Children growing up in low income families could be "learning to be poor," according to reports from the York-based Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Diminished expectations of what their parents can afford can lead youngsters to scale down hopes and aspirations for their future, they claim.

The claims are made in two research reports looking at the ways that children's experiences of poverty affect their future welfare.

They highlight many of the pressing problems that the foundation believes need to be tackled by the Government if a 20-year goal of overcoming child poverty, announced by the Prime Minister earlier this month, is to be achieved.

Researchers found that children living in households claiming Income Support were five times more likely to consider their family income inadequate compared with other children. The attitude increased in those questioned who were from single parent families.

They were told more often than others that their parents could not afford what they wanted.

And they were more likely than other youngsters to want jobs that required few qualifications and little training.

They were also less likely to aspire to attaining professional qualifications and occupations.

The study's co-author, Sue Middleton, from the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, said: "As children learn about their family's financial situation, so they form the views of where they stand in relation to other families.

"Our research suggests that children from low income families are learning to expect and accept less from an early age, and to find ways of covering up their disappointment.

"It seems entirely possible that for some children it is early learning of this sort that reduces both their immediate expectations and their future aspirations. There is a real sense in which they are learning to be poor."

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