School Readiness

[MissLead]

So on the news this morning it was reported that 37% of kids going to school in UK are not deemed ‘ready’ often lacking basic speech and not being toilet trained.

Assuming these kids have no medical conditions - there must be some bloody lazy parents out there!!

Explain why you need a ‘supportive service’ for something that’s ultimately your job?

They can sacrifice their annual leave that year.

It doesn't prevent them of course. But poverty is associated with a huge range of other issues such as depression, stress, lack of confidence and motivation, poor health, poor living conditions, poor diet, domestic abuse. All of which make it many times harder to parent. It stands to reason that if you've the financial means to keep a stable roof over your head, food in the cupboard, bills paid, washing machine running, the resources to get away from unhealthy situations, you're going to have more capacity to get parenting right.

did you look at the actual questions?

The question around toilet training is worded as such that it is asking if children have accidents more frequently rather than occassionally. Saying 26% of a class aren't toilet trained from this question, with the inference being that that means 1 in 4 are in nappies is not what the question reveals. It is saying that 1 in 4 require assistance (rather than independently toileting) and that they are having more frequent accidents than occasional accidents. I would imagine that there are many 4 year olds that regress a little when they arrive at school due to not knowing where the toilets are, not used to waiting for scheduled breaks, unsure or unconfident in speaking up about going to the toilet on their own or with a new adult, or perhaps they can go but left it a bit too late or require some help bum wiping or putting their uniform back on.

I know our reception teacher asked if parents could only send their kids in tights if and only if they were able to push them down and pull them back up independently as tights were new to a lot of the little ones for daily wear and it was causing accidents because they couldn't push them down quickly enough.

My daughter regressed toilet wise when she joined preschool (aged 3.5), and I finally got to the bottom of it when she told me she didn't know who to ask if she could go. So before she started school I made sure to work with her to let her know who to tell and she didn't regress. but I imagine many do.

I would look at the questions they asked - I'm not saying that there aren't issues, I'm just saying they've written them up for maximum shock value or allowing people to infer something that isn't really the truth.

I listened Interesting podcast on this topic this morning

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002q39v

Which will be a parental choice.

Poverty can be blamed for many things but not this.

Parents now are doing the same as parents have always done- following the advice that people they trust give. It's not their fault that they are being given bad advice, any more than it was the fault of parents in the 60s that they were told to hit their kids, give them formula, and let them CIO. Or Victorian mothers who were told to give their babies syrup of alcohol and laudanum and never pick them up. At least all of that was easy to implement.

"Gentle parenting" as it's actually supposed to be practised is completely unsustainable for the average family.

I had a baby in 2020 and was bombarded with recommendations to wait for readiness to potty train, never put pressure on DD to do pretty much anything and that any sign of discomfort was evidence of anxiety which was an emotion she must never feel. Every behaviour is communication that must be heard, validated and then a compromise must be found.

To begin with I listened and then I remembered that children don't die from being made to do a thing they don't want to do.

Yawn.

Because as a single mum with no family support, I was working full time to support us, so childminder had ds2 from 8.30-5.45.

Even devoted mums can't be in two places at once.

Ofcourse it can be. Books cost money. Travelling to a library costs money. Many libraries charge late fees if you cannot afford or find the time to return the book. Many people in poverty work long or unsociable hours.

Books can be picked up for pennies in charity shops. Most towns and even some villages also have libraries. There's no excuse for not having any books in the house, none at all.

I know three non verbal autistic boys in one morning session at a school nursery. It seems quite a lot actually and is probably being mirrored in many other schools. Before you say it neither me nor the other parents of these boys are chavvy and lazy.

Oh come on now.

Even if you can't/don't want to use the library, charity shops are practically giving kid's books away from as little as 10 pence.

Poverty has always been a problem since kid's books were invented, yet it's only now that some kids don't know how they actually work.

As a pp said, 'If parents won't step up to parental responsibility then who will'?

The government is having to spell out to parents what they need to do because there just seems to be a large subset of parents that do not know. In summary to be school ready they (Sen aside) should be potty trained, able to use a knife and fork, able to use an open beaker, able to use the toilet without assistance, above to take off and put on simple clothes plus shoes with Velcro, able to turn the pages on a book, able to count to 10, able to recognise letters and number and able to recognise their name written. They do not need to be able to write, read apart from their name, add up etc, just teach them the basics. Nurseries will be doing this as will childminders but you need to back them up at home. The vast majority of kids met these targets in the past, it’s only recently they haven’t

I don't think you understand poverty. Its not merely the lack of means to buy a book. For many, particularly those in deep poverty, its a long term, grinding, soul destroying state of being that can result in serious impacts on mental and physical health. Providing a child with books isn't about 50p in the charity shop or a trip to the library. It's about the head space and motivation to deal with such things when your life is in the toilet, you're worn down, depressed, and haven't any food in the house or money to put the heating on.

I live in one of the most impoverished boroughs in London so I do very much understand it.

AND I grew up in poverty.

Do you think poverty is a new thing??

And yet, kids not knowing how a book works, very much is...

Nobody is talking about children with special needs chavvy or not! People are talking about parents not finding the time or inclination to show their NT kid how to pick up a fork or how to use a toilet by the time they are 4/5 years old.

Complete tangent - but anyone have any tricks for teaching a 2 year old how to pull up the back of his trousers over his bum. He's super smart and very independent but he just pulls really hard at the front so his trousers are halfway up his chest at the front but not covering his bum? I'm currently just showing him / reminding him and assuming that it will stick at some point but all suggestions are welcome :)

I meant it could be that more SEN is being reflected in that 37%.

Agree with this as a contributing factor. We have gone private for a number of issues for our kids because of NHS waitlists, or failure to be take seriously.

DS is still behind with speech despite being under audiology for years as their advice and care wasn’t good enough. He has a massive solid wax problem that could only be suctioned out, most places won’t do it for little kids. So his speech didn’t progress until he was 4 when I could get it sorted.

I agree with this People look at the headline and jump on it
It isn't uncommon for a four year old to have an accident and it's always been so.
It's also important to remember that children start school ealrier now. When I was at school no one started until after their 5th birthday.
My children didn't start school full time until the beginning of the term in which they turned 5. . Now children start school the September after their 4th birthday.Which makes a huge difference in terms of a child's development.

My personal experience has also been that nursery has been a million times better in helping with these things than childminders.

My child started in September. The LA plastered this all over their socials and we got a leaflet at the welcome evening at school. Using cutlery, zipping up your own coat etc

Get him to practise with his pyjamas or joggers and pull up from the side not front.

A lot of parents today are simply useless, you wonder why they had kids in the first place.

And it's not like lack of time is the problem, there are more kids of unemployed parents that are not school-ready than there are of the fully employed ones.