What is different now ?

Germanshepherdsmum

I attended the village primary school in the 1950s. There was one boy who was ‘slow’, but no disruptive children. Teachers were respected and children were taught respect and good manners as a matter of course. Toys were few and simple, playing outside was safe and not many families had a television; if they did, programmes were few and pretty wholesome. All the children in my village were from two-parent families, as is so often not the case today. We ate simple, seasonal food cooked from scratch and were not drowning in plastics or household chemicals. Life for so many children is very different today, with the lack of a father figure, being left to watch tv or play often violent video games for hours and eating far too much over-processed ‘convenience’ food. There has to be something in that change in the way of living which is contributing to the problems OP mentions.

This could be my experience also.

We had one boy in our class who seemed ‘slow’, at about 7 years old he was found to be quite deaf and was moved to a ‘special’ school.

In general, teachers, policemen, clergymen, doctors, were respected members of society. Cannot remember any parents marching into school and complaining about anything their children did or about how the school was run.

I suppose people just accepted things more, not always a bad thing instead of rushing in and making a fuss.

Nanatoone - education should be an almost individual educational experience for every child in my opinion.

The problem is delivering that.

Luckygirl3

Any disruption was dealt with by a rap over the knuckles with a ruler at my school - do we really want to go back to that?

It still rankles all these years later for the injustice of it!

Several factors are mentioned on this thread and I think it is a combination of many, or all of them.

Food, the environment, perhaps the breakdown in family life and, whilst we don't want to go back to the days of corporal punishment, a lack of discipline.

As others have said "maladjusted" children, particularly boys, were sent to separate schools where they boarded. Children with learning difficulties were sent either to separate schools or to special units in schools.
Some in these boarding schools may have prospered and achieved very well as a result but for others it was a miserable experience.

There were many children brought up by widowed mothers after the war and I don't remember so much disruptive behaviour in school as there seems to be now. Some single parents do bring up very well-adjusted children and many separated parents maintain an amicable relationship and children take this in their stride.

We had one boy in our class who seemed ‘slow’, at about 7 years old he was found to be quite deaf and was moved to a ‘special’ school
One very bright girl at primary school with my DD had glue ear but no-one realised because she had taught herself to lip read!

I worked in special schools of various degrees of severity from profound LD to more mildly affected children and those with ASD etc. I loved them. The staff committment and sheer focus on the children as individuals was very striking. I'm sure all teachers are caring but those teams of teachers, assistants, nurses and therapists really went to extremes for 'their' children. I remember the physio who always sang to the child she was working on and staffroom arguments as to which staff member would take home which child for the weekend to give their mums a break. I wonder if that sort of thing goes in these days.

staffroom arguments as to which staff member would take home which child for the weekend to give their mums a break. I wonder if that sort of thing goes in these days..

We weren't allowed to take a child home in our car, even if they were unwell, due to Safeguarding polices.

No, nobody takes children home now for very good reasons.
I am not sure what is going on, and this is the field I work in!
There are some obvious answers, many children would not have survived premature birth previously and this can for some mean life long disabilities.
Yes we are much better at identifying autism but I dont think this fully explains the increase in numbers. We are not talking about 'badly behaved' children we are talking about children with complex autism - non verbal, etc.
I also remember the treatment of a child who stammered, a child who was obviously experiencing neglect and one with a learning difficulty in my mainstream school, it was neglectful to say the least.

It reminds me of back in the 60’s where health&safety and safeguarding were thin on the ground. My lovely Mum was an auxiliary nurse in the paediatric surgical ward of a large hospital. Some children were in-patients for months eg due to serious burns or multiple surgeries required due to congenital defects.

One little boy spend his first 3 years in the ward and had multiple surgeries due to very complex defects of his digestive system. His parents rarely visited and eventually drifted away altogether. He called my Mum “auntie” and it was a regular occurrence for her to bring him home to our house for a day out. No risk assessments or special permission just an ok from the ward sister. I’d arrive home from school and he’d be there on her lap 😊

He was eventually adopted by a caring family and my Mum was heartbroken when he moved hundreds of miles away. But he kept in touch with her into his adult life sending cards, letters, photos etc . He still always referred to her as Auntie and was very sad when we let him know she’d died. He wrote a beautiful letter saying how she’d nurtured him and would always have a special place in his heart.

I am not at all sure GSM my children never knew a father figure he was gone when they were fairly young and he didn’t bother with contact apart from a simple phone call at Christmas or maybe once or twice a year Not only no financial support but never a present, a card or a congratulations of any kind although I tried to keep him up to date I m inclined to think that’s more damaging than never knowing a father
They have definitely felt rejection and are not without damage but they still grew up happy and well adjusted

I m definitely in the camp that blames ‘items’ discovered since we were children and that points to all the serious toxic things used regularly in our every day life

Grandmabatty

When I was at school in the 60s, children who had issues were sent to the local special school. So they had no opportunity to go to mainstream. There was also a local mental institution which had a children's section and housed children who were 'different'. Children who were not academic left at 14 or 15 to work. And there were plenty of jobs for those who were good with their hands. There were plenty of children who had emotional disregulation or specific issues, they just weren't seen.

It was the same in my county Granmabatty. The only one I can remember from Infant's days is a boy who sat in a toy wheelbarrow all day.
When I started teaching in the early 70s problem children were soon assessed and whisked away to the special schools that had specialist teachers who knew how to work with them.

Since the 1970s in Denmark, children with learning disabilites of any kind have been incorporated as far as possible in normal schools, instead of being sent to "special schools." This worked fine in the 1970s when there was plenty of public money for training teachers to teach these children and teaching teachers how to incorporate them in "normal" classes.

Since the late 1980s public funding has decreased and children have generally speaking been allowed far more self-expression, which can easily be transformed into what formerly was called "bad behaviour".

Today, it is hard to deal with disruptive children, as by and large, schools cannot rely on parents to see the problem, or allow any disciplinary methods to be employed. Detention is a thing of the past, as is asking parents to teach their children good manners or consideration for others in their class.

So a climate has arisen of giving such children a diagnosis. Obviously conditions such as autismn, adhd, asperges syndrom, dislexia etc. do exist, but as a teacher I have long suspected that adhd and asperges are made worse if children are never told what to do, and what not to do - these children need boundaries, as do all children. Many teachers, like myself, do feel that many children are wrongly diagnosed with these conditions - -they are not true sufferers from them, but are children striving through bad behaviour to attract the attention that they are not receiving either from their parents or their teachers.

Neglected children have always "been naughty" in an attempt to draw much needed attention to themselves.

Grannynannywanny that is a very warm story about your mum.
😍

Marydoll that was really interesting to read.
I have wondered very often if some are too quick to want labels for their children to absolve them of parenting properly. This might seem a sweeping statement but sometimes I stand back and shake head action (and lack off).

If food and plastic played a part, wouldn’t the problems show earlier? Children seem to be getting diagnosed with conditions at a very young age (you see them online in high chairs apparently showing early signs of autism such as flapping and stimming). They can’t have eaten much or inhaled many chemicals by that age.

I don’t pretend to know the answers - I think that ‘helicopter parenting’ is very bad for teenagers and older children’s resilience and mental health, but again that wouldn’t impact on babies and young children.

Children do seem to be exposed to more worrying things than we were. We had nothing other than what we were told until we were old enough to watch the News, my children had John Craven’s Newsround, but now there is 24 hour news and the Internet. There is (generally) less inclination to protect them from distressing news and many children have parents dealing with poverty and insecurity in housing and employment with much less of a safety net than there used to be. Modern poverty is happening in a society where many people have very many things and people are defined by possessions. That has to be very difficult for children with very little, and is different from the past, when either rationing meant that few people had a lot or later when a poor child would probably be brought up around other poor children - now everyone can see others with much more, whether that’s at school or on TV.

Then there is war, global warming and Covid, all on screens every day. There are adverts about cancer and heart disease- often with people dying and leaving orphaned children. Social media can bring problems with bullying, and if as many children see porn as we are led to believe then that will affect their relationships and views on sex at a time when they are coming to terms with their own burgeoning sexuality. And don’t get me started on the way so-called ‘gender confusion’ is stoked.

It’s a heady mix, and children also have far more autonomy than we did. They are (rightly IMO) brought up to have boundaries that protect them against abuse, which means that physical force isn’t an option for parents and teachers. I’m definitely not advocating going back to corporal punishment at school or home, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus about what should replace it as a means of discipline which would make children feel safe.

Most of my post is about MH rather than diagnosable conditions, as I have no idea why the prevalence of those seems to have increased so much.

Bluebelle, sorry, I hadn't realised that you had tagged me. I don't know, is the short answer. Before I retired, I saw an increasing number of children with anxiety and other mental health disorders. (Secondary school) you could blame parents, plastics, and society in general but I think a combination of all three perhaps. It's the prevailing zeitgeist, isn't it? I know that there was a view in my school that children with anxiety had to be pandered to and not helped to be resilient. So many more jumped on the bandwagon and claimed anxiety without a formal diagnosis. For instance, a necessary part of English teaching in Scotland is the ability to discuss subjects and present to a small group or class. Many children opted out claiming anxiety. This mindset changed when they realised it would affect their grades at National Five and Higher. It wasn't something new, they had been on a progression ladder of talk since primary school. We offered many opportunities in talking and listening but anxiety trumped all that. Parents and pastoral staff expected us to pass them when we couldn't, because they hadn't fulfilled the course requirements. That's one example. I know that's simplistic and this is a different world than five years ago.

Doodledog
Most of the research shows that it starts in the womb. The mother is more than likely ingesting micro plastics.
54% of food consumed in this country is highly processed. What does highly processed food come in? Bloody plastic 😡

The ‘naughty’ kids got sent to naughty boys school when I was at school. I remember my mums friends son was highlighted as problematic but they paid for him to go to private school instead and then he was reintegrated into mainstream for secondary. We have autism in our children and my husband most probably has autism undx. I had problems learning when I was at school and I know I have auditory processing issues so most probably have add. I think it’s helpful for schools to identify childrensneeds so they can be taught in the correct manner.

Wrt LDs, children with Down syndrome were not allowed to access education until the 1980s and yet those now who have had access to schooling many have semi independent lives and many have jobs

I really think we need to let go of the idea of special schools being exclusive. For lots of children they are inclusive places that meet children’s complex needs. There are too many children in mainstream whose needs are not being met and that is in no way inclusive, whichever way you look at it

Yes. I agree. Absolutely. I work with children whose needs would be much better met (and that's an understatement) in a specialist environment. We also have to be careful the other way as well, I have seen children in special schools who absolutely should be in mainstream.
Oh and this is a personal gripe but could somebody please realise that having free flow between nursery and reception is awful.

NotSpaghetti
Grannynannywanny that is a very warm story about your mum.

Thank you 😊

Grannynannywanny - some of us were very fortunate in our parents.

I hope I have been at least a "good enough" mum.
Like your I had a great role model.

I’m sure you’ve been much more than just good enough NotSpaghetti.

If food and plastic played a part, wouldn’t the problems show earlier? Children seem to be getting diagnosed with conditions at a very young age (you see them online in high chairs apparently showing early signs of autism such as flapping and stimming). They can’t have eaten much or inhaled many chemicals by that age
no but their mothers could have Doodlebug couldn’t toxins have been passed on whilst in the womb .
We grew up with no aerosols in the house, no fly sprays, hair sprays, no polishes just good old Johnson’s wax and and no plug ins, no food additives no aspartin in drinks, no poison pellets and sprays on the growing food oh there will be lists as long as my arm which surely must bring up huge question marks.
I think this may be where the answer lies

Few children today experience playing out of doors - I don't just mean in a playpark under supervision. When I grew up in the 50s I was out all day messing about, climbing trees, walking through fields to get to conker trees, roller skating ... etc . Now (understandably) many parents are afraid to let their children do those things, largely because of the number of cars everywhere. Also vile content on the internet must surely be to blame for corrupting young minds.

The four siblings I previously mentioned with ADHD, had play therapy. I recall watching the child who was eleven, happily playing with sand and water, in the way nursery school pupils did. He had missed out that whole stage in his develpment.

We had a play therapist to work with a fair number of pupils, what never experienced what we did with our own children.