To think that not toilet training your child is borderline neglect?

Pile on in 1....2.....3......

I think that article was written by Shona sibary who is known for her inflammatory articles
When i read it her late " toilet train " daughter hsd actuslly been trained for ages well before she started school, during the day ,but only just stopped wearing nappies at night a couple of weeks before starting schopl
Which is perfectly normal and doesnt interfere with with school routines at all

My kid has sen so can't do it. Its the responsibility of the school and council to train them

That chimes with my experience of relatives who relied on their child's private school to teach her "beautiful manners". (Prior to attending school, the child was grabbing at food instead of attempting to use cutlery.)

They had a very good income; the father had had very early retirement and was a SAHD, so there was a parent at home who could have dealt with all that.

Yes, this is the kind of attitude that my primary colleagues were coming across in the days when I was still involved in primary liaison. (I worked in the state secondary sector.)

I've said above that the schools were being expected to take on tasks that should have been tackled by the parents - teaching children how to use cutlery and so on.

I mentioned in a pp that my primary colleagues were dealing with children who screamed when expected to sit at a table in the school dining hall. One of the worst cases that I'm aware of was when twins started at reception class and didn't even know their own names. They'd spent all their days being referred to as either "Hey you!" or "The twins."

This is such an ignorant shitty thread. DS was diagnosed as autistic at 10, I had no idea when he was 3/4. He was absolute hell to potty train - but obviously that would have been my fault and clearly just because I was a lazy parent right?

What has “gentle parenting” got to do with toilet training? Another ignorant poster who has no idea what that parenting style is.

Also wtf is with all these judgemental posters and comments lately.
If I read another comment about parents being lazy because they have a phone. I will fucking scream.
Can parents do anything anymore? Or does everything we do is wrong and lazy because it might be different?

Also just cause a child is in pull-ups at school
or at night doesn’t mean they aren’t toilet trained. Accidents happen. Maybe parents see just trying avoid the embarrassment.

When I look back at parenting babies/toddlers the two areas where I felt good advice was sorely lacking was weaning and potty training.

Excluding special needs. Obviously some children with various additional needs will not be able to potty trained.
Excluding these cases though.
There is a lot of very lazy parenting going on and leaving it too late.
Advice is to do potty training between 18-30 months!
Yes you do need to put the work in , ie take a week off work and stay home to crack it. But so so worth it to be done early.
I have done it with my 3 children before 2.5 both boys and girls. I did it alone whilst DH was at work, no extra support from anyone , still did school runs ect. I used annual leave so was non negotiable that I would do it in that week.
I think in the old days when women had to wash out nappies in the back yard children were no doubt potty trained very young. Motivation is a wonderful thing.
Link on potty training below for those who need it!
eric.org.uk/potty-training/

This. I was able to work part time when DDs were small - even working 3 days a week it was tricky to get potty training in. I started having the potty around for DD1 just as a normal/fun thing, sitting her on it before she went in the bath from when she could walk. She still didn't get it until two and a half. DD2 was 3. It was quite a messy and difficult process and you need a few days in a row run at it, and I had support from grandparents and childminder also.

If I found it difficult as a well-educated professional who was able to work part time, I can imagine why others do and take longer about it. This is the sort of thing that Surestart centres were great for.

No surprises that since pre-school support was withdrawn for parents by the last government a higher percentage of children are struggling now in reception class. The help needs to come much sooner. And I wonder how many of these kids have been in nursery while both parents work full time? It's got to be pretty hard only having weekends and holiday time to do it.

In 1995 they likely started school later or had fewer expectations of them at school generally in reception class. In DD1's half the year group who were younger started in January 2010 instead of September 2009.

Nowadays they start school at just four and have a phonics test at five. So much pressure from day one. You don't fatten a pig by weighing it.

I have known NT children to still be in nappies at 4 for various reasons, but yes I would expect parents to have at least started trying to toilet train them by this point.

I remember an old acquaintance of mine. Her sister was a teacher and she said kids would start school not being potty trained. I don’t understand people having kids if they cannot be arsed to parent them.

There was an article by a fairly worthless DM columnist why her school aged child was not potty trained (apparently it was the au pair’s fault.)

What do you think it is? What do you observe of the parents of these kids? Could it be that they're more aware of SEN, and don't want to push the kids? Should the kids be pushed regardless?

There is also the recent change in that boys are being trained/ encouraged to sit down and use a potty rather than stand and use the toilet or urinal like dad or older brothers would do.

Compulsory school age in 1995 was 5 and it still is now. It's been common practice in England for decades now to admit children to the Reception class before they are 5, often at the start of the school year in which they will turn 5. My mother was a Reception teacher in the 1970s and that was the practice then. My children both started Reception several months before their fifth birthdays, and they'd already had five terms in a community nursery school before that too, which gave them a fantastic start in life.

What has changed in the recent past is that it used to be accepted that 3 and 4yos were too young for much formal learning so they did just a little bit of the 3 Rs and most of the time they were doing play-based activities, running around outside, having stories read to them, singing songs and so on. I'm out of the loop on this now but I have the impression there's more formal education now, which is a great shame. It sets up the summer-born children and the boys in particular to feel like failures from the very start because developmentally they're just not ready until later on.

There are increasing numbers of children with significantly impaired communication skills starting mainstream schools who don't have the skills to communicate basic needs.
Children at this level of development are far greater in number than appropriate SEN provision.

Not helped by SALT provision not yet recovering from the delays in 2020-21 so they haven't had access to early interventions to assist as young as possible.

DS1 was lucky to get early intervention in the mid-2010s which did assist with school-readiness. He wasn't non-verbal, but had difficulties in forming sentences together, particularly with the more abstract parts of grammar that create the flow of language.
For him, it wasn't the language delay that affected his toilet training as much as his sensory needs, self awareness and ability to switch focus. Even now as a teenager, he's not great at recognising hunger, thirst, or need for the toilet unless his focus changes at a transition point. He also has an iron bladder after 10 years of holding to avoid using school toilets.

Schools will know which children have additional needs/ undiagnosed traits and which children have lax parents not meeting their needs.

MN is abundant in additional needs parents because we find it a source of support which can be hard to find in RL.
Parents on MN are literate and looking for/ open to information to support their parenting. You won't find the uninterested parents who aren't inclined to help their children thrive on here by default. It doesn't mean they don't exist though. No one on MN will be here to admit that it's the school's problem to get on with (but there are teachers on the receiving end), but there are plenty of parents who've had difficulties despite their best efforts due to additional or medical needs (often not diagnosed for years) so the discussion naturally sways to a disroportion of SEN based viewpoints.

My eldest was trained before she was 2, my second took longer as was almost 3 and longer than that to be reliable. My third was a nightmare and would have nothing to do with the potty or toilet, but she was all done in one day about 2 weeks after her 4th birthday. My goodness I can’t even describe the relief as I was getting worried she might never do it.

I now have twins who are 3, I don’t think I need to explain what a palava that is, but they will get it when they are ready, and that’s just fine! In hindsight looking back I think I had such a hard time with DC3 because I started before she was ready so I am eager to not make the same mistake with the twins. Especially as I can see one is ready and the other definitely isn’t yet.

Most childminders and nurseries insist on a child being able to tell them that they need to go and also being able to pull their pants/trousers down and back up themselves. For a lot of children they can't do this until 3 or later. My child was fine at home/out with family - but for whatever reason wouldn't ask to go when he was at childcare and would himself until he he had an accident

I do find it interesting that a lot of the children who are started at 2.5 or later don't seem to get it and it's pushed until they're 3. But most potty training that starts around 18-20 months is successful. Especially if the concept of a potty/toilet is introduced even earlier. Small children really are often very capable if you let them try things.

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about children with SEN, and i understand that most wouldn’t be diagnosed at this age.

I personally think that most parents leave starting potty training too late now, I trained both of my DC at 18m by taking a week off work and staying in for a few days until
they had grasped it. I’d done the preparation in the months leading up to it by teaching them what a wee/poo was, that it shouldn’t be done on the floor, and where it should go. I can’t imagine what it would have been like training either of them at 3yo when they were resisting everything I wanted them to do and being generally unreasonable. I probably could have easily trained Ds earlier as he seemed to get it straight away during nappy off time in the months leading up to training, but I had to wait for my week off.

Amongst my DC’s cousins, the only one who has been trained later than 2yo has SEN, it was undiagnosed until 4yo but there were always signs of delayed development. My Sil was a sahm mum so she decided to use timed toileting and had a great routine set up by the time they went to school, but they did wear a pull up for the first year as they were reliant on the TA to take them at the right time. Now attend a SEN school who are excellent at following the routine.

Like others have said I’m sure I started school in January rather than September as a summer baby which will be making some difference. I wouldn’t have wanted my own summer baby to miss half of reception though as I’m sure it would be hard to catch-up now expectations for learning are so high.

In the 90s when my children went to school there were was at least two admission dates. My December born DC went in the January after his 5th birthday. Other child with classic autism and born in August started in the September after his 5th birthday.
Some children would join at Easter as rising 5s.
Children have to be in full time school the term after they are 5. Or different provision agreed such as home education.

Schools are taking in much younger children.

It was fairly common for one parent (usually Mum) to only work part-time. Now it is common for both parents to work full time.

It is more common for children to be in full time nursery in 2025.

Things have changed and they are all bound to have an effect on toilet training.

Yes! We have to talk about this. The taxes spent on the education system should be going on paying trained teachers and TAs to teach children the National Curriculum and help them develop social, language and other skills, not change nappies and teach them things that they should have been doing two or three years earlier at home or in a childcare setting.

Simply ignoring what's happening won't help. We as a society need to know there's a problem, find out why it's happening, and then do something about it. If it's down to more parents having mental health problems which are not being deal with by the NHS, that's yet another reason for trying to improve MH support for everybody.

Of course it is. Kids with ASD who are non-verbal are obviously not going to be toilet trained at 2.5. But neither are they likely to be in mainstream school.