost 6 and still not potty trained.

He is autistic.

We had him in nursery full time but it became quite clear that they were not meeting his needs, not able to even with adjustments and keeping him in there full time was tantamount to neglect.

I dropped my hours significantly at work. We were in the bathroom hours every single day trying to potty train. We had occupational therapy intervention, regular health visitor intervention, speech and language therapy more often than most children with autism and a significant speech delay.

He's a gestalt language processor and he was really interested in American cartoons and Peppa pig. Although we used gestalts at home and offered functional phrases he only really picked up on those from the TV or his tablet.

We would spend hours every day reading. I would read out loud even if he was doing solo play. We would read on a morning and before bed and we would look at the pictures and I'd talk about them.

The only foundation we had for building his language was American cartoons.

His speech has developed so much now but sometimes he sounds like Peppa, sometimes he sounds American and others he sounds like he's got a broad Yorkshire accent.

He got kept behind a year so he's doing reception twice. He is still in nappies and that's the advice we were given by ERIC as without the nappies he withholds.

He will use a toilet if one is available for a wee but he won't poo in a toilet and there's too many variables with bathrooms to make each and every one a sensory pleasant place to be.

I'm really lucky that my son got a diagnosis before starting school. I feel like it's saved us a lot of shame and parent blaming but like my son there are other children in his class who present similarly but haven't been fortunate enough to get a diagnosis so young.

Let’s also not forget that this survey spoke to a tiny demographic -1000 teachers. There are about 250,000 primary school teachers in the uk.

So people gave been complaining about kids speaking with an American accent since sesame street. It's not a problem per se as long as eyfs and ks1 teachers are taught well and the importance of British sounds impressed upon them. The issue they're getting at is it is symptomatic of a lot of screen time and anecdotally everyone suspected that it's screen time on the move. Kids are looking at screens in restaurants and shops to keep them from getting bored and disruptive and do they're not developing skills from a) the world around them/whatever task the parent is doing and b) being bored. I have strong opinions on this, linked with people not taking kids on errands and so kids starting school not being able to role play opticians etc. Just home. But others will have strong feelings about preventing disruptive behaviours.

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?

I mean you're not wrong, but why is everyone on here getting so defensive?

I read that article. My kids are older, granted, but no, none of them started school in nappies - despite two of them being in nursery from 8 months old. None of them were unable to climb stairs or sit unaided on the floor, although I will admit to usage of words like "trash" and "flashlight" more often than I would have liked!

I was, and am, a working parent. This is true. It's also true that what's being said here doesn't apply to me and mine. Why are so many mumsnetters unable to have a conversation about something that is clearly a real problem without getting personally upset, while at the same time saying it's not actually relevant to them?!

The number of children starting school not fully potty trained is just going to increase. Part of this is a cultural shift in when children are potty trained over the last 80 years. I think that we are really do a disservice to most children waiting so late to potty train them and having a scheduled holiday to do it. It's something that is best done gradually when they are young.

Or no mums. As many mothers since 2020 have been.

The comments have been both ways with blame on SAHPs too. This us vs them culture needs to stop.

Almost as if modern society where women work full time and babies go to school at just turned 4 isn't working....

The elephant in the room is also high levels of inbreeding amongst certain populations which means these children will never master basic skills. It needs to be addressed.

This is a very good point.

Premature births, births that require significant intervention and early life illness that we now have the technology for to maintain life all come with increased risks on neurological development.

It's also not uncommon so it's easy to dismiss this as one of those things, but it's actually quite an important consideration

I disagree. My parents, in the 1950s, were poor. A 3 day week for my father was common. Work was in short supply. My brother and I had library books and were encouraged in every way. Terry nappies were hardwork. Potty training meant less drudgery. TVs weren’t around. We played outdoors and indoors. Parents interacted with you. We had no expectations of money and new things. But, children were able to communicate, take themselves to the toilet etc. And many, in my school on a council estate, passed the 11plus. There were no nurseries to help out. Mums did work hard, in the home and out of it. And endured hardships. We were happy and new nothing else.
It is a parenting choice issue from people who won’t be parents.

Whilst I don't doubt that there are lazy parents, I think the inability to get GP appointments, parents not being taken seriously about their children's difficulties and unable to get an ECHP for love nor money and schools lack of funding so unable to spot/care/support children with differing needs.

I tried to potty training DC1 at 2.5 years, never went back to nappies but they were having several accidents daily (6 in reception/y1 and 2). I got them assessed privately for any physical issues but HV's, GP's won't do anything until DC are 7! I expressed concern around their behaviours and was dismissed constantly as DC was above average intelligence, so again I had to have them privately assessed for SEN. I am not a lazy parent, I have fought tooth and nail for my DC but my DC would be included in the figures.

Even now i struggle with the school taking me seriously about DC needs despite them seeing a bright kid who is now really struggling because of their rigidity and failing to implement reasonable adjustments.

Knew

People have become way too obsessed with "readiness" when it comes to toilet training. I see it on here all the time. People seem to have lost sight of the fact that humans of all ages form habits and preferences when it comes to toileting; if you've gone for three years doing every crap in a nappy, you may well find it very hard to crap with a nappy off and may resist fiercely any attempts to get you to do it. The fact that people are literally waiting until the age when kids say "No" to everything you suggest is not helping.

I did "potty practice" with my babies from birth, pretty much (if they are going to pee when you take their nappies off, why not keep a potty next to the nappy changing area and just make it a normal part of the routine from day one, rather than getting soaked and blaming the baby?), and they gradually took over control of the process, with daycare taking over once they started going there. They were out of nappies completely by around the second birthday.

not as much at all.

It's very hard for me to believe that reception children can't climb stairs.

children were ignored by hard working parents before, but left to play rather than left to screens

I know of nursery teachers in private settings who complain about “affluent neglect” - this certainly isn’t confined to those of lower socioeconomic/economic status.

Actually a really important part of language development is hearing other people talk to each other. So those trips to the grocery store, story time at the library, trips to the playground ect… are really important parts of speech development. There’s been quite a bit of research into how the pandemic caused an increase in speech delays, the two are undoubtedly linked.

Very true!

We all know how difficult it is to actually get help with this kind of thing. Attentive parents who've noticed a problem and sought support are often left to it, languishing on some waiting list or other.

Indeed, and this would suggest some physical issues that haven't been able to be addressed for whatever reason.