Please don't 'baby' your children

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Where do I start?

Parents of my y3/4 class routinely carry their children's bags in, take their lunch bags to the hall, hand in letters and money, put their reading diaries and spelling books in the right places on the right days, linger in the corridor chatting ... for goodness sake MAKE YOUR CHILD LOOK AFTER THEIR STUFF!

7-9 year olds can carry bags and remember books. Don't baby them. Even 3 year olds can carry their bags - don't be that parent who mollycoddles their children.

Nobody is asking schoolsto teach children to use a knife and fork

Really? So who is supposed to do so in your world?

I am not going to wade through 12 pages here but, in principle, I agree with the OP.

However, some children in primary (and even some in early secondary) do need help with organisation,

I am tired of rebuying things for my own children (including a nearly new £45 pair of shoes) for my children which have somehow vanished at school.

Parents and teachers are there to help children develop a responsible attitude. However there should also be a safety net, so school should help children look after things properly. It is not actually that hard.

Ill say what I always say on these sort of threads.

Anyway who glibly says ‘oh except for SEND children’ obviously has no experience of seeking a diagnosis in the current climate.

It takes years and years and often children get missed / ignored at school if they aren’t overly disruptive or behind. Maybe the reason they aren’t overly disruptive or behind is because school is using all their capacity and they need as much babying as possible from the parents who see their true needs.

Or maybe I’m just a snowflake. Who knows eh.

Batteriesallgone
We have a lot of children on our SEND lists that don't have official diagnosis and are on the pathway for diagnosis. Our school approach is to 'treat as...'

I think from a teaching perspective, though we don't always get it right, with experience and tacit knowledge you can build a reasonable picture of mollycoddling or a potential SEND need (more often than not supported by how the parent acts).

By secondary I think the distinction is a bit easier to establish though. A y8 student with a helicopter parent who's leaves their stuff all over the site and then helicopter parents claims repeatedly it's my job to organise their child's belongings abd extra curricular life isn't a SEND issue.

A y8 student with a helicopter parent who's leaves their stuff all over the site and then helicopter parents claims repeatedly it's my job to organise their child's belongings abd extra curricular life isn't a SEND issue.

I am amazed that any secondary school parent would be in touch with a teacher about their child’s belongings.

I am amazed that any secondary school parent would be in touch with a teacher about their child’s belongings
That is a real example.
Sadly there are still some parents who call up secondary schools expecting staff to continue to organise their child.
It's not common, but there's usually a couple over the year.

Sadly there are still some parents who call up secondary schools expecting staff to continue to organise their child.

Do you not have a home-school contract that defines responsibilities?

I’m aware schools have a ‘treat as’ policy. I’m also aware it’s rife with difficulties in practice, not least that it’s so open to interpretation.

Personally I think the focus should be on the behaviour - does this child have difficulty remembering and organising their belongings, well then perhaps they need support for that. If you’re at the point of believing that if you offer it to one, all children will leave their crap everywhere, never take or enjoy independence or grow up then you have lost faith in children IMO. It is in a child’s nature to want to grow, have independence, be competent.

I am a SAHM, I am well educated, I have autism myself. My children are well advocated for. I regularly help out other parents who have no idea how to navigate the system and the school has dismissed the parent as scatty / helicoptery and the child as just needing a firm hand or some such bollocks.

To believe that your SEND lists are right is folly tbh. There will always be some children who get more help than they need (often due to early diagnosis and more aware parents and professionals) and others who slip through the gaps.

Yes we do. And we have a great pastoral team and a clear way for students to collect lost property and set ways to get the notices. There's really no excuse.

Some of the helicopter stories are too identifying and ludicrous to share on here. What confuses me is then the parents seem confused that their child is disorganised in y10/11 so come to parents' evening saying 'we're really worried because obviously we've stepped back but they seem to be forgetting things and not managing their homework'.
Really? They've had no time to take responsibility and then at 14 you step back and find they have no resilience or independence. Anyone would think school have been giving the same message for the last 3 or 4 years.

Batteriesallgone
There is asking staff to support a child become more organised and independent and there is removing responsibility from the child by getting teachers to continually pick up after them, tell staff to give uo breaks/lunches to repeatedly find books and coats that haven't been put in lockers, excuse them for being routinely poorly prepared and expect a secondary form tutor to organise your child's extra curricular and contact home for each activity.
The difference is obvious. One is reasonable. The other is not.

Interesting. My DD’s junior school did a fantastic job of making the DC independent about homework/organisation/independence. It was only when she moved school in Y8 that I came across DC who had been to good schools but had not be trained to be organised.

Lots of our feeders do a fabulous job in that respect. It's why we tend to find it's so unusual to have that level of mollycoddling when they get to secondary.

Obviously, a bit of help is needed to support transition as the entire nature of the school day is different. Because most students (including those with SEND and support in place) manage to get on and learn the new systems, by half way through year 7 and into year 8 there's a really obvious difference between those who have been supported to be independent but may need a nudge now and then and those who have helicopter parents who think staff should mop up after their child and be their child's PA.

and those who have helicopter parents who think staff should mop up after their child and be their child's PA.

IME it’s not just helicopter parents who think school staff should be their DC’s PA. Some parents just think other people should be doing their job.

Attachment theories in psychology believe if a child receives the help and nurture then need, they feel confident and secure enough to explore the world independently. However, if they are forced to grow up too soon and pushed into a position of independence before they're ready, they will react with clingy ness, anxiety and insecurity. So it will often, ironically, slow a child becoming independent if you don't give them enough support in the beginning.

I don't think anyone's really suggesting anything that would constitute being forced to grow up too soon or put in a position of independence though, ComfortComes. They are suggesting simple things which a parent can easily, gradually and sympathetically get their small child used to doing themselves over a short period of time.

And yy to the ridiculousness of only stepping back when the child is 14 or 15 and then being surprised they haven't magically learned resilience and organisational skills while you were doing it all for them.

I forced myself not to police yr9 dd's homework at all when she started secondary. I wanted her to take control of it and if necessary learn the consequences of not doing it on time. I'm so glad I did, even though it was tempting to get involved.

Attachment theories are all well and good but they aren’t precise enough. In particular, they assume cultural cohérence that is no longer a given.

I forced myself not to police yr9 dd's homework at all when she started secondary.

I never policed the DCs homework in primary. Obviously I did those things that were expected of me (listening to reading), but I did nothing else. The DCs did fine though they were not too of the class - nor did they really care about that, as we didn’t focus on grades but considered progress much more holistically.

In secondary and at university they have all very much come into their own. That is not to say we never help or support them: we very much do, but only when they ask.

Let’s hope you managed to teach them the same flexibility of thought so they might imagine there exist people who have different skill sets, priorities, and life experience to their own.

Primary school doesn’t cater for a wide range of skill sets, priorities and experiences. Its purpose is to ensure every child acquires the same basic skill set.

Let’s hope you managed to teach them the same flexibility of thought so they might imagine there exist people who have different skill sets, priorities, and life experience to their own.

I don't see why teaching your dc independence skills would be at all incompatible with teaching them that different people need different skill sets tbh.

Practicing inclusion and differentiation is a requirement.

Inclusion and differentiation are nit the same as “anything goes”. They are too often, unfortunately, interpreted that way.

It is neither desirable nor practicable to be fully inclusive and to differentiate very extensively. The meaning of education gets lost.

I don't think I 'get' attachment parenting. The argument is that doing everything for children makes them feel secure. But it also seems to me to be a way of disempowering young people. Not being able to do things - while seeing other people of your age doing them - can make young people scared and vulnerable and dependent, while also giving adults a satisfying feeling of being all-powerful. It really does seem better to train young people to do things, while acknowledging that the learning period is lengthy and that obviously there will be errors along the way.