Children in Decline According to the Potty Brigade

Reception class teachers, in yet another survey, complained that a sizeable number of children starting school, cannot talk, do not know how to share, don’t take turns, fail to say please and thank you and up to 30% are not potty trained.

Fortunately, there was no mention of any increase in the numbers of reception class pupils stabbing each other with scissors, throwing themselves on the ground screaming to go to the park, throwing food as a sport or mugging their peers.

A researcher found that when he gave books to reception class children, most tapped on the cover, waiting for the screen to light up. Others knew how to open the book, but were disappointed when there was no screen inside. Nearly all of them turned the book around several times, looking for the key to switch it on.

You may ask how we reached this situation. The usual suspects are trotted out but are now so shrouded in history that they claim to be beyond blame.

On the other hand, we could congratulate those who successfully introduced very young children to technology so early on.

Who is to blame?

The tone of the report and of the research findings suggests negative judgements. The suggestion is that parents were not doing their job properly over those four years before school loomed into view.

On the other hand, parents could rightly point out that no one told them that there was a list of requirements to be met before their precious little thing was pinned on the sacrificial altar of school education.

Any accusation of neglect and incompetence must sting even more considering what parents invested during those four years since the tiny infant, completely helpless and unformed in mind, personality, character and abilities, was brought home from hospital and the parents were left on their own. Yet in four years they turned out an excellent scale models of a little human being.

Jaguar takes 4,200 worker-hours to produce an E-type Jag. A bit faster than the four years to produce a child capable of being press-ganged into the school education system. But Jaguar can’t make their product talk, grow a personality or know how and where to wee and poo.

According to the survey, nor can 30% of reception class children.

That still puts parents ahead of Jaguar.

Supporting Midwives

How many schools link up with the local midwife service and know when children are being born in their catchment so that they can help the parents and give them support during the next four years?

If they did, parents would know what the school expects when the little one is presented for the first time. Then when the parents arrive with their little survivor of four years, they can hand over a developed person with a mind of their own, asking thousands of questions non-stop, with a propensity to fall, tumble and run into objects, armed with sticky fingers that never stop picking, poking, getting dirty and an ability to question non-stop and live in harmony with others.

Imagine the school saying to the parents, “Well done. You made a great job with this little one. It took four years, but the hard bit is over. We will work beside you in the long haul through to 18 and beyond. We will take lead responsibility for most of the bits to do with formal education. But we desperately need your help if we are to do it properly. All the other non-formal bits of education, so essential for living a good life, will be beyond our reach without your active help.”

The expectation that any school ever said that last sentence is so outlandish that it smacks of the meanderings of a deranged writer.

Catholic school expectations

What is on the list of unannounced expectations of Catholic schools for their new four-year-olds?

Will we hear a lament that 30% of pupils do not know how to genuflect, are confused when asked to join their hands in prayer, have no idea what a church is or do not know there is one in their locality that people attend and that there are things called prayers which when said, sound very much like their aging granddad who mutters to himself all the time?

Parents – what to do?

Being left to their own devices over those four years, parents will guess what should be done, or read a book, or pass around articles that claim to put them straight. Or the siren voices of relatives, neighbours, friends, draw them onto the rocks of poor and irrelevant advice.

Or they hope for the best and let their bundle of delight work out growing up for themselves, aided by older siblings and the odd prod from parents giving support or building confidence.

There is something special and surprising in this wait-and-see approach, wondering what will emerge as they unfold, like a bud flowering into a shape and character of their own.

Parents who have tried several earlier attempts at growing children frequently adopt this approach.

They know they will not win by bending the child to predetermined expectations.

Nor will they pass the unspoken expectations of the reception class teacher.

They will still experience the withering looks of disapproving onlookers whose own attempt at growing children was an unmitigated disaster.

They know this approach works better than any other.

Gospel guidance

Jesus encouraged the wait-and-see approach by talking about flowers of the field who neither reap nor sow.

It fits into the basic belief that God created everyone unique.

Working together and structuring everything they do, authentic Catholic schools can successfully use this approach to release the potential of each of their students.

Parents had four years’ practice growing a child. Why are they not heavily involved as experts in this child’s education? Experience makes them superb advisors, co-workers and practitioners in using the technique of wait-and-see, intertwined with subtle and judicious interventions.

Reaching for the stars

The handover of the four-year-old bundle of joy is similar to the launch of a space shuttle heading off to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Parents are like the booster rocket that lifts this shuttle out of earth’s gravitational pull and sets it on its way to carry out missions unimagined by those who went before.

Unfortunately, schools treat parents the same way NASA treats their booster rockets once they have set the space shuttle free.

They jettison the booster. It becomes space debris.

© Ted Dunphy

14th March 2024