The key culprit, in my opinion? Screen time.
Oh. Silly me.
On a child’s first day at school, it’s normal to expect a few nerves. But they should be able to move around confidently, pick up stationery, make new friends, build a relationship with their teacher and start to feel part of a wider community. Instead, a recent survey reported that some children in England and Wales are unable to sit up or hold a pencil. I have seen kids racked with separation anxiety and unable to form bonds. Upset and confused, they miss instructions and hold back or lash out. To a busy teacher this looks like a lack of ability, or a disruptive child to be managed. Children are simply being set up to fail.
Hmmm, sounds to me like this 'busy teacher' is simply getting her excuses in early...
For a while, it seemed as if the pandemic might have been the culprit for delayed development. Lockdowns undeniably had an impact on the development of children raised during that period as they were unable to play outside and interact with others, but five years on, it would seem that this was a short-term issue masking a much longer-term trend.
Wow, can't blame the pandemic? I thought that could be blamed for everything. But then I'd reckoned without the modern bugbear: tech. Specifically, tech in the hands of someone they don't like.
More and more parents relied on smartphones to work, organise their lives, shop, and keep in touch with friends and family. Burnt-out and distracted, they spent less time actively parenting. In turn, they handed their kids a device to keep them entertained. The result has been children growing up with less physical activity and face-to-face social interaction. Imagine spending a year immobilised in a cast – your muscles would weaken and your movements would become awkward. Now, think about children missing foundational years of muscle development, when practice should be natural and constant, because, instead of moving, children have been incentivised to sit quietly with a device.
An expensive device, at that! So at least this won't affect Labour's preferred voting demographic, eh?
Even more worryingly, these outcomes are not being distributed equally among children; they affect those who already face significant disadvantages due to economic and racial inequality.
Economic inequality? Does anything say as much about the reason for such 'inequality' as buying a £600 babysitting device and then claiming you can't feed your own kids?
2 comments:
Personal responsibility is an anathema to the left. If people are admitted to being responsible for their own successes and failings, we can't blame problems on the Tories, the rich, new technology, or whichever other scapegoat that they have in mind.
Stonyground.
‘Cognitively, children are struggling because they are not having quality interactive time with their caregivers. […] With fewer adult words spoken, there was a reduction in child vocalisations and the back-and-forth conversations crucial for language development and social skills.’
Leaving aside the screen time, would this not also apply to children placed in routine daycare from nine months, as per government policy? I can’t imagine busy nurseries provide plenty of one-to-one conversation for each child.
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