Mums neglecting their children by spending too much time on the internet

[EdieSedgwick]

Sorry for the Daily Mail link....

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1355346/Twitter-mothers-spend-hours-blogging-neglect-children.html

Now stop reading this and neglecting that child of yours...

'They can't infer what the teacher is talking about when they give clues e.g. "I'm thinking about something that your mum might read when she's had a very long day and wants to relax with a cup of tea".'

If a teacher were really to say this then they would be engaging in very sloppy teaching indeed.

LOL earwicga - if DS2 (YR2 as it happens) was asked that he would probably say

"mumsnet" - altough the answer that could be many and varied, could be "Hello!", or "a book", "the newspaper" "an atlas" (ok that was my dad was when he wasn't developing his films), they could give the name of the book, or even "nothing"

If asked about his dad (my exH) it would probably be "TV guide on the television"

Surely though all children (Even if you take the internet away) are going to have a wide range of vocabulary differing from others? And it's the job of the teacher to teach subject relevant vocab?? And they're usually taught to use a dictionary in YR2 so I would expect a secondary school pupil to look it up if they didn't know the meaning of "audience"

I mean, my Uncle used to have the horse racing on EVERY time we visited (which was very regularly, it was either that or the football............or both). That was when I was very very young. We didn't have a TV at home, but about 10yrs later in an English lesson in school we were looking at a Philip Larkin poem and the teacher asked the class if we knew what "silks" were (it was "At Grass").

I was the only child in the class that knew the answer. The reason - because I was the only one that had to endure any experience of horse racing. (I still remember this clearly about 17 years on as even the English teacher was impressed I knew )

""My 14 month old will moan at me if I pick up the laptop and will come over and pull out the plug. He will often bring over a book or a toy and pull me onto the floor if that doesn't work! He's learned that I am not so good at responding when I'm online and he is letting me know that he doesn't like it."

Right - so please don't extrapolate from your experience that everyone that posts online, especially the proflic posters have that problem."

I wasn't. I was saying that kids learn based on what they see in their own environment and how they choose to react to that/the responses they then get. I spend too much time on the computer so that's what happens.. it's an example of how everything is learning.

In terms of what you say about depression, well ((struggling to think of how to put this)), obviously when you've had depression and you can't interact because of that illness, that does have an impact on your kids because everything does. And I say this as someone who has an anxiety disorder. It's important to separate out the fact that, well, yes, kids pick up on things and are learning from the bad times as well as the good and a sense of blame or culpability for this (which you can imagine, as someone with anxiety, is not my forte).

My father is an alcoholic, say. I really love him and I think I have a lot of qualities that come from how he raised me. Unfortunately, there are other aspects that, well, did impact more negatively.

To a large extent, though, I do not believe that that is determined by the parent. Life involves these vicissitudes, they are part of it all. That's the beauty (and sometimes cruelty) of the dynamic process of development I am trying to describe. There is a level on which children need to do certain things/have certain experiences to develop skills (e.g. if no one spoke to you and put you in a cupboard for your formative years, you would not develop so that is To Be Avoided) but how you develop in terms of personality etc remains quite individual and reflects that child's preferences and temperament and "self"/other experiences etc .. which, to me, is why you can have kids in a "dysfunctional" family have such wildly different outcomes in adulthood e.g. one living under a bridge and on crack, another passionately fighting for the rights of vulnerable people in the developing world, another keeping accounts for the local bakery.

Development is an amazing thing in its richness and complexity.. so nothing here is black and white, only so many shades of grey.

And, as before, it's all culturally mediated. If we were all fishing with spears instead of wanting our kids to have university level degrees, arguably a lot of what I said would be less relevant.

'They can't infer what the teacher is talking about when they give clues e.g. "I'm thinking about something that your mum might read when she's had a very long day and wants to relax with a cup of tea".'

If a teacher were really to say this then they would be engaging in very sloppy teaching indeed."

Why do you think so, earwicga?

Oooh thumbdawitch my Mum used to put me in a playpen too my brother who is three years older than me used to look at me from the 'outside' and torment me and then run off [bastard emoticon]

No idea where my Mum was, but obviously doing something elsewhere in the house. I (like most other children of the 70's, my year of birth is 1970) have not been emotionally scarred or traumatised by this experience at all. In fact I have quite cosy memories of my time in the playpen, not that I remember specifics, but I do get a general feeling of safety in the memory.

You see I'm confused about your focus on vocabularly and language development when you say that they will learn even if you do an hour of housework without talking to them.

How are they going to learn anything vocabularly wise if they'r enot being spoken to

• yellow party hat anyone

actually think I'm going to stop with the child related updates - it starting to resemble netmums with the tickers

I was a child of the 80's (born '79) I never had to endure a playpen............oh no - I was allowed to run free and wild with my older (4yrs my senior) brother. Trips down to the park and the beach without parents....not sure when they started - but I was certainly under 5yrs old as we moved from there when I was 5.

Baroque, with reference to your example of "silks" absolutely, a typically developing language learner will have a rich vocabulary reflecting their experience.

"And it's the job of the teacher to teach subject relevant vocab".

Yes - but even yesterday, I was speaking to a Year 9 teacher about work going on in his class with a child with special needs and he said: "ooh, I really don't know how to teach vocabulary, I wouldn't know where to start".

As it turned out, he did.. and he was quite clear and the lesson was well structured and he did teach words (just thought he wasn't doing so!).

The issue with kids who have a wide vocabulary of the type that is not prioritised in school (like my example of the student who could tell you just about everything you wanted to know about VAT but was unable to relate to anything related to books) is that the definitions given are often irrelevant e.g.

In an example from another class - "atmosphere" - in the dictionary, it' a particular environment or surrounding influence

In class it was described in the contet of creating atmosphere: "how the director uses things like lighting and camera shots to make the audience think and feel a certain way about a scene".

In the class I was working in, not one of the students could subsequently identify the atmosphere in the scene they were studying and/or give me any details about the word or when they might use it again/what it was to do with. They just couldn't relate to it..

It's a bloody hard concept but then, most abstract concepts are if you haven't attained high levels of literacy and you have gaps in your basic vocabulary. It's hard to teach them, too. I can't imagine how a secondary teacher would possibly manage to do it and actually plan anything else. I forget the exact figure now, but kids at secondary are supposed to increase their vocabulary by many thousand items a year. It is not atypical for kids to be exposed to 35-50 specialist words in 10 minutes of teacher talk at secondary. Obviously, it is assumed that these have been introduced and are understood previously but the pace of the curriculum is so fast that kids with lower academic vocabulary levels and poor word learning strategies just can't keep up. Research evidence is really clear that vocabulary levels predicate academic success.

And don't get me started on dictionaries! (See "atmosphere" above). Great for highly literate learners with sophisticated, academic type language. Rubbish for anyone even vaguely struggling - and there's of research evidence relating to this, too!

yes - but I wasn't particularly advanced in my vocab levels (English was my worst subject at school, and and still is now ). It just "happened" to be a word I'd come across before that no-one else had.

Even if you took away the internet (and maybe even the TV) then you would still have a great disparity in what "basic" vocab a child has as they start school, and progress through school.

Right am off to the shop with DS3 to buy pens - have given up the fight trying to find a black on in the house.

Right, I am confusing me know. How will I do this training???? >

I am going to try to explain why housework helps! Daddy can do it though

Level 1 -

IDEA

1 - You watch the world around you. You make connections between things, shapes and actions. You don't have words for them yet. You see that when dad washes the dishes he picks things up and turns on the tap and pours in washing up liquid etc. You don't know the word for any of these things but you see that the dish goes in dirty, gets swirled around a bit and comes out clean. You don't notice it all at once: you observe bits of information over time e.g. one day you are interested in the sparkly water, another day in the red cup as it splashes into the water etc.

2 - You start to notice that there are words being used around the dishes. You are playing on the floor when dad says: "I'm going to wash the dishes". You look at dad, he goes to do the dishes. You think nothing more of it and get on with whatever you are doign.

3 - You start to notice that this word "dishes" comes up a lot before dad goes out to do that thing in the kitchen. You still don't know any other words (e.g. kitchen, tap, rinsing, washing up liquid). You just get that there is a link between this string of sounds and the event you see happening. At this stage, you don't really know what dishes are e.g. they could be the tap, the water swirling about. Hell, if you don't know the word "dad", they might even be that man that hangs about here.

4 - You are a bit older. You understand some words e.g. "dad" and "kitchen" and are beginning to realise that words come in groups. Dad goes into the kitchen to do the dishes. You point at the sink and moan (you want Dad to come and play with you). Dad says: "not right now, I'm washing the dishes". There's that word again. And another one. Washing. You remember that word. You hear it in the bath sometimes. It has something to do with water and hands and someone rubbing something. Again - you don't know the words for any of these, you are associating idea and experiences, like a "film" playing out in your mind. You know enough now to know that washing must be the action so you look at what dad is doing. Washing the dishes. You point again and make a sound. With any luck, dad or someone else says something like "washing the dishes" and it clicks - those things are DISHES. You still don't know the word for any of them, though e.g. cup, plate, fork.

Still too long, isn't it. Bloody vocabulary! I need pictures!

You can't comment about how someone is dealing with their family just cos they are online.

You're not in the home, seeing any or non-interaction between parent and child.

Not all mums are sat for 8 hours ignoring thier kids....I'm a SAHM but inbetween school runs, pre-school runs, kids naps etc I get online. 10 month old sitting and happily banging toys while i spend 5 mins checking email.....No-ones business but mine really!

working i'm assuming you are childfree today and have a day off work, given the lengthy posts...

And i may well ignore my kids when I'm on here.....but the other 23 1/2 hours of the day i am at their beck and call, day and night taking them to all their school and social events, chatting in the car, reading books, explaining the world around us, and being a parent like everyone else.

I just happen to have a few minutes of me time - half of the time looking advice on pregnancy, support for loss of baby, new recipies, bf support, help for sleep issues and sometimes just a bloody good laugh. 3 kids 5 and under takes it;s toll - so shoot me for having a bit of time out!!!!

PICTURES!!!! But I thought that if they saw your reading something with pictures they'd know it was a magazine

I have just - after several days of searching - found my passport.........in a folder cleverly labelled "kids/me personal stuff".........fancy that .

CRB form is filled in WOOHOO. Shall go early for school run to drop it into the office

I'd love to know if no-one ever reads a newspaper with any kids around -or does the rule book say you wait until they've gone to bed to do that too???????

no that's ok because they can see it's a newspaper and can make sense of it

littlemissindecisive, no need to be catty. Ds is asleep in his travel cot, an arm's length away from me.

It's just a discussion - tossing ideas around, you know. It's not a pop at anyone, just sharing some thoughts/opinions. Reflecting etc.

The discussion isn't and hasn't been about 5 minutes here and there, though. It's been about long periods e.g. as long as I've been on now.. but I don't have ds to provide active care for right now. That isn't to say I haven't done this sometimes while I have and I've been clear that I have been guilty of this so not casting judgement or aspersions on anyone. Thinking something through in the spirit of a discussion forum.

I thought you were joining in so was sharing my thoughts based on what you said, not directing anything personally to you!

Anyway... I am off now as DS HAS woken up and 2 hrs 40 mins is a long enough nap for today, even if he is poorly!

wow - I am seriously of how long your DS sleeps

I probably look like I've been on here most of the day. Never mind the fact that I've done a list of stuff in between posts.

I wasn't being catty, just wondering how you were able to post such huge messages on here. Nosey yes, but not catty.

Fancy the Mail producing 8 pages of comment on MN. I bet they're thrilled.

Personally, I thought it was a good article.

Why is Liz Fraser called a parenting expert?

Apologies if this has already been said, I haven't read the whole thread. The problem is this article is just giving mums ANOTHER thing to feel guilty about. As if we didn't have enough already!

I am on the computer a lot during the day, if not on the internet then doing uni work but my DS is 3 months old there's only so much I can do with him atm! I do make sure that we go out once a day and while i'm on the computer I interact and chat to him as much as I can. I also move him from his chair to his playmat to my lap regularly so he doesn't get bored and he seems happy enough.

Bah bloody fail!

I can't remember my mother interacting with me as a child. Or any of my friend's mothers.It was not the done thing in the 70's I guess.Was it Jenny Eclair who said she spent her summer holidays as a child sitting on a wall bored? We learned to amuse ourselves. God forbid if I ever once said to my mother I was bored. That was the cue for a very long lecture.
I tell DD that I am online doing my homework for university. I must feel some guilt to say that as I graduated 3 years ago . Was caught out recently as she can now read. 'Homework? Facebook?'. I spend less time online now as she is nearly 5 and we can have conversations that I actually enjoy.

yes, redpanda, I remember those 70s lectures well. 'Only boring people are bored' 'I've got a list of chores here if you need something to do' etc. etc. etc. Children were expected to go out and play and only come home for meals!

And I've just realised one of my strongest childhood memories is of my father always having his head buried in the newspaper. We could not drag his attention away - once my little sister got so frustrated she ripped it in half. Yet no-one was writing columns about how crap fathers were (well, not about them reading newspapers instead of playing What's the Time Mr Wolf, anyway).

edam - my father came home and we had to be quiet so he could watch the news. This was during our tea so we ate in silence. Ah eating round the dinner table as a family
To my shame last weekend I made DD come for a walk with the dog in the rain. When she complained I did say the line 'only boring people get bored'. It was out before I could stop myself. We found a stick and pretended it was Stick Man.