Do parents have low expectations?

[mrz]

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/12206787/Parents-low-expectations-condemning-toddlers-them-to-a-life-of-underachievement.html

I think kesstrel has hit the nail on the head. It was well documented that the parents whose children needed SureStart were the ones least likely to access it.

It is often a problem to do with low attainment of the parents, but not necessarily. We all can see parents who are not very interested in reading to their children, or singing, or playing games and generally developing their children. Poorly educated parents may struggle to understand child psychology, but they could receive guidance on what is the best way to engage with babies and toddlers on a practical front. Health Visitors and baby clinics used to help with this. We now need new interventions to help these children and they need to be identified earlier.

Having said that, a Nursery Nurse I know worked in a family centre for challenged families and time and time again the same advice was given to the parents but it was rarely followed resulting in the same issues occurring time and time again. Some people lead chaotic lives and just do not engage with what they are told. Most people posting on here will have no experience of that. These parents have little expectation of their children, they just need a roof over thier head, a stable relationship with a partner and food on the table. I have also been aware that parents are grateful if their children can read and write because "that's more than I can do". Often the parents were very switched off from education and do not necessarily see the benefit of a good start. Some do.

Where parenting is a struggle, children are not spoken to, are plonked in front of a screen or TV, not interacted with because parents are on the phone all the time, and the children are generally seen as an inconvenience. Sometimes the parents have a very poor vocabularly themselves. Where I live, there are very pleasant new housing estates with mostly privately owned houses but plenty of those children have poor skills when they start at the nursery attached to the schools.

There can also be issues when both parents have to work and then want time for themselves, (understandably) and not the children, at weekends. How many times do we see young children dragged around shops on a Sunday instead of having a great time in the park? Or spending long, long Sunday lunches in the pub as the parents become steadily more unsteady and let the children annoy everyone else. Plenty of people do not intend to spend time with their children beyond basically caring for them and buying things for them. A lot of the children are not neglected as most of us would understsnd it, but they are neglected in terms of early stimulation and interaction with adults.

Sorry for the ramble. Iam getting myself a coffee now!

The bbc have linked it doesn't make it true

The report is saying that parents don't actually know what to expect ... What is an average vocabulary for a 3 year old? The government says 200 word SaLT say 300+ scientists say 14000 by age 5 ?
I certainly didn't know or even consider it with my first child.

Plenty of people do not intend to spend time with their children beyond basically caring for them and buying things for them. A lot of the children are not neglected as most of us would understand it, but they are neglected in terms of early stimulation and interaction with adults.

An interesting thing, related to this comment, is that in traditional village and tribal societies, once children are around 3 they spend most of their time not with adults, but instead with a mixed age group that includes older children. It's actually the older children that they learn a lot of this stuff from, often via play, while the adults get on with work. The notion that pre-school children should spend all their time either a) with a single adult, or b) "learning through play'" in a group of children the same age as themselves (and thus limiting what they can learn) is very particular to our society, and really rather unnatural.

In the early years a child's vocabulary will grow by 50-70 words a week through oral conversation

Thank you kesstrel. He is fine since reception. The teachers done some magic on him. He is doing really well since started school. Reception teacher was a real gem. She never gave up on him even though he was a hard work, and he still says she is the best teacher, ever.(He is yr3 now.)

Mrz that's a pretty awesome fact: 10 words a day!

Irvine That's really good to hear.

I'm not sure that many people believe 3 year olds should spend all their time with a single adult though kesstrel. Don't most people use a preschool after that age for some of the day and then about a year later a school where they'd be mixing with older children anyway.

It isn't just the BBC www.mumsnet.com/Talk/guest_posts/2603124-Guest-post-A-childs-first-five-years-are-a-golden-window-of-opportunity the call is for an 'early years teacher' in every nursery.

Ida Yes, I didn't phrase myself very clearly, sorry. I was trying to say that the combination of those two options is the norm in our society, in contrast with what is prevalent in traditional/tribal societies.

3 year olds being supervised only by older children sounds a bit Lord of the Flies to me. It might have been done out of necessity but sounds far from optimum.

I think 3 yos supervised by older children isfine in a an isolated village environment, however I have seen some very unpleasant consequences at eg the local Steiner school where they do keep the younger children in a mixed age group from 4-8 year olds, and some of the older Children are really not what I would want my 4 yo learning from.

In some minority groups within modern British society (extended Gypsy / Traveller families are the one I have most 1st hand knowledge of) it is still the norm for younger children to be primarily cared for by slightly older children.

It is from that group that the children I have taught who had little or no spoken language when starting school came from. They had minimal adult care from poorly-educated and mainly illiterate adults (most of their mothers left school before secondary, if they attended any school at all), no pre-school education and very limited contact with anyone from outside their immediate community.

So 'learning from being in a group with older children' can actually be very, very limiting. It can be useful for transmitting 'survival skills' and 'tribe norms' - very useful in terms of tribal society - but in terms of the skills needed in modern society - vocabulary etc - it can be very poor indeed.

100 words by 2yeats old? Fuck, now I feel like a shit parent

Oops, I wasn't actually suggesting that we should adopt this approach! The main thing I was trying to say is that the idea of "learning through play" without intervention/exposure to older children/adults (as advocated by the most extreme "free play only" advocates) is not in fact "natural", and may have drawbacks in terms of what can be learned. And also, I suppose, that it is perhaps understandable that an adult isolated on their own may sometimes struggle to interact constructively with their children, since a tribal environment would have provided more adult company/shared the load more effectively.

Teacher Good point about traveller children. Obviously if the parents and older children are uneducated, that will place severe limits on what the younger children can pick up from them.

Ida Also, if small children are playing with older ones, they clearly need an "escape" route to get to a parent if they're unhappy. But I "played out" as a child from age 3 in our little cul-de-sac - that was the norm back then. You could argue that it was "Lord of the Flies", or you could argue that it encouraged independence, self-confidence, and learning.

I still have a vivid recollection from around age 5, of being included, along with other younger children, in an elaborate fantasy make-believe game created by the older girls on our street. It was far more sophisticated than anything I could have dreamt up at that age. It was thrilling, and intriguing, and was the kind of thing that gave me an excellent base for making up my own elaborate fantasy games when I was older.

I'm going to be controvetial but some of the children. I've taught who arrived with most limited vocab came from MC homes

hazeyjane - Early Years teachers don't mean 'formal education' (I presume by that you are thinking sitting at desks?). EYTs have a degree and post graduate qualification in working with children 0-5. There's nothing in the EYFS about formal education.

Standards in many private nurseries are low, and having better qualified practitioners can only be a good thing. However teachers aren't going to work for minimum wage, so the Govt. needs to fund this. Otherwise many private nurseries will continue to rely on low qualified, low paid workers and apprentices to keep costs down.

I don't think it's just 20% of parents who don't know what to expect and underestimate what their child might be capable of. My DD1 is the first child I've experienced close up and the speed of her development has amazed me. Even now at school, she is set targets by her teachers that look ridiculous to me, and then she achieves them.

However my low expectations and surprise at her attainment haven't held her back at all. That's presumably because we (and her nursery and school) offered her the rich environment she needed. My amazement at her doing something I didn't think she'd be capable of makes me try out the next step with her. It isn't formal knowledge of child development at home that makes the difference at all.

I've seen the comment from parents saying why they need to spend time/help them at home when they are paying high fees for nursery/school, maybe that's why, mrz?

I agree mrsz. Ime children from deprived homes that lack parental interaction tend to be overly independent early on, babying is more a mc failing.

My job brings me into contact with a lot of deprived families, and it's not as straightforward as them just needing sure start etc to educate them. Most of the parents I know who struggle to support education are fully aware they should be doing more, but have no power to change. sometimes it's because they are illiterate, either from their own chaotic childhoods or dyslexia etc that was never diagnosed. And even when you can change their mindset and convince them they aren't 'just thick', it's not straightforward to just access adult education and sort it over night.

There's also the impractical suggestions offered by some people who are in a position to help, like 'go to the library'. Yes, great idea, except she can't get there.

Or the many families where it's the lack of support for mental health/ physical disability/ sn etc that is the actual cause of the parents lack of interaction, not because they don't know how.

Plus I think even with milder issues like dyslexia, being on the asd spectrum, adhd etc, uneducated and deprived parents are even more likely to be assumed to be bad parents than mc ones, and are in less of a position to fight it. So their kids also miss the dx that explains their development.

I loved sure start, I lived in a mixed area when I had my eldest and the groups were all mixed too.

It's quite sad to read this, I was very concerned about my son at 2, he had a limited vocabulary and slurred speech. We spent ages persuing audio thinking he had a hearing problem. SALT were useless, as far as they were concerned he had 100 words at 2 (just) and the minimum sounds he should at that stage of development and that was enough.

The fact that he is clearly quite a bit below average for no apparent reason (I was a playworker! I know what I am doing with early child development) doesn't seem to bother anyone!

Early Years teachers are a good move but I wish accessible to all sure start was bought back too. DS isn't eligible for any groups locally.

Lurked and Bojo , I agree that changing parents' behaviour is very difficult, for all sorts of reasons. It's this that makes me think we should have pre-school intervention programmes for the children in most need. BUT it needs to be the right kind of intervention, one that's proven to work. There's good evidence, as I said in my first post, that the most effective interventions for disadvantaged children are the ones that mix fun, interactive-type direct instruction with play-based learning.

But that's not something the most vocal and influential early years experts want to hear. Here's an interesting blog by a teacher about this, with a link to the Project Follow-'through study, which is very relevant to the issue of how to develop disadvantaged children's verbal abilities.

heatherfblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/09/a-truism-that-needs-questioning/

Kesstrel - the American link you posted earlier was talking about Pre-K class, which I believe is 4-5 year olds, so Reception. That is how Reception works in the UK - a mix of child-initiated play and adult directed sessions.

Learning through play doesn't mean adults are hands-off, even with younger children. Adults should be engaging with children in play to move there learning on and develop sustained shared thinking with them. Even with under 3s there are 'direct teaching' times - so example during circle times.

Nelle It varies according to the state, but yes, for most states you need to be 5 to start kindergarten. I personally think that the current methods in Reception are a good mix, but there are still plenty of people who think they are too formal.

The specific programme that won out in the Project Follow-through study, though, used a very specific kind of direct instruction, designed to produce fast, intensive catch-up. But it's a good point as to whether this would best be done in Reception, rather than the year before.