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.

disagree.

Yes, why on earth would people think reduced access to this wouldn't have long term effects?

Can we scream this ten times louder, please? The minimising of the very, very real damage caused by lockdowns has begun in earnest. Those who made the decisions about lockdowns (i.e. government ministers) have very comfortable lifestyles and homes, and forget how the other half live; and some of them don't even know, as they were born into wealth. Lockdown certainly did not affect their lives, and people from the Prime Minister downwards simply ignored the rules anyway; probably a lot more than we know about.

As for kids being unable to climb stairs; as they were ordered to stay at home, how about those who lived in bungalows, or flats, or high-rise flats where it's either twenty flights of stairs, or the lift? How would they practise stairs? Going by a literal reading of the absolute fucking crap which Saint Boris was telling us to follow in the early stages, venturing outside your front door was forbidden; and if you did, you were a ruthless granny killer, and a selfish arsehole.

It's probably a combination of many things.

Long assessment times coupled with less spaces at specialist schools means there are more children starting school in mainstream with additional needs than before.

Of course there are some 'lazy', misinformed or overwhelmed parents who don't potty train or prepare children for school. I suspect the reduction in access to support services such as sure start play a sizable part.

Children starting reception now wouldn't have been walking during lockdown. Sure, the parents may have been affected but blaming lockdown rather than the actual tangible fallouts we are still seeing today in services, funding and early years setting is more valuable than hyperbolic statements.

I have been on a number of discussions on MN where posters have debated with me how different 'standards' of parenting will bring about different outcomes. There is a significant proportion of society that literally do believe that 'all fed, nobody dead' is enough. They don't think children need enriching experiences or very frequent interaction. They will put them in front of a screens or encourage them to play for long periods of time alone so they can get on with other stuff. You see it in restaurants and shopping centres where kids are given a tablet to keep them quiet. Toddlers and even young children wondering around with dummies in their mouths constantly.

Many nurseries simply aren't equipped to single handedly raise a baby into a young child that's ready for school. Parents feel that the nursery should do the grunt work because that's where the child spends the majority of their time.

DS started reception in September and none of these behaviours are true for his cohort. We are lucky to live in an affluent area, and he attends a small nurturing prep, where all of the children either had sahms or nannies in the early years, and part-time preschool from age 2, and school-based nursery from age 3 (so just school hours and term-time). Some parents are 2 ft working parents, some are 1 ft and 1 pt, some are 1 ft and 1 sahp. Everyone in the year is very physically active and able, and everyone is toilet trained. There are a few Americans but even those children tend to use British words rather than Americanisms.

I don't doubt those reports in the OP though, I'm sure there is a correlation between socio-economic factors and school readiness, and that these issues are a problem in certain schools. Whenever the topic of private schools comes up it's often considered a waste of money at primary stage, but there is definitely a value for DS in that his teacher and TA can focus on teaching and not have to spend time dealing with nappies or helping with very basic life skills.

Yes, so important. I worry about the introduction of screens in outside life too. Children get so much out of seeing their patent interact with the person taking the money in the supermarket, getting the chance to buy their own sweets etc.
I've seen so many people on Mumsnet say how they think the introduction of machines is great as they don't have to interact with anyone.

Recently I've read two good books that are very informative and trying to explain what is happening. You might enjoy trading them, OP. One is a very underrated book by a British professor Sue Gerhardth- Why Love Matters, and the other is by Gabor Mate - Hold onto your kids.

It's a very complex picture but ultimately societies are changing too fast, there's no communities/ villages helping with child rearing anymore, looking after children is seen as a low paid, low skill job or even a non-job, the parents have far too much on their plates + they themselves have been brought up by busy, uninvolved parents. And the brand new digital world. We are all addicted and depleted by the little computers in our hands.

As someone who is very conscience about my parenting, always reading and trying to do better, I've noticed the pressure from both dc's peers and grown-ups too who are hinting my child is somehow behind because he's never done proper gaming and doesn't watch YT. We are part of this society and even if we don't think it's right we feel pressured to follow to an extent.
If you compare the happiness and behaviour of children in the first world to 'poorer' (peaceful) places, less exposed to the ways of the modern world, it will be very clear what benefits children the most.

I have to say both my kids use Americanisms for most things - candy, trash etc. They have always had extremely limited screen time but it's just so pervasive!

I potty trained my son when he was 3 but he really struggled with it, all poos in pants for a full year. Wet and soiling accidents were common for him until he was 6/7 (he was under incontinence team at the hospital) he still has the occasional accident now and he is nearly 9.

He didn't go into reception in nappies but as someone has said before in the thread, the stat included children who had accidents - so he would have been included in that metric if he had been in the sample group.

My daughter on the other hand got potty training almost immediately with no issues.

I understand that this is about general trends and figures but I do think we need to not paint parents/children with a broad brush.

To be fair, I also tried to potty train young.

Then I received advice from the health service that starting young can cause problems later on with continence, so to stop and wait for signs of readiness.

So we took a short hiatus.

Then the next bit of advice from the health service was "why are you wanting for signs of readiness? You just need routine" so we followed that and it didn't work. We were consistent to the T. It caused so much stress.

Then when we found out my son was autistic they recommended we speak to ERIC. I did and also did their webinar and everything that was said was contradictory.

Don't wait until signs of readiness, go to a routine, unless a routine causes apprehension and then wait for signs of readiness. Always change your child's nappy in the bathroom so they can associate the bathroom with toileting, except if the bathroom is a sensory nightmare for your child and then don't as it will cause trauma. Just get rid of nappies completely because they wick too much wee away for your child to notice, with the exception of if your child gets extremely distressed by being wet as crisis point isn't going to teach them anything. Never let them poo in a nappy unless they will only poo in a nappy and then allow them to poo in a nappy until they're showing signs of readiness. Always tell your child what to do unless your child has a PDA profile and then telling them what do do will just cause anxiety.

The stuff they were saying was all common sense stuff but didn't actually help us SEN parents or parents who's children were still not toilet trained by age 5. It just offered more confusion.

So between the NHS switching up their advice in what felt like an overnight 180, it feels like you can't get consistent support externally either.

While I agree ‘readiness’ is probably overplayed and used as an excuse to delay…

… potty training from birth is pointless. As you discovered, as they weren’t out of nappies until 2 anyway!

I think that there are reasons for everything..

My daughter couldn't walk up and down stairs when she started pre-school. We lived in a flat with very steep steps, so I carried her up and down. She never needed to walk upstairs. She certainly couldn't have practised on them. They were pretty dangerous. She was potty trained by 2 1/2. She could speak in full sentences, knew the alphabet and could write her name.

I know lots of people who worked fulltime during Covid with the kids at home. I don't think that putting the TV on was lazy but a necessity.

I don't judge people letting their kids use the phone or tablet. My kid have screen time. They also do day trips to the zoo, museums, park ect. You have no idea what those kids were doing 5 minutes ago.

I think it is easy to generalise .my D’s Asd/adhd was fully toilet trained when he was 3. He had delayed speech but when he did spoke like he was posh . I realised he got it from cbbcbies. He also went to nursery 15 hours a week , swimming once a week from a couple of months, could read before he started school, attended weekly groups . But had low core strength .

i do think lots of people who think they are positive parenting aren’t and yes I do think personal screens are given children far too young they are missing out on the real world .

Someone saying “kids don’t watch tv in nursery” isn’t the same as saying “it’s the SAHP to blame”. Of course it isn’t there are bad stay at home parents and bad working parents. There have been really nasty direct comments about working parents doing no parenting and booking extravagant holidays I have not seen a single comment criticising stay at home parents in the same way.
I’m sick of SAHP on mumsnet making snide remarks like for example “I’m sick of the idea parents leaving their kids in nursery for 12 hours is the ideal” . For most people it’s not the ideal I don’t know anyone who says it’s “ideal” .

It's a mix of technology development (screen time increasing), cost of living crisis (working from home with kids watching TV in order to save on crazy childcare costs) and growing individualism/selfishness/isolationism of the people (not wanting to go out and interact with family/friends). It will not get better, it will only get worse as the society and technology have been evolving in that direction for decades now but it has sped up in the last 10 years due to smartphone/VoD popularity and then Covid.

Interested at the finger of blame pointing at… working parents that use nurseries.

There seems to be some misunderstanding by those who don’t use nurseries what they’re like. They don’t stick Peppa Pig on and hope for the best.

I also am surrounded by dual-income households and don’t know anyone that’s got their child in nursery 12 hours a day. There are very few at my child’s nursery that are even there five days a week.

The nurseries are actively engaged in the child’s development, and that includes potty training. It’s actually a brilliant environment for it - all potty training together, seeing other children doing it etc.

Excuse me I was told I was “breeding” children to be a SAHM on benefits on this thread.

I don’t think you can blame WFH. After all there is no way I could get any work if they were at home while I worked as they always want me to get involved with playing with them.

WFH means I can pick them up from nursery on time without finishing work early.

In theory nurseries are supposed to provide stimulation and on paper they will, but when I've toured them that's definitely not the case for all. Some have very high staff turnover and disinterested staff sitting watching the children but not interacting with them - the pay is not high and when it's difficult to get staff, this can happen.

As for most things, the cheapest nurseries will in most cases be the worst. This idea that nurseries are always going to be fantastic for children just doesn't stack up with the economics or reality always.

It's just never going to be the case that all nurseries are better than parental care, nor the inverse.

Exactly. The system is not attuned to individuals. It's just pile' em high and crowd control.

I just googled. The 3 closest to me are open from 7.30am-7.00pm so that’s 11.5. So I was wrong, it’s not 12.

Nobody said this

"While I agree ‘readiness’ is probably overplayed and used as an excuse to delay…

… potty training from birth is pointless. As you discovered, as they weren’t out of nappies until 2 anyway!"@MidnightPatrol @GreenTeaLikesMe

The point the poster made is that her babies were taught from very little what the expectation is - using a potty. Not teaching them that nappy is the default and there are no other options until 3 and then suddenly wanting them to do something different at the age when they are learning defiance.
Teaching gradually with everything makes better sense.
And I'm sure when she says her babies were in nappies until two, she would've had far less messy nappies than the average parent who doesn't put them on the potty earlier. Definitely not pointless.