Recent study of children joining reception class

My DD was trained just after 2, DS was nearly 3. I was a SAHM at the time and he didn't have lots of screen time, at that age - he wouldn't have sat still long enough to watch anyway. He had speech delay and that was part of it - that he wouldn't/couldn't tell me he needed to go. I potty trained him, just before he started preschool and it wasn't a problem, and was as quick as teaching DD, he just wasnt ready at exactly the same age.

I certainly don’t think it is ‘revolting’ to not be toilet trained until 3 years old. That’s an odd thing to say.

As long as it happens well in time for school, I do not see the issue

Mine are young adults now but were out of nappies at 2, which was very much the norm 20 years ago. Nursery were very helpful. I think there's a lot of truth in the suggestion upthread that in recent years marketing by the likes of Pampers might have pushed the expected age upwards. I used disposables but my mother says she had us all trained around 18-24 months (half a century ago!) because she had to boil wash terry nappies, and the earlier we were out of them the better. I do remember being very surprised at the time when I read Little Children (American novel that was big in 2005ish) when all the 3 year olds at the playpark were in nappies.

My dc watched a lot of tv.
But they watched CBeebies and cbbc. They loved animals so I'd leave them watching a documentary on sharks or lions while I cooked the dinner or did a quick tidy up. They spoke really well!

It really is quite revolting to leave it until the child is 3, unless there are specific physical/ SEN reasons. I took a week off work to do it when DD was 2. It wasn't fun but it was important for her development and dignity.

I think you need to re-read. I was talking about the temptation for parents not to do so. That doesn’t mean none do. People are different.

Sorry @NoGwenItsABoxingDayTrifle that response was meant for @CalamityK8.

Just to add, a typical day when DD was a baby looked like:

8am- Breakfast
8:30am- Baby club
9am- Get dressed
9:30am- Out to playgroup
11am- Park after playgroup
12pm- Pop into supermarket for lunch bits
12:30pm- Lunch at home
1pm- Nap
3pm- Dancing and singing together or baking or something crafty
4pm- Daddy home from work, Mummy off duty for a while!
8pm- Bedtime routine, loads of stories.
9pm- Asleep.

I think that applies to a bit younger than 26 months though, I was working full time when she was that age so she spent more time with my Mum.

@vivainsomnia and that is what leads to developmental delays.

This was just ordinary playgroup, but going on for thirty years ago when it was all that many children attended in preparation for school. There were far more of us SAHM then, and far fewer day nurseries, things were very different back then. But yes, no child was allowed to attend until they were reliably out of nappies (there were still a fair few accidents of course, because small children, but no children who couldn't take themselves to the toilet).

The survey has about a 5% margin of error. So it does still have validity.

Kids being taken to see older siblings at sports days whilst watching shite on their phone
This brought back a strong memory. A friend and I used to take our eldest children to a sport whilst our youngest, 2 years old would be there in their pushchair. We used to really engage with the little ones, talking about what their siblings did, about the birds, then getting them to play a mini version of the activity. It was a great time to give them 1-1 time without the older kids.

I now pass a sport club as I go to my own activity and sure enough, the majority of younger siblings are on tablets, whilst their parents are either talking between each other or on tablets/phone themselves.

I find it less and less common to see parents engaging pleasantly in discussions about their surroundings in public nowadays.

It does depend on what your skills are because babies are happy when you are happy. When DD was little, I did:

• Baking
• Singing together
• Dancing together
• Messy play
• Taking her to playgroups
• Reading stories
• Going for lots of walks and feeding ducks, hunting for woodlice etc.
• Watching the baby club together and doing the activities

Her Dad enjoyed playing very simple board games (HABA makes some for 2+) and did more letter/number recognition stuff. He also likes introducing the TV programmes he loved as a child.

My Mum is a Supermum type and engages in a huge amount of imaginative play which I just cannot do, loads of painting and art, reading a lot of poetry, teaching her French and Welsh and no screentime whatsoever.

It was quite entertaining having a 2 yo recite lines from The Highwayman and phrases in 3 languages but I couldn't take the credit. 😂

It’s actually like this at the prep school nursery my child will be going to when she turns 3. If you aren’t dry you aren’t admitted! But that is private.

I grew up in the eighties. My mum was adamant I was potty trained before 1 !! But she was a sahp, I probably spent a lot of time on the potty.

I had two dc early noughties both in disposables and both fully toilet trained around 2/2.5. I worked part time and dc went to mils house when I was at work so lots of 1:1 time to work on it.

I can't imagine nurseries/childminders having the time to train and if parents work all week then it must be hard so makes sense to wait until they are 3+ so it's a quicker process .

Perception of the small number of teachers asked? I just don't know, you can Google articles from 20 years ago where they claim a record number of children aren't potty trained at school there seems to be an article saying the same thing every year. Outrage over children picking up American accents has been going on since Hollywood first started releasing films.
It just feels like outrage bait at this point.

I've said it on here before, but when my children were small (they are now between 28-36), they were not ALLOWED to start at Playgroup, which was normally attended from the age of 3 until school start, until they were out of nappies. My friend, whose son has autism, couldn't start him until he was 3.5 because he was slow to potty train, as they simply wouldn't let him attend in nappies.

It provoked many who might otherwise have delayed, into getting their child toilet trained.

When I was potty training my DD shortly after she turned 2, several people said to me that I should just wait until she did it herself, and even suggested that using star charts/ sticker rewards was emotionally damaging to her development. In "gentle parenting" circles you will frequently hear people saying that "forcing" potty training too young will result in your child having bowel/bladder issues for life.

It's got much later in the last 15 years or so. I worked in a private nursery 20 years ago (and stayed there for 6 years, so 14 years ago) and it was extremely unusual for a 3 year old to not be potty trained (excluding additional needs) I think I can only remember maybe 3 or 4 kids over the whole 6 years not being trained by 3. It does make you wonder.

I know because the teacher has a habit of coming out to talk to parents about potty training and she has a very loud voice that is impossible not to hear. I know one of the parents and her daughter doesn't have additional needs she just can't get her to use the toilet. I know one of the others has suspected autism and as far as I'm aware the other two don't have any additional needs.

I wonder whether the fear of letting children outside (or the inability to let them outside in some cases) has a hand in late potty training? I live very rurally and our back garden led out into fields. When I started potty training (and I was very very fortunate in having kids who were all trained by 2) I could leave them without nappies, noodling about in the garden or in and out of the house. Nowadays I can imagine that parents wouldn't be too keen on their bare bummed babies playing outside (fear of paedophiles seems to have also increased massively since mine were small, but then our rural isolated location probably helped me lack this worry too). But I found it helped mine to train, as long as the weather was warm enough; no nappy, bare bottom and potty within easy reach.

It's not a study, it's perception.

Average potty training age has risen from 18 months to 3.5

*AVERGE is now 3.5? Wow. My first son (nearly 26) was over 3 when he trained and that was really late and I was very conscious.

I'm one of those "slobby parents". Unfortunately, I can't afford a holiday outside of term time. We took a term time holiday to Butlins. It was £180 instead of £890.

My older primary child does phonic, English, and mathematics with a class 2 years older. My 4 year old can also read and write.

On school holidays they have homework every day. They have visited the Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Horniman Museum, London Museum, Transport Museum and the V&A. They go to the park. I do as many educational activities as I can afford to do, but even the cost of transport and pack lunches can become too expensive.

Screen use by parents and screens for children.
Remove those and parental input would multiply 1000 fold and children would develop.

Thank you so much. This means a lot to me actually.

It's really easy for people to look at us at a glance and think it's just a lack of effort.