Their deficiencies are so common that the government is to introduce a checklist of skills that children should possess by the time they start school.
Teachers are increasingly finding that on top of their normal teaching functions they're having to do things like changing nappies and helping children up the stairs - things parents should have taken care of long before start of school.
As I recall from my early schooldays, there weren't any children who lacked such basic skills. It would have been totally shocking if they had. My mother obviously had a very clear idea of what school readiness meant, and would have been mortified if I'd turned up at school in nappies.
It seems a lot of young children are simply not getting enough exercise and not using their muscles enough to strengthen them because they spend so much time looking at screens.
While nine out of ten parents considered their child ready for school, teachers said one in three children weren't. Some parental education is plainly much needed.
I die a little inside whenever I'm out walking and see a mother using her phone while pushing her child in a stroller. I think it's more that the parents are always on their phones, ignoring their children.
ReplyDeleteBijoux: Good point about the parents also looking at their screens.
DeleteI remember when my daughter started kindergarten she had to be able to use the toilet herself, write her name, count to 10, know basic colors and a few other things before they would even let her start school.
ReplyDeleteMary: Wow, that's really demanding. I didn't have to satisfy all those conditions when I started school.
DeleteI saw a short video recently of a school bus driver answering questions that had been put to her. No, she would not wait with the bus while Johnny got up. No, won't change nappies. No, won't stop at the store for you on the way back. And on and on.
ReplyDeleteJoanne: The nerve of some people! A bus journey is a bus journey not some parental support group.
DeleteA friend of mine who is a primary teacher says that Covid has had a terrible effect on certain age groups who were deprived of teh chance to socialise during lockdown. But I also agree with you that modern lifestyles are probably partly to blame, with parents giving their kids phones because they are too busy to play with them.
ReplyDeleteJenny: Yes, covid put a serious brake on socialising, which was especially bad for youngsters.
DeleteYou would think that parents would push toilet training in their own interests! Who on earth wants to have five years of changing nappies and cleaning bottoms!
ReplyDeleteFly: Indeed, who wants to put up with mucky kids for any longer than you need to?
DeleteI can't believe schools allow children in diapers. When I attended kindergarten one student was sent home on the first day when mother dropped off at school. Of course this was many years ago. Shame seeing parents failing their own children. If they don't teach them who will?
ReplyDeletePaula: What was that student sent home for? Not turning up in a nappy I hope!
DeleteThat is exactly why.
DeleteNick, I do not agree. Children are not puppets, you cannot pull a string and they must behave as society requires. Every child has an individual development and kindergarten and the first schoolclass should make the child feel confident and comfortable to start its life in society.Some children start to walk before one year, others much later. One will speak very early , others not. Never compare one child with an other.
ReplyDeleteHannah
Hannah: Yes, of course all children are different and develop at different rates, but surely you would expect children to have the basic behavioural skills by the time they start school?
DeleteNick, children go to school at the age of six, so they have in general the basic skills. I think in UK children are younger when they attend primary school , children are not adults.
DeleteHannah
Hannah: They should have the basic skills, but a British study found that many children starting school don't have those skills (primary schools are for children aged 5 and over).
DeleteYes, that is sad Nick.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what to say. I think things were a bit different before. When I was a kid, we watched tv and my mum forbade us from watching too much for rotting our eyes. No internet. But we spent a lot of time socialising with neiughbours playing in parks and didn't spend huge amounts of time on screens. That might have an impact.
They're introducing bans on phones and devices in schools because they're so distracting and undermining the development of kids?
Liam
Liam: Certainly in those days we kids were good at amusing ourselves without gawping at screens all day. I suspect that as Bijoux says the big problem is parents who're always looking at screens and not paying attention to their children's development.
Delete
ReplyDeleteAs someone who has never had her own children, but rather “inherited” them through marriage, this trend was disturbing to read about. It was definitely not this way in my growing up years, but then I attended parochial schools so insure if there was a difference in public schools.