Does coming from a deprived background really seal your fate?

[Pinkjenny]

Just wondering, really, listening to Nick Clegg on R5 live. I come from Anfield in Liverpool, not deprived really, but certainly not affluent. My mum worked in a shop, and my dad was (and still is) an engineer.

I credit all of my success (relatively speaking, of course) to the way in which I was brought up, and the attitude of my parents, who told me I could be whatever I wanted to be, as long as I put my mind to it.

Does giving children money for their first shoes and first suit really help break that poverty cycle?

Or does it depend on the attitude of their parents and their general upbringing?

OK so i just heard the radio and this is pupil premium y4es?

OK.

Well, my speciality is ASD, so from my perpective on that pupil premium is a great thing.

A lot of sen is too low for official diagnosis- or won't get picked up until far later; Aspergers, dyspraxias, dyslecia, ADD etc. The nature of this sort of syndrome is that many kids ahve traits that complicate their lives but also are not quite diagnosable.

In turn, we knoe thjat famillies with an SEN are more likely by quite a long way than average to be in poverty; many reasons- some gentic, some about caring, etc.

pupil premium might well IMO help to even up the diferences with those famillies, stop the kids getting behind as so many do.

All the famillies I have worked with, SN or when I worked for homestart, wanted the best for their kids- who does not? But not everyone is able to provide that; if you can barely read you ar elimiteed; if you have MH issues and can't be very organised you are limited; if you are dealing with many issues the amount of energy you can expend on eduation dinminshes naturally.

With those famillies, i think a pupil premium is the way forward because those same limitations place the famllies at risk of poverty.

OTOH we all know there are abusers and addicts out there who couldnt; care less (not all but some), and it might not help their kids but it just might- one thing we learned at HS: to give people a chance, amke them they matter. Whether thats 3 hours with a volunteer for Mum or a chat with a TA for child it works.

foreverastudent: I don't! I'm talking about people who have funded education, time to study, and crucially a way out of their relative poverty. Instead, they fanny around doing a bit of this and a bit of that, as a leisure activity, none of it very constructive. (I could go on, it would just be too identifying!)
OK so yes education can be for pleasure, but atm that is a luxury.

Sorry, I should have said that I actually think that bringing deprived children into the system younger than at present is a good thing as well. If you are still non-verbal at 3 due to poor stimulation at home for whatever reason, then you are likely to start school already severely disadvantaged. I think it's essential to at least try to break the cycle of disadvantage that sees deprivation crystallise in increasing levels with each passing generation. I was very glad to see the Surestart funding preserved, and even happier to see this announcement. I'm beginning think the Cons gvt may actually and surprisingly give a shit about deprived people.

I would stress, again, that I'm not disagreeing with the proposals. This isn't intended to be an argumentative thread, I've only been back on MN for two weeks and I've already had enough of that!

And don't say, 'Who's arguing?'

No it doesn't. Look at so many immigrants. They may be financially poor but are often fantastically rich in personal resources (eg. willpower, commitment, stamina)

Surely it should be about the child not parental income? If the child has SEN or needs reading recovery that need should be met. I find the allocation just on the basis of parental income simply to simplistic (Flying your points are well made - it is complex).

But I was incandescent listening to Nick Clegg on the radio this morning saying that parents all know that the kid in the class who have no support at home hold all children back and so should attract more funding. Do we remove all parental responsibility?

I'm so cross because it is the people in the middle that are being made to pay for all this. Sod cutting Trident or anything else.

The truth is the Tories are protecting the rich and the Lib Dems are protecting the very poor and no one (Ed Miliband?) is looking out for the people in the middle.

CB is taken away from what I would call some middle income families, the kids who need reading recovery can't get it and university fees will = a mortgage for anyone with parents that are either not ultra-poor or ultra-rich. Gee, I hate Nick Clegg & his complete lack of political credibility.

Goo dpoint.

And if the non verbal child does turn out to have issues not related to poverty- well we know that bearly interbvention is a key factor in outcome.

And improved outcomes save shedloads fo £.

Win-win surely?

Agree that those of us talking about ourselves and our parents have had opportunities that possibly no longer exist
I don't even recognise the society I was a teenager in, some days.
More to do with tv and technology than government, though.

I mean, my mum had me at 18, and never in my wildest dreams would I have either felt that was a self fulfilling prophecy for me, or that I should/would go the same way.

My future was my future, nothing to do with their past and the choices they made.

I came from a relatively deprived background. My mother was a single mum, we lived on benefits and in a council house, my father was an alcoholic who was absent for most of my life.

I knew life was a struggle and I wanted more. It wasn't that I wanted material things as such, my mum went without to buy us things, but I knew there was more to life than living on state handouts. We never traveled anywhere, I didn't have the opportunity to play a musical instrument or attend out of school activities. I went to a sink estate secondary school and was just desperate to get the hell out of there, I didn't work hard at school (nobody did) and I could so easily have followed the path of not working and getting pregnant very young which is what most people did.

After leaving school with very dubious GCSE results, I worked initially for nothing at a very large employer, I worked really hard which they recognised and I was promoted and ended up establishing a career at quite a young age. I paid for myself to attend night school and gained qualifications. I went off for a year backpacking which was a lifetime ambition. It may be a rite of passage for most middle class kids but it wasn't the norm where I came from.

For now I'm a SAHM but I do hope to start a new business with an ex colleague shortly. I am ambitious and there is still lots I want to achieve. As a family we aren't really financially better off (at the moment) than when I was growing up as a child but I am optimistic and think that will change once we have two of us working again.

I feel that my children have more support than I did as a child. I always knew I was loved but I didn't come from an educated family so there was no support available with homework or career advice and it was just assumed that we leave school at 16 and get a job.

In answer to the OP I don't think that coming from a deprived background automatically seals your fate but it certainly makes life a lot tougher. If you see poverty as the norm you are more accepting of it as your fate.

It's more than that though whoknew- the very poor have been hit agin, it just doesn;t amke good telly adn ahsn;t been well reported.

There was an article about rview to heating costs; Tv reports stated payable to pensioners.

It's not; the £250 is paid to all pensioners (please sort that DC!), but the cold weather allowance is paid to soem of teh very poorest famillies, including those with a disability. It is ebing reduced (apaprently) from £25 p/w to £8.50 p/w.

Some of these kids and adults are at risk of death ifg they are not kept warm.

We ehar the most about things affecting teh middle income earners becuase they have a loud voice in the media, but don't let that fool you. Everyone except HR childless people and wekk off pensioners is losing.

WRT to kids with sen, many aren't picked up until 6 or older but have no IQ delays apart from delays caused by not fitting in the educational system too well.

I don't think it is just the lack of money
someone mentioned immigrants and how they work their way up, well yes but you have to want to do it, aspire to it and create a 'culture' / environment at home which values learning and discipline to achieve goals

some people just have very low aspirations, and very few skills to do improve themselves and their children, this I am sure can happen for many reasons.

I suppose the ideological debate would be if it is the role of the state to intervene

thinking in terms of wasted potential I think it is criminal that there is not more early to intervention, I seem to recall the last government saying that to break the cycle it would have to start before the child is born, this was received with
'government wants to control your womb'

then again it is an ideological point,imo at some stage the stage the government and society at large end up paying for the ones who are 'lost' early on, seems like false saving/ economy

same for university education, I feel it is best to get people there on merit then worry about the funding, science for example will often lead to generating wealth

why cut budgets in sciences? for example

anyway sorry for the rambling long post

I don't think itis poverty per se that seals a childs fate but an enviroment of disinterest and no ambition where the idea of striving is missing makes it much harder.

Atthe risk of sounding like a monty python sketch... {blush]
I was born into poverty, jumble sale clothes and free school meals. I could have gone to university but was needed at home to earn and put money on the table. When I left home I was still sending money back although I could barely make the rent.

But my father was a well read man who liked us to talk and think around issues and who would be grossly offended at the notion of being lazy or taking charity ( as he called it). I didn't know how but I knew always that there was the possiblity of escape, of improving ones life and chances.
Had I not had that example. Had I been born into an atmosphere where education was ignored I could be anywhere now.

I did not have opportunities that no longer exist. My father moved us to France when his business went tits up when I was 6, I went to the local 1 classroom village school, then another when my father fell out with the teacher, then a normal secondary school 30km away (granted my parents engineered for me to learn German as a first foreign language, which was the unofficial streaming system in place), then another secondary school when we moved 1 year before the end, then senior high school, then gap year in the UK, then university for which I did not get a grant due to being an overseas pupil. I worked through my gap year, and every vacation (termtime work alas not an option) and stayed up at college through the breaks while all my friends went off on world tours.

You could say I excel at being an outsider and being resilient. My experience is obviously not in any way typical though, just to say that not every one who did well after unpromising beginnings went through the grammar school/grant route.

scary -- sad re heating, yes it should be publicised.

but re SEN = all I'm saying is that if they need help give them help? If they don't help then no problem. But to allocate it just because of background? Fairly crude, no?

Interesting thread. I work in public health and it's very much accepted that deprivation is linked to poor outcomes for children.

In health terms for instance, children from deprived backgrounds are more likely to die in their first year of life. They are also more likely to suffer from many childhood illnesses, accidental injuries and poor mental health. People from deprived backgrounds in general have a lower life expectancy (up to 10 years difference) in some cases. Obviously ill health can affect your life in so many ways.

Children from deprived backgrounds have so many other things working against them: poor housing, poor living environment (crime, no green spaces, overcrowding), unemployment, poverty, little or no access to all sorts of services.

All of which can affect a child's life regardless of how much time and effort their parents put into their children.

I disagree that the Coalition Government are protecting the poor. When all the cuts are made to public services, it's the poorer people who will suffer most.

whoknew absolutely in principle but the whole point I am amking is about kids who are either just this die of SN criteria (And that gets more severe each week it seems) or whose needs won;t be spotted utnil they are given input on a fairly individual basis.

The easy-to-miss kids

Who are oiver represented in poor famillies

I actually think a part of the problem has been the 'glamorisation' of low-status, low-prospect, low-moral-involvement behaviour.

I could go on but I am sure I'd be pretty much laughed at. I just think the lowest common denominator, in terms of what we watch, read and buy, has been lowered to a level where people who have poor judgement or who bypass normal morals are given a disproportionate amount of attention and/or money.

"However, I can't understand how a free nursery place for a 2 year old will help a child whose parents don't improve their homelife, either because they themselves know no different, or because they can't be bothered to."

You only have to look at threads on here to see how strongly the notion of parenting in any way you choose and not criticising anyone else's way, unless it is life and death, might make it hard (or not the job of) the government to influence home life. Therefore you have the option (for these kids) of being surrounded by not-bothered parents or both not-bothered parents and bothered nursery staff. I don't think anyone is suggesting that nursery is more influential than home life but it does supply a choice/option instead of dictating and trying to control how people live - which would be much harder, politically.

One thing money does make a difference to is choices, if this gives poorer parents the option of childcare (it isn't mandatory they take it up) then it might level things up a bit - allow them to work or just get on top of things at home or any of the other reasons better off people take up nursery places.

"My future was my future, nothing to do with their past and the choices they made."

That's rarely true, even though we like to think of ourselves as true individuals. Our parents are the most influential people in our lives and they do determine our futures, directly or indirectly. They pass on values, expectations and goals and we either go along with them out of admiration or kick against them in frustration. Either way we are influenced.

Children who are especially self-motivated, driven and aspire to greater things will survive & thrive even from the direst of backgrounds ... but the barriers they face are even greater now than they were 20 or 30 years ago.

Are you taking the mick unprune?

the owest income famillies are not morally inferior; they are famillies who come from poor backgrounds themselves, who have illness, whatever.

if you eman drugs etc- they are not the people in the vast majority of poor famillies.

if you eman unmarried couples well as a fellow amrried I say each to their own.

AS a poor, Guardian / Times reading graduate I take offence hugely at scuh a blatant wriitng off of a significant number of people. And even if you were right- whcih you are not- it's children we are tlaking about here.

Chil1234 - It's true for me, and that is whom I was referring to. You seem determined to pick holes in everything I say. I am absolutely influenced by my parents, but I did not automatically think my life would follow the same path as theirs.

I don't profess to know enough about these issues, I was merely starting a debate which I found interesting.

No you've misunderstood me!
I was saying that the people who are glamorised are now morally far more questionable than before.

Giving attention to eg people who do fark all except get off their tits on cocaine then do photoshoots for cash: I think that image of "success" filters through to all of us in one way or another.

@Pinkjenny... I'm not picking holes. A debate means taking up contra positions and chatting about them in a civil fashion. It's not about everyone agreeing.

I'm simply pointing out that whether we opt to copy our parents' path in life or whether we think 'no way am I doing the same thing they did!'... we are influenced.

PinkJenny I know exactly what you mean.
I'm a child of a ridiculously young mother - no moral judgement on that but I am totally sure that it was never going to be in my future either, despite her painting a rather rosy picture of it tbh.

What makes someone choose one path and someone else in the same circumstances choose another?

I was determined that I wanted a different life from the life I grew up in. I even went as far as consciously marrying a man who was the complete opposite to my father. I love my father now and have a relationship with him but I wanted a secure life for my children. Growing up with an alcoholic is unpredicatable and unsettling for a child.

I started a thread the other day about my 15 year old niece. She has already decided she never wants to work and wants children soon. She wants to live on benefits and has no ambition at all. She is quite open about this and is baffled by our concern.

What made me decide to go down the opposite path to my parents and yet she has already decided she wants to repeat the cycle?