To wonder what else can be done to break the cycle of generations living off benefits?

[Allonthesametrain]

Sounds harsh because It is. As a former teacher, then eduation social worker, now the past few years more heavily involved with school attendance.

My desire has always been to help children from unprivileged backgrounds to know their worth and achieve the best they can and this has been my career from age 23 to 57.

The number of times I've cried, torn my hair out, is immeasurable. I and colleagues have gone above and beyond to support the families, genuinely care about them, but unfortunately the outcome has been, as I've said in title, it's a continiation of the cycle of being brought up within a small community and low expectations.

So many gorgeous kids (supported throughout their young lives until they leave school) who tell you their dreams of what they want to to achieve in life, we do everything we can to enable it and some have indeed broken out of the circle but unfortunately the reality has been...

Parents who live lifestyles of no bedtime routine, tell their kids not to come back before ...pm, sleep in and don't get them out of bed ready and fed for school and as for weekends, pub and take back a new bloke

Parents who have issues themselves and project them onto DC. The kids soon realise they can stay off school for feigning illness and would actually be a comfort to Mum

The parents who just cba and say shall we just still in bed?

Of course there are so many other mitigating factors but these are the 3 main experiences we've dealt with. Unfortunately it really does come down to poor parenting and no matter what interventions we do to encourage attendance, only a minority are genuine.

So the cycle...DC think education isn't important, parents are hopeless role models and can often be aggressive to teachers, a deflection of blame.

Then oh DD gets pregnant at age 15, DS has been reprimanded by the police for scooting around in a balaclava. Then pure hostility when we try to continue to talk to them and what could be done to help.

Basically it's just such a shame, these sweet young kids who say they want to be ... become so influenced by their homelife, a need to fit in with their family and peers from the same estate, that they ignore the support we give them, don't turn up to appointments etc.

For the genuine cases, DC with SEN, the effort to try and ensure they are in best place is utmost and it's heartbreaking there aren't enough of them. Yes, we do know genuine cases and not just so many parents striving for a diagnosis because they feed DC a terrible diet and let them stay up late so are tired and irritable at school.

Expecting some backlash, whatever anyone says I can reason with.

Why do you think that? Benefits were so much more generous in the 80/90/00s - I would say back then generations of families on benefits was common. It’s not really possible now as post austerity you have to actually qualify for benefits, not decide you can’t work.

@Grammarninja

I have worked for years as a TA. Mainly to fit around them. I will not be returning to be £500 poorer. I will return when my youngest starts secondary school which isn’t too long away now. Thankfully I do have the means and education to get a higher paying job but that’s exactly my point. Lots of people don’t, so why would they work to be poorer? People just don’t understand that concept on mumsnet. Not everyone has the skills , education, aptitude. They live in survival mode daily where actually feeding their kids comes before setting an example. I speak for them mainly.

Im on minimum wage. Yes you may get more help but that help is significantly less then mw.

I believe what you have observed, Op.
Your years of experience count for a lot.

Tricky to excite the ambitions of another person. Trickier still to get parents cured of addictions - gambling, smoking, drinking, porn, gaming.

Ideas ..
Work in exchange for benefits. No benefits without contribution to charity or other aproved work.
Improved housing for parents whose kids rarely miss school and who do their homework.

Government assistance to pay for sporting and craft clubs for those under 16 years.

So incentify decent behaviour maybe??

Bless you for all you do, Op.

I totally understand. You've set the example already. I'm sure you promote education with your 3 and I can only imagine you have your sights set higher for them in terms of academic achievement and the prospects that will follow. The issue with wages not being enough to sustain a family is an entirely different issue and one that desperately needs to be solved x

People keep saying work in exchange for benefits how would this work when the majority of people on benefits are working, disabled or carers its not like it was 20 years ago where mum's could sit at home until their kid turns 16.

The 3 main categories of people on benefits are.
Working people in mw jobs- increase wages.
Carers- be bloody grateful because if they went back to work and the government had to pay for the person's full time care it would cost an absolute fortune.
Disabled people - create more disability friendly jobs and incentives companies to hire disabled people and offer more flexibility in the workplace. If non disabled people struggle to get jobs realisticly how likely do you think disabled people are to get them

Or actually sort out the nhs so its run better and put more money into social care so that their are less disabled people.

I completely understand your point of view, OP. Why work for less money than you can get on UC? However,

1. If you have school age children, you might like to think about your role modelling. If they see that you are happy not being in paid employment, they may think there's no point in working hard at school. Therefore, they'll not bother to work to pass exams. Therefore, it's very likely that they will never have well paid jobs and the cycle of living off benefits will continue. Don't you want better for your children and grandchildren?
2. And you will be living off the rest of us who have paid taxes. There isn't a magic money tree paying for you to live. It's the rest of society footing the bill.
3. And the money spent allowing you not to work could be spent on our education / defence / health systems etc.

Ex debt adviser here. We need to get people out of a cycle of poverty. To my mind mixed social tenure is really important. Somehow the sink estates need to go and social housing should be mixed with regular housing. We have seen it in my area. The change in people who move from a council estate to say a new housing estate with a mix of people is immense. A lot of people feel validated and worthy. All children should be educated together. Not just schools attached to estates that the middle classes avoid. Obviously children are number 1 concern, but the mothers are often extremely vulnerable and I think the solution rests with the support for mothers. Too little is spoken about the fact that many estates are on paper full of single mothers with no partners. This is rarely the case in reality. These men are not necessarily positive role models and in fact can bring drugs, violence and a control of the finance in the household. The amount of times I have gone through a single mothers accounts with them to find a ( not legally resident )man is smoking/ drinking/ drugging/ gambling away a large portion of the benefit intended for the single family. Another aspect we don’t often think about is when the children reach an age where benefits are no longer payable, a mother who has never worked is completely on the scrap heap, can only find the lowest paid work nobody wants and does not actually get enough in benefits to support themselves. Whilst I’m on this - child maintenance from fathers is a complete patriarchical farce and £0 awarded because a father is on benefits is plain wrong.
We need more parental education and financial education / food education for all parents regardless of financial means, and finally…the ‘two parents working full time’ family model is not overall conducive to healthy childrearing.

Jesus wept.

No people are not going to work to set examples nor for feels. Is the landlord going to reduce rent as an example? Or the energy companies cut bills as a sign of love for the brilliance of the social responsibility you’re displaying??

The foundation of this country is that we sell our labour to buy the necessities of life. If you don’t get enough for the necessities of life you cannot survive.

That's the point, there is no motivation when benefits are more generous than what you get working full time. The system needs to change. There is so much focus on help for people on benefits, and an idea that it is mean to reduce them, but that doesn't extend to people who work and don't qualify. Friends on UC are much better off than me working full time when you factor in the money, plus all the discounts - plus other benefits like hardship fund, £40 food vouchers per child every holiday, £400 Healthy Start vouchers, free tickets, free school clubs, no council tax, etc etc.

The motivation needs to be that working is more rewarding than not working. As 'mean' as that sounds.

@Tryonemoretime

A perfect example of someone who’s probably never came from a long line of poverty but I do have to have a little internal smirk at the ever so helpful suggestions.

I will not keep repeating my story or circumstances, if anyone is even remotely interested they can read further up the thread.

I count myself very lucky indeed that I will be returning to work. A person without my education is simply not going to work to be poorer. It is incredibly simple when you break it down into daily survival.

Perhaps we can pay carers, teaching assistants and other stereotypical working class jobs a higher wage? So people can work AND live to an okay standard.

Oh and by the way my son is set for some super GCSE results 😜. I believe being happy irrespective of your circumstances is infact a fantastic gift to give to your children. I am happy IN work and OUT of it, but then I’m an incredibly resilient person all round.

25 years in education. The OP isn't wrong- sadly. So many SEND children from low income backgrounds struggling in mainstream education that are not being loved, supported and nurtured in the way they should be. Anyone that disagrees doesn't work closely with families & children on a daily basis. I still lose sleep over some children I have encountered in the past.

What this pathetic government could have done, instead of charging vat on fees which has predictably not been spent on new teachers, is mandate private school to have to provide facilities and places for the most deprived schools and children in our country. That would have made a real difference to the outcomes of many children.

The only way to end unemployment is to end the current interviewing process where people are chosen for certain characteristics and stop jobs only going to the same people who tick the same boxes while others are screaned out by a computer at the application stage and because so many companies use this system we have employable and chronically unemployed.
When jobs become attainable for more people then maybe more people will have jobs.
Saying must have grades A-C or equivalent is what’s keeping a whole category of people unemployed as it’s like saying only intelligent people need apply so what does that mean for the less intelligent people who you don’t want working for you who are then seen as scroungers because they don’t have a job?
These people can only work if they get offered the job.
What hope has socially awkward or cognitively challenged people got in a world with such fixed barriers?

Perhaps jobs should be given by the job centre to the person who needs it most rather than left to the employer to pick the same obvious choices every time but that suggestion will go down about as well as the thought of people out of work claiming benefits.

And actually - set an example? In schools? Set the example to young girls particularly that if you too work hard, work hard some moreand learn and achieve, you too will achieve…. Being told to compete for a minimum wage job that does not pay enough to live on?? Where the first and last question asked is what will you do for us for free?

Nowhere is the broken state of our economy and the sexism of our times shown up more than in the low pay for predominantly women teaching assistants who are left to hold classss for boys who can muck about for years then bugger off with no qualifications to outearn the girls in football, driving Lorrie’s, emptying bins….

THINK about the example you are setting. There’s nothing good about setting the example of fighting to work for nothing as a woman in schools.

WHAT IS EDUCATION FOR???

But the boundaries to adopt are high. I have a friend who would love to adopt (he was adopted) but can’t as they have 2 different sex children already and only a 3 bed house and they won’t let an adopted child share a bedroom with another sane sex child.

perhaps not ideal to have to share but a damn sight better then leaving with parents who can’t be arsed to take them to school.

I think one of the main issues is putting all social housing together. If you never see your friends or neighbors having more you don’t have ambition for more .
I was a single mum at 19 and spend the following years getting told I could have a council house and always made the extra effort to pay a private rent in a better area because it meant my kids would aspire more , the school wouldn’t be full of social issues and struggling either . I went on working tax credits back then for a year while I worked then back to uni and got a career out if it . Off course in my case nobody else in my family lived of benefits so I didn't have anyone showing me it was ok .
Anyway I have no regrets , I do have a child living off benefits now but she is severely disabled and still lives at home . I went on to get a good and career and never went back to any benefits .
Some of my friends on the other hand never left the council estate mentality , 2 of them became grandparents this year and their kids now also live on the estate not working .

My son is disabled and as I said on my post above I never wanted to go into the benefit living thing and I haven’t but I still remeber in his primary specialist school there was a boy with Down syndrome and his mum and dad where so bad , they clearly had full interest in all the financial gain they could have from that child from car to house extension to dla etc but the child looked miserable , when he had to go into hospital for heart surgery o visited him more often than his parents , when my son had a birthday party they forgot to pick him up and he had to spend the night with me . It honestly broke my heart . Unfortunately he passed away 2 years after and they didn’t have the decency to throw him a proper burial as in their own world “ we now have no money “ . The worse was there were 4 older kids and even a grandchild at this point too and nobody worked at all , the oldest where all awful to that boy too , I have no doubt that even after a decade later none of those kids will be functioning members of society let alone good people

Meh, let's put in place proper mental health care and support for those with substance abuse issues and then let's talk

@Hallamule what form would support for those with substance abuse issues take?
I don’t know what the solution is for the problem of addiction. Countries like Singapore and some in the Middle East have draconian punishments but that wouldn’t work in this country.
In Korea and Japan the punishments are not as severe as in those countries mentioned but a conviction for drugs means your career is over - or at any rate badly affected. There is strong disapproval of drugs in these countries.
In UK there are NA meetings in most large towns and cities and online, but addicts have to want to get sober.

100%. I grew up with my (very poor) family talking about actual poverty. 2 sets of clothes, no heating, same cold potatoes for breakfast that they had for dinner, bath once a week, 3 in a bed, sharing room with grandparents etc. Moved around all the time to follow father’s work wherever he could get it. Strong discipline in the household and high expectations of educational outcomes. I have to laugh when people with eyelash and hair extensions and manicured nails talking about being poor. I loathe Reform but they are the only party to tackle this dependency and handout culture. Only a small proportion of people on benefits and temporarily except for those actually disabled.

Maybe it’s so you can articulate your point eruditely so that people can understand it..?

If you remove benefits from the unemployed you make people homeless - thus creating a bigger problem.

Understand this. I can teach maths. If you want people who can teach maths in schools then the maths has to add up. I will not be teaching your boys maths, as if I was a Victorian governess.

Or they just work???