EMA advise please

mitchaa

SillyUK...

If you and your partner gave up work and lived off benefits because you thought you wouldn't be that worse off, what message is that sending your daughter if she grows up alongside 2 unemployed parents?

It's statistically proven that children often follow in the footsteps of their parents.

Working and choosing to work because you are able to do so, is about self respect. Your daughter if she learned that you were able to work but chose not too would likely follow in your footsteps or not have the respect for you as she should.

That is what is wrong with todays youth, they dont respect their parents and no doubt a lot of this is benefit stemmed.

Granted you may not be much better off financially but at least your pride and respect is there for being able to support yourself.

Before anyone starts having a go at me, im referring to the stay at home choice brigade, not the stay at home sick and disabled brigade.

LadyMorticia

silkyuk9 wrote: »

sorry to hear that about your health. but what about those swinging the system? There was an article on the news last week about the thousands who are on incapacity benefits who are not even entitled to it.

there are people in the Uk that need the help, like yourself, there is nothing wrong with that, and i certainly would not look down my nose at folks who are in need and are genuine.

I'm not denying that there are many people who do claim benefits fraudulently but there are far more genuine claimants. Also not everyone who is ill claims IB. Those who haven't made enough NI contributions usually claim IS instead.
In my area there have been quite a few cases of people claiming benefits fraudulently and know a lot of people in this area (people I have spoken to anyway) think that all those who claim benefits are scroungers and are defrauding the system.

I think that sometimes it can be hard to decipher between genuine and fraudulent claims e.g. physical illnesses/disabilities are usually easy to see e.g.broken leg, blindness etc (sometimes they aren't but in general). However, mental health disorders aren't and I find that, in my experience, a lot of people have the view of "Well, if I can't see your disability then it doesn't exist" which is ignorant, in my opinion.

I think I've written an essay again. I'm sorry. I do agree about fraudulent claimants though. They give genuine claimants a very bad name.

xx

bestpud

mitchaa wrote: »

SillyUK...

If you and your partner gave up work and lived off benefits because you thought you wouldn't be that worse off, what message is that sending your daughter if she grows up alongside 2 unemployed parents?

It's statistically proven that children often follow in the footsteps of their parents.

Working and choosing to work because you are able to do so, is about self respect. Your daughter if she learned that you were able to work but chose not too would likely follow in your footsteps or not have the respect for you as she should.

That is what is wrong with todays youth, they dont respect their parents and no doubt a lot of this is benefit stemmed.

Granted you may not be much better off financially but at least your pride and respect is there for being able to support yourself.

Before anyone starts having a go at me, im referring to the stay at home choice brigade, not the stay at home sick and disabled brigade.

Agree with you on it all but the highlighted bit! I'm a bit dubious about that bit tbh although I can see there may be a link if we go back a few paces and don't look at benefits alone.

silkyuk9

LadyMorticia wrote: »

But Silky, shouldn't your daughter stay in education because she wants to and not just because she may have been able to get EMA? What would be the point in getting paid to stay on in education if she wasn't enjoying it and was getting bad grades because of that? Wouldn't that, in effect, be a waste of those extra years of education because she wouldn't have wanted to be there?

xx

my daughter wants to go to college, but there are financial obligations that have to be paid. my point originally before the discussion as gone all over the place was EMA payments and incentives. Lets just say i cannot afford to pay £35 per month travel costs, the £50 police check and other things that will be required, what are the options for my daughter.

I would have thought we would have fallen into the catogory were my daughter would have got the minimum ammount £10. That would have helped us out dearly, and its an incentive to my daughter. Lets just say, she is sitting in the refectory at college, and some girls say look what ive bought with my £30 that the state have given me. How do you think someone else would feel at 16 and cannot get b-all.

bestpud

BTW, my dd has just had a letter asking for £105 course fees, to be paid by September 1st. I had no idea this was coming and I still have no idea whether it is a termly or annual payment - I will be finding out though! Obviously I need to find this as she doesn't have it right now (neither do I having already forked out £150 in vets fees for my dog this week and it is unlikely to end there :eek: ).

She will get EMA but then the difference between our income and yours is significant and we all have to pay these things! She has a list of items to get by then too - that arrived a couple of weeks ago but to be fair we expected she would need some items. I'm just trying to point out you are not alone really - I guess there are parents up and down the country doing the same right now.

getting-sorted-sarah

Sadly, there has to be a cut off point. When I went to college there was no EMA, so my parents struggled - today they would qualify for it, but then there was nothing - hooray that poorer kids get some help now!

My daughter gets EMA - I work by the way, but I'm a single parent. Actually she doesn't brag about it, because there is a stigma attached to getting it - just like free school dinners. She'd love not to get it, because that would mean that our family was quite a bit better off.

mitchaa

bestpud wrote: »

Agree with you on it all but the highlighted bit! I'm a bit dubious about that bit tbh although I can see there may be a link if we go back a few paces and don't look at benefits alone.

I agree, when i re-read it back it wasn't meant to sound like that.

There is a very definitive choice, you either work or you don't and more often than not with lower paid jobs, a lot of people choose the benefits option as they have worked out that they wouldn't be much or if any worse off by choosing the benefit route.

People that choose not too, i think lose a lot of respect, not initially but over the longterm. If kids dont see a disciplined structure in the household, then they'll take advantage of that. By disciplined i dont mean a telling off when they've thrown an egg at the neigbours car, i mean going out to work and getting the honest working values installed in them. The easy choice is benefits, the more honest choice is working of which i believe gains more respect.

Although i dont have anything to back it up with, i would think the majority of the kids being awarded asbos and the like come from homes where no parents are working? Of course this is a wide generalisation and you'll have problem kids from middle class households and the like, i'm just stating what i believe to be true in majority.

So i see a link to a hardworking couple and better behaviour than to an unemployed couple and more troublesome behaviour. Yep before anyone starts there are many households round the UK with no working parents and perfectly well behaved kids that are doing well in school etc, i know that is true.

I'm probably not explaining it very well i never do haha, im just trying to say the easy option of benefits may have repercussions later on with the child growing up to do exactly the same.

And the main point here is...

Surely no parent would want that for their child/children

dmg24

silkyuk9 wrote: »

my daughter wants to go to college, but there are financial obligations that have to be paid. my point originally before the discussion as gone all over the place was EMA payments and incentives. Lets just say i cannot afford to pay £35 per month travel costs, the £50 police check and other things that will be required, what are the options for my daughter.

I would have thought we would have fallen into the catogory were my daughter would have got the minimum ammount £10. That would have helped us out dearly, and its an incentive to my daughter. Lets just say, she is sitting in the refectory at college, and some girls say look what ive bought with my £30 that the state have given me. How do you think someone else would feel at 16 and cannot get b-all.

£10 a week = just over £520 a year. Surely you can do a bit of overtime, or your daughter could get a part time job, to make up that amount?

I'm still looking forward to hearing about how alcoholics receive £80 a week just for alcohol. Is it given as cash, or maybe as vouchers for Threshers?

silkyuk9

getting-sorted-sarah wrote: »

Sadly, there has to be a cut off point. When I went to college there was no EMA, so my parents struggled - today they would qualify for it, but then there was nothing - hooray that poorer kids get some help now!

My daughter gets EMA - I work by the way, but I'm a single parent. Actually she doesn't brag about it, because there is a stigma attached to getting it - just like free school dinners. She'd love not to get it, because that would mean that our family was quite a bit better off.

my daughter was quite upset she wasnt getting it, its certainly no stigma in her life. I guess when you are 16 and getting free money it does not matter were it comes from. That EMA would have let my daughter get what she wants wether it was make up or cd's. it would have been her cash.

We will fund what she needs all it means is we have to tighten our belts and cut back on the things we had, such as Sky Tv. She is our daughter and we will get by. She will get the support she need from us, just like our son did when he joined the army.

free school dinners may have been a stigma but free cash, not a stigma here im affraid.

silkyuk9

dmg24 wrote: »

£10 a week = just over £520 a year. Surely you can do a bit of overtime, or your daughter could get a part time job, to make up that amount?

I'm still looking forward to hearing about how alcoholics receive £80 a week just for alcohol. Is it given as cash, or maybe as vouchers for Threshers?

Overtime, i work for the NHS i would work 7 days a week if over time wa son offer, sadly in our hosital we have a overtime ban so to speak.

my daughter has a PT job.

the alcohol bit, i was talking to an alcoholic in hospital and i asked him about the cost, just like drug users who get free methadone alcoholics get extra income to help them. i think its instead of them robbing and breaking the law.