Lockdown Children.

maddyone schools may be open during the present lockdown in England but there are not sporting activities taking place eg football clubs, mini-rugby or netball clubs.

In fact, sport in schools has had to be completely rearranged as contact sports or even passing a ball to one another, is banned. One of our DGD was beginning to thoroughly enjoy netball and had been picked for the school team but that has now stopped.

I'd like to point out that an awful lot of civilised/cultured, intelligent people eat with their hands.

Caklistemon I know, it’s a sad state of affairs for children. They have suffered so much during lockdown, and as you say, although schools are open now, all sporting activities have ceased again. So football, ballet, rugby, horse riding, and park run all off the agenda again. I mention those particular activities because those are the things my own grandchildren do, but there must be many others.
We must be grateful for small mercies, that children can still still go to school. School is the safest place some children have.

Oooops I mean Callistemon

petra, yes they do but its their culture, our culture is to use cutlery. Many of the Pakistani children in our area eat with hands at home but are equally at was with cutlery.

Maddyone, absolute agreement from me about the multitude of benefits children get from regular school attendance. I can't get beyond my belief we need a government that understands the needs of children and is prepared to invest in our future.

for your granddaughter

There is a trend for toilet training to be later in each generation. When I was a baby my mother got me out of nappies soon after my first birthday and my MIL reckoned she did this even earlier.
When mine were small, toilet training usually started around the second birthday, usually a bit earlier for girls and later for boys.
I noticed my DGC and other children 10 to 15 years ago were not trained until nearer their third birthday. If the trend is going upwards and summer babies start reception at just 4, I'm not surprised some are still in nappies.

Yes, children aren't pressured into early toilet training. The point being made by teaching staff though, is that these children were toilet trained, not using dummies, using cutlery pre-lockdown. Four months at home, followed by the long school holidays appear to have caused regression.

when i heard this it annoyed me..... going back into nappies and forgetting how to use a knife and fork..... surely those are basic skills that are learnt at home!

If you are juggling parenting with working from home, it may be much easier to pop on pull ups than to remind children or clear up any mess. Most children are already trained and would be upset if they had an accident.
Easier also to put children in front of the box or outside with finger food at lunch time. Using a knife and fork could continue at the evening meal if that is the normal practice, because even working parents would normally come home and cook for the evening meal.
Any regression reflects on the parents, not on schools, but it will be seen as yet another job for schools to put this right.
I wonder where the survey covered.
Happily, according to the Head of my DGC’s school in the north, and my DD’s school in the south, the children there, including the new EYFS children are as normal in terms of toileting and eating, so well done those parents!

I really do not know any of this all I can do is quote from my personal experience..

during the war! yes, the war years again.... I was 3 years old when the war started, my dad went off to war, my mom was left with me a 3 year old and my older brother, must have been about 6 years old.. he went to school, I did not..

mum had to go do what jobs she could to supplement the income.. .... so mostly she was out on and off throughout the day... nothing wrong with my potty training, and both my brother and I, knew how to use a knife and fork etc.. and read!!! I must have been about 5 years old before I went to school, no nurseries then.... I was a very good reader..

and good at spelling.. etc..

discipline!?? just my experience. large council estate , Birmingham,, nothing privileged there... got scholarship at age 10./11..

just saying.. deep sighs.

I'm with polnan on this.
I don't think that austerity has anything to do with the ability of a child to function socially. It's all down to parental involvement and interest.
It's immensely telling that children now need to school to perform functions that were, hitherto, performed by parents, immensely telling and incredibly damning of modern society. I have had a constant battle with my DD over my DGD's table manners or lack thereof. She is such a poor eater and has been allowed to get down from the table and wander around during meals since she could toddle. When they visit here I am firm. If she gets down that's it, she doesn't get back up and her plate is cleared and there's no more food or snacks until the next meal time even if the meal currently underway hasn't been eaten. She eats with a knife and fork at the table not with her fingers.
I have had such tongue lashings from my DD about it and about her not being my child but hers and that she'll not put up with my interference. My reply has simply been not to bring the child to my house across mealtimes then as I won't put up with such a lack of table manners in my home. I don't have meals at my DD's house any more either. If I want to eat with animals, I'll go to a zoo.

This isn’t the fault of the children - the parents should not let this happen. I suspect these are the same children who started school still wearing nappies, with the parents thinking that teachers are surrogate parents.
Also, so many children eat only finger food at home (pizzas, hamburgers, etc).
All very sad.

ooh!NoddingGanGan. you are strong... congratulations..

so.. where was I? oh parents should teach re nappies,

well imo and I am not humble on this... back to Government., top of the tree as it were..

the schools should have been empowered to not accept a child if still in nappies, (unless medical reason of course)

I think it was discussed, but never followed through... teachers of education,,shaking head here,, good grief...

Riverwalk

I don’t understand why health staff and social workers couldn’t
do their appointments why were they exempt my daughter is a NHS podiatrist and has worked through out the whole thing
their department still have patients coming into the clinics and my daughter still has to do domestic visits, most of her patients are elderly and cannot get to clinics,she has to visit them at home she has PPE of cause but the patients don’t even wear a mask.

I have been very worried about her doing this but I get “it’s my job and the patients need the treatment “
There has been no discussion at her work as to whether they should stop as other parts of the NHS have.

Many years ago, when I was at school, the girls all learned how to cook and sew, housecraft as it was known. Boys did woodwork and metalwork. All of this running alongside
G.C.E s. Most people left school knowing the basics of keeping body and soul together in a civilized society. My children had cooking as part of a life-skills module, although I don't remember them learning to sew at school. My grandchildren also appear to have some cookery classes but not the number of classes their parents or grandparents had. Cooking has always been a big thing in my family and I take huge pleasure in cooking with my grandchildren just as my grandmother taught me. Girls collected items for their 'bottom drawers'. I still have a butter dish and toast rack bought 55years ago and they still look as good as new even though they are used frequently.
We seem to be missing out basic life-skills in our children's education these days.

My Granddaughter is 10, they do a programme at school called Doodle they were able to continue to use it at home, it helps towards Math, spelling and English, she is on day 200 consecutive days, I’m proud she chose to continue with it all through lockdown.

my daughter is a NHS podiatrist and has worked through out the whole thing
The podiatry department here is offering telephone appointments only. Two minutes and then dismissed!

My 7 year old DGS who has Down Syndrome is thriving. He is in a small main stream school and last week came home with a gold star for additions! He looked so proud of himself. He is obsessed with numbers

It's because they have lazy parents , who would rather be on there phones . Who use the school as there baby sitting service . The same parents who can't afford to feed there kids but still have beer and cigarettes . It's beggers belief .

Callistemon

I am at a loss as to how a podiatrist is supposed help a patient
over the telephone.
I wish we lived where you do and then my daughter would be safe.
She has just rung me to say a boy in my GS’s class has tested
positive and the whole class has been sent home to isolate for 14 days.My daughter has been told she is to go back to work after picking him up from school.
I am speechless ??

My experience during more than forty years of teaching was that in the last twenty years or so, parents expect more and more things to be taught by school or nursery school.

I have had to tie shoelaces and teach children to do so, help little boys undo their trousers when they needed to wee, (a risky business these days!)) help children blow their noses and remind them to go to the toilet in time.

Formerly, these skills had been learned before children started school.

Table manners should likewise be learned at home, not at school, although children eating a school should be supervised and reminded to eat properly.

Either the coming generation of school teachers will have to accept that it is now their job to toilet train children, teach them to button their coats and eat nicely along with a vast number of other things, or they will have to inform parents that these things have to be taught and learned in the home before school starts.

^I am at a loss as to how a podiatrist is supposed help a patient
over the telephone.^
It was quite brief:
how are you?
well, I'm in pain, explained the pain
oh dear, do these exercises
Could I have new insoles please?
No.

There is no continuation of care, you then have to go back to the GP and ask to be re-referred in six months.

I am speechless
I'm not surprised grannie7! I think I'd prefer the telephone consultation.

?your DGC will be fine.
Who will look after him for 14 days?

BusterTank
you forgot their new phones,along with their beer and cigarettes.

I feel desperately sorry for the children of this type of parent
when I see my AC and GC and GGC have a good life because their parents work hard to provide for their children.
The children coming first as it should be but so many children
seem to last on the list for some, why the h* do they have in the first place, it’s beyond me.I am living in a world I don’t recognise.