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Are lifestyle choices a factor in our children failing at school?

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Written by Judith Cuddihy

Tuesday, 06 May 2008

by JudithCuddihy

In the United Kingdom there are more and more children leaving school without the essential reading and writing skills. This is a very worrying trend and something that needs to be looked into as a matter of urgency.

Can certain individuals or organisations be blamed for this? In my own opinion it all comes down to the following.

1: The Government: 2: The Schools 3: The Parents 4: Lifestyle Choices:

Can any one thing from the above four be solely responsible for our children's education or is it a combination of them all?

Governments have a responsibility to provide each and every school with the necessary funding and suppoert,so are they meeting their own targets? Do the government need to give teachers more intensive training before letting them loose in the classroom

The schools themselves also have to take part of the blame as are they using their funding wisely? Are they employing teachers that just do not come up to scratch? Is it an issue of class discipline? In my opinion discipline in the classroom is a big issue as the whole problem seems to have come about since the government banned teachers from disciplining children in the classroom, could this one thing be THE link as to why our children are failing in basic reading and writing skills?

Parents also have to take some of the responsibility, obviously there are parents around that just do not care whether or not their child leaves school with an education or not but the majority of them do.Years ago when we had the "traditional family", dad went out to work and mum stayed home to look after house and kids and people generally had more time for their children, ate meals together, bedtime stories and so on. Today is a totally different matter with the majority of families having to have both mum & dad going out to work just to earn a living and thus not being able to give their children the time that they used to be able to do a few years ago.

Lastly we have "Lifestyle Choices", how can this affect a child's education? Well, we now live in the "computer age" where the majority of children now have access to all sorts of wonderful "gadgets", play stations, computer games, ipods, mobile phones etc. Whatever happened to the old traditional books & bedtime stories? In my opinion Lifestyle Issues play a major part in our children's education, there are just not enough children today that pick up a book and go off for an hour or so to read, sad but true.

Can this worrying trend be reversed? Nobody knows but only time will tell and ultimately it must be down to every parent in the land to want better for their children and make the effort to spend more time with them and encourage them read more especially in their early years.

About the Author:

Judith Cuddihy holds an Honours degree in adult nursing and holds a keen interest in childhood progression and produces her own range of children's Personalised Books her Childrens Books are produced in house and can be sent worlwide.

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