to think that if mum has somewhere to sleep and so does the older child why is the 4 year boy sleeping on the floor????

[LoveBeingAMummy]

Just watched rich kid, poor kid from last night and can't believe that the little boy had to sleep on the floor whilst his mum and older sister had somewhere to sleep. It made me cry. Having depression is not an excuse to not have somewhere for your child to sleep.

I thought they said that the boy and his mother both slept in the living room.

Is it being repeated? I missed it last night but would like to see it.

peasoup it will be on more 4 or late on channel 4 look out for it. If you get a chance to watch it do because it's quite shocking.

I don't know how anyone cannot feel sorry for this family I wouldn't bitch about it as its a everyday think in poor parts of London. I didn't see the mother once on a bed or another bed in the house for that matter.

I hated the richer family the mother was very rude arrogant racist the Rich daughter was simple and had no real life experiance.

Mother & son were sleeping on living room floor, well the living room. I recon i was while the bedroom was being sorted, possibly him and mum shared a double bed then moved to the LR to get the spare done up for the boy? I do hav to agree that there is far worse in the world. You could tell the child was loved. Think of the millions who sleep on floors every day... they obviously cared though as they sorted it, it wasn't "oh, he sleeps on the floor, that's it".

Haven't seen it yet, but am at putting child on the floor.

I once stayed at a children's home in Uganda, in the middle of nowhere - no running water or electricity. Guess what the kids all slept on?

Beds.

I think as other posters have said mother did love her children but she was neglecting the 4 year old and couldn't seem to see it either because of illness or ignorance. I was concerned about his speech and wondered if there was actually any outside involvement with this family.

Mother stated he had had speech therapy but they didn't go back because child 'didn't like it'!! He must have been 3 or 4 when this happened yet it appeared she allowing herself to be dictated to by a 4 year old. she didn't seem bothered by his poor speech and it was unclear if this issue was due to the fact he had some sort of SN or possible through a lack of good example?? Mother's speech was unclear (appeared to be missing teeth) and the daughter seemed to talk in slang most of the time whilst at home although spoke perfectly normally when with the 'rich girl'. The little boy didn't seem to leave that flat. (My brother had to see a speech therapist and it turned out it was because his two elder sisters understood his grunts and made up words so he didn't 'need' to learn to speak properly and my mother didn't take him to play group and let him mix with other kids).

I just felt very sorry for the 'poor girl'. She really needed some outside assistance. At first I had a horrible vision that history would be repeat itself and she would just exchange places with the mother in ten years time. However it seemed that her enviroment was dragging her down and when she got away from it (albeit briefly) she did seem to get the where withall to want to change her situation (she was the one who got it together and sorted out the little boy's bedroom).

I think she was agressive and defensive because she knew the way they were living wasn't right but knew her Mum would be judged when in reality all we had had was a brief 'snapshot' of someone's life.

Geepers, maybe you don't think I needed to be shocked, but I was.

And thats what everyone is doing judging them the girl is defensive because she most likely gets judged everyday,the way they were living wasn't right but they had no choice the little boy was in no real danger and seemed very happy and content I would rather be apart of there family then the others family you could see the Mother had problems also the fact that the daughters father had been shot in Egypt .

Grumpalina The child was 5 you sound like the rich mother stuck up and rude.

MrsThierryHenry watch the programme your see that none of them had beds the little boy did get the bed in the end.

I was only going on what I had read.

imnotmamagbutshelovesme please try watch the programme it was very sad I am shocked at the way some people on here are judging the poor family. Espeically when the behavior of the richer family was disgusting.

Pingping. My point was that there seemed to be no outside assitance. I did not mean to sound 'stuck up' as you say. I was actually empathising because my brother's speech problems were actually down to his enviroment. The only difference is my mother persevered and took the critism. If all the little boy has to a listen to is a severely depressed mother and a sister who speaks a lot of slang (which she admitted herself)it wouldn't be surprising if his speech was poorly developed.The only difference is my mother persevered and took the critism.

The little boy was five now but the mother said he had previously had speech therapy so would presumably have been younger than this. She didn't seem to be doing anything to address it at all and yes the 'rich family's parents were awful but again it was the daughter who actually seemed to gain alot from the experience and face up to her own predudices which she admitted stemed from her upbringing.

Also English isn't my mother's first language and she had a v strong accent which was another issue with my brother's speech.

Lala. Thanks for that I was a bit puzzled but of course the rich mum problably didn't see herself as offensive and rude so maybe it was although certainly not intended.

In fact I was quite surprised rich mother allowed her daughter to take part in the program she seemed so uptight. By the end I decided rich Mum was hpoing all her predudices would turn out to be true and her daughter would never again turn 'left' out of the gate. Thankfully the opposite happened and rich girl became a more understanding person because of it. The mother should have been proud of her but she just looked horrified.

I was surprised at the naivity of the rich family allowing their daughter to take part: you would need to be a great deal more intelligent and more sensitive than Alice not to come across as a complete fool at 15. I wasn't sure Alice was on the road to righteousness by the end, I thought it she could go one of two ways and, if one of those ways involved good A-level results and entrance into a Sloane-y university then anything she had learnt from meeting Natalie would be lost.

What struck me most was how ghastly Alice's mother was and how frightened. Her face was contorted with fear the whole time - it was extraordinary. Do you think seeing herself on the screen will change her or will she put it all down to "clever editing"?

I was also puzzled about why Natalie was so keen to get Gabriel into a special school despite doctors saying there was nothing wrong with him. I'm glad he got into a school and got a bedroom by the end.

i am astonished anyone wants to appear in any reality show.edited for gasp/omg effect

schlock television

This programma is online on channel 4 OD if anyone wants to watch it by the way.The programmes called rich kid poor kid i think

It's really worth watching, and Natalie, the "poor girl" came across so much better than Alice the richer girl imo. Given Alice's comments (state school children can go and die for all she cares), I can't think that this representation was just due to clever editing.

Totally agree that the richer girl's mother was vile. It is shocking that she works as a primary teacher but was so snobby and bigoted.

I would be appalled if any child of mine had behaved in the way that Alice did. Her parents should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for raising a narrow minded, empty headed brat.

I felt terribly sorry for the family and hope they get some help.

Agree with the comments made by ForeverOptimistic and Grumpalina.

It does not matter whether there are children in the world who live in much worse conditions - the fact is, that for a child living in the UK to live in such conditions is pretty shocking. I too think that the little boy's speech problems were probably not anything to do with any SN that he might have been born with, but simply that he did not have enough of the verbal stimulation that babies and toddlers need. I hope the gets the right help at school

She is only 15 and not a very mature girl for her age. From the look of it, she has lived a very, very sheltered life and has absorbed all her mother's neuroses.

I thought the scene in the car outside the shop was very interesting. Alice had obviously asked for some ketchup but was too scared to go into a low-rent store, as was her mother who was trying to force her in as some sort of unspoken punishment. Her younger brother was completely unable to pick up on this undercurrent and quite happy to go in himself but they weren't interested in that because it was obviously a power struggle between mother and daughter. Very weird.

Yes, I would be ashamed to have a daughter like that but it is very unlikely that I will have since, although I live down the road from them, I don't really recognise either of their worlds.

I wasn't disturbed by the poor family as much as the rich family. It was an interesting programme.
It seemed that the children all benefitted from the experience of making the programme.

After reading this thread I downloaded the programme for the DCs to watch. DD was (gratifyingly) disturbed by the rich girl. In my view the rich girl's mother probably had more problems than the poor girl's mother. Bizarre Hyacinth Bucket type self-importance combined with genuine fear of the not-English and the chavs ... It was the most extraordinary lesson.

I didn't see the programme - but have had severe depression in the recent past that left me totally unable to do anything but the basics of feeding my DS's (usually beans on toast or something equally quick and simple to make), giving DS3 milk (which DS1 would warm up in the microwave for me as I couldn't even drag them off the sofa) and if they were lucky I'd manage to get myself together enough to bath them once a week. Washing, well they tended to wear same clothes that I would force myself to put in the washing machine at the end of the day and hang to dry overnight. They would then put them on again the following day.

I could quite imagine that if I had furinture in a box that need unpacking and putting together I would have struggled to even contemplate doing it. Actually I did have DS1's new furinture in boxes, he did have a bed already admittedly, but it took me literally months to finally get his room sorted -and I only managed to do that as my depression started to lift.

Basically it was a truly awful existence

IllegallyBrunette is right - the mum and the boy slept together in the living room on the floor so she wasn't being mean.

And it's prob a 2 bedroomed flat so the 17 year old has one room, the boy has his bedroom now and the mum still has the living room floor.