A report carried out by the National Literacy Trust has found that 3 out of 10 children from a privileged background do not own a single Jason Statham or Danny Dyer video of their own.
A survey of 20,000 5-15 year olds also revealed 78.3% of the better off young boys had never sat through an entire Van Diesel car chase while many others had yet to spend a whole weekend alone in their bedroom playing Battlefield 3
The NLT were critical of parents who spent too much time interacting with their offspring, putting too much emphasis on relationship development while failing to ignore their child’s inquisitive nature when they came home from school.
The NLT were particularly scathing about parents who regularly took their children to museums and art galleries or insisted on playing ball games in the park - rather than spending quality time together, showing them how to navigate their way past the history channels on Sky Arts 1 or how to re-heat cold Buffalo wings.
‘While social mobility undoubtedly plays a major part in literacy levels amongst the socio-economically better off children, so too do all these books’ said the Trust’s Natalie Taylor ‘it is so easy for a child watching ‘Hobo With A Shotgun’ to get distracted by an Encyclopedia Britannica or Collins English dictionary left carelessly on a shelf by a lax parent.
We all know that children are naturally inquisitive at such a tender age and it goes without saying they will want to know what is contained within that book. All it takes is a few minutes reading about the wonders of the universe and we’ve lost them for good – a whole generation of kids growing up never knowing what it is like to reach level 2 of Night of the Mutant Dead on their Xbox’.
Miss Taylor also expressed concern at the level of direction being shown by some parents. ‘An hour spent learning the violin is just another missed opportunity’ warned Miss Taylor ‘there are many children living in middle class families, some as young as five who have no idea what a ‘bitch ass ho’ is - quite clearly a big disadvantage in today’s rapidly devoluting world and the situation needs to be addressed now rather than wait until the child becomes totally obsessed with W.H.Smith book tokens.
If we could just get them to put down their annuals for a while, point them in the direction of a classic Biggie Smalls video on YouTube, then we could still turn this thing around.
If we can steer just one child away from reading their book at bedtime then maybe, just maybe we can instil a life-long love of video in them, then it will all be worth it.
It’s a big ask, but we have to try.
We have broad shoulders here at the NLT but we can’t do it alone, parents must take some of the responsibility for what their children are watching after midnight’.
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