Is this really the best answer to poor language development at 4 yrs old?

It would also be a good thing if mums/dads could either stay at home for the first two years or have access to good childcare. There seems to be a whole army of grandparents providing childcare. I am not saying they are not doing a good job but I don't feel it should be their responsibility.

It would have been a good thing if the government had not abandoned Sure Start or removed finding from LAs so the other wonderful services such as children's centres went down the pan.

I was in a class of 50 - the ones with what we now recognise as SEN sat at the back and did raffia work or crayoned

"We pretend everything was perfect in the past..it never has been. "
That's true as well PECS. We had an excellent Speech and Language unit at our clinic around the late 70s to early 90s. Then it was closed down. Funding cuts.
In some ways the reasons for language delay were different then. eg often when I asked a parent to help their child read at home they would shamefacedly admit that they couldn't read. Missed out on school themselves for various reasons.
One of which classes of 50 or so.

Sure Start, oh yes brought in by that awful Blair government

We have no idea of the relative amounts of poor parenting because we didn’t used to acknowledge or recognise it in the past - just like child abuse - physical, sexual and emotional. So yes I deny there’s been an increase because we don’t know

Well my dgc haven’t been told at school not to talk to strangers and if they had there would have been complaints. Children are at greatest danger from people they know - you could google that and find out.

I said there has always been poverty, sadly there always will be . I too remember a family of children wearing wellies in the summer, the father had a drink problem the mother an addiction to bingo. There has always been such parents but we cannot deny there is not an increase and it didn’t all happen in the last 11 years

Goodness and there was I thinking that in the good old days children played out with other children from dawn to dusk because everything was so safe and lovely then and now you’re telling me that’s not true that they spent their time talking to their parents

A lot of children don't actually spend much time with their parents and as one of a mass of children, say at nursery, it can't be as easy to pick up speech. An iPad is often more normal to a small child than a book and a lot of people, perhaps not surprisingly, just google if they want to know something. People also text and email instead of phoning and speaking - soon we won't need speech! Also remember adults don't really feel encouraged to talk to small children when they are out and about anymore, in fact children are taught at school not to talk to strangers.

There has always been poor parenting and parents and adults who never really listened to their children. In all the historic child sex abuse scandals both in and outside of families that have come to light in recent years, one theme comes up regularly is that the chid told her mum ( or other adult) and they didn’t believe them and really listen to them. From my childhood I still recall multiple examples of poor parenting that I observed and experienced - don’t give me such rubbish about parenting getting worse - tbere aremany ways of being a poor parent and they don’t all involve use of mobile phones. What I do know is that Sure Start/Children’s Centres were a wonderful idea that this government has decimated.

annie I am trying to say it has always been there! Do you read and think about posts? It never stopped or started! I taught in inner London in the 70s..it existed then, I was at school in sth London in 50s and there were lousy kids, kids with ringworm who struggled to learn. My mum left school at 14 and many of her contemporaries could not read or write well.

We pretend everything was perfect in the past..it never has been. We did all live in a less well informed society so we did not know as much about others, lives as we do now with the type of media we have. We are now all experts despite not having experience because we read something somewhere.

It is a different world today so needs different solutions.

Where is the "head in hands icon" ? - I need it right now!!!

So when did it start PECS ? Do we not learn from the past?
Parenting is failing and it cannot be blamed on the last 11 years , parents of 4 year olds were not born in the last 11 years . Using this government to blame for lack of parenting skills does not make sense . I am not defending this government but we cannot lay the blame on it for bad parenting of the grandparents of 4 year olds can we ?

Why has young mothers poor parent skills, because their parents had poor parenting skills , when and why did this start.
Possibly with the advent of mobile phones Anniebach - some mothers are more intent on their phones than on talking to their children.

I think any communication with children at any point is a good thing. My only thought is that the kind of parents who buy fitted shoes from Clarkes are not likely to have children who are not spoken to.
I was about to post the same M0nica

Look at the bloody statistics.. rise in children living in poverty =lower educational standards.
Except for example in Cuba where because the government invested in education the literacy levels are higher than USA.
Of course there has always been poverty and there have also always been poor educational standards ..there is a clear correlation. Of course some youngsters from less affluent homes have the broken the mould and succeed educationally, Have you read Alan Johnsons autobiography?
The bigger the gap between the wealthy and the poor in a country also has a significant impact
Society has changed and is changing fast and the expectations in 2019 are way, way different to 1940s/50s.
Like comparing apples and a plug!
Let's stop saying what it used to be like and start looking at real ways to make improvements today...now! It is not by getting a shoe shop to chat to a kid when they buy their £50 plus shoes!

I think any communication with children at any point is a good thing. My only thought is that the kind of parents who buy fitted shoes from Clarkes are not likely to have children who are not spoken to.

My MiL was an infant teacher and she used to talk of children starting school who had been talked at, over and through but never talked to - and the problems that caused.

Perhaps if everybody talked to small children when they met the., If I am chatting to a mother, in the supermarket queue, for example. I will usually talk to the child as well (they are usually the ones that lead to the conversation starting)

It might sound a bit daft and a drop in the ocean, but what's not to like about the idea? It won't do any harm and, although it might not do much for children's communication skills it might just emphasise, for any trainees who may become parents in the future, the importance of talking to your child.

I think we'd do well to remember that the parents of today are our children of yesterday. So before we start condemning them it might be as well to reflect that it could be the culture, which we created, which they experienced while growing up that has produced the parents we're so disapproving of.

As for our position on international tables for reading, that's a whole different can of worms which I've been involved in for a long time and won't go into here. But it is important to point out that we get a huge amount of our vocabulary from the written word (proven by research which I can find if you wish to contest this) and that, as the ability to communicate well is highly dependent on one's vocabulary, if children aren't reading (either because they can't read or because of screen time) then they aren't extending their vocabularies.

I grew up in an area where there were plenty of 'bad' mothers only a few miles away. Their children went to school with me and then failed the 11 +.

Those mothers were known to be careless and the fathers abusive and nothing was done then. Things have changed but somehow there is now a generation of mothers who would rather talk on their phones than with their new born babies and it does not get better as the children grow older.
Its hard to see what a government can do in this situation.

Somehow the schools must do it. MY son inlaw ia a teacher and he introduced debating to get the older students in srate of mind to listen to 15 minutes and then to debate the for and against aspects.

PECS, there has always been poverty , are you laying the blame on the thatcher government , the Blair Government , the present government, all the parents of 4 year olds were not brought up in the last 11 years . So easy to pass blame to governments .

Fathers walk away from their responsibilities, the mothers claim benefits , were these fathers not brought up to accept responsibility?

Yes toscality. and the blame is laid on the government in power, never the parents and their parents.

Have we become too dependent on the state ? Why has young mothers poor parent skills, because their parents had poor parenting skills , when and why did this start.

It is absolutely the responsibilty of a government to invest in the infrastructures that support citizens to live and work healthily in decent homes. To create a climate of positivity and success is a government job!
Countries where there is a good standard of living and with less poverty have better educational standards. It is not rocket science.

Anniebach, I will add to that re poor parenting, unable to use cutlery and arriving at school still not toilet trained. In children so young surely it is bad parenting, it is not the responsibility of the government or schools to teach children (toddlers) the basics and certainly not a shoe shop.

Just what has happened in families, mothers can’t cook basic meals, 4 year olds can’t speak a sentence, no government can be blamed for this . Why has poor parenting increased ?

annie yes of course most parents do! But you know that some vulnerable parents do not have the wherewithall..for a 100 different reasons.. to raise their kids ideally. The centres provided safe places to go where support and advice was available from both professionals and other young parents.