Mayflower primary school - nappy changing facilities for school aged children

No but I have had them at my house when their parents have changed thier pull ups.

I’ve been at the park with them when they have told their parents they need to be changed.

I’ve been at parties, soft plays and a volunteer at the school.

So I have seen that they aren’t crying about it and don’t care. It’s perfectly normal to them.

My DDs best friend was still in nappies until Christmas, she turned 5 in October. Her mum is a useless idiot who can’t be arsed with any of her children. She prefers to stand smoking in her dressing gown on her doorstep shouting at her neighbours. Her dd and one of her older ones are at my house quite a lot as they are friends with my children and quite frankly, I feel sorry for them. Sweet kids with god awful parents, like so many where I live.

People who can't see the link between the rise in SEND and primary school children in nappies are clueless.

There is a reason schools (not nurseries) suddenly need changing facilities and it's not lazy parenting. There have always been crap parents, it's not a new thing.

How would you know
I'm assuming you are not sat in class with them all day?

The ones in dds reception class don’t seem to give much of a shit to be fair.

Do you really think a typical 5 year old would want to be in nappies ?

Brilliant resource for SAHP maybe. Not for those whole are at work while these places open.

Yes it is a valid point.

I was shocked that anti natal classes were no longer free according to my dds

Of course. Must be very hard

I also agree.

Changing my 9 year old is hard work, I can't imagine many parents actually rather changing older children than potty training them if they are able to be potty trained because it is the harder option.

It always makes me laugh when I hear "parents are lazy these days they look at their phones and are gentle" as a reason for a primary age child to be in nappies. I mean come on I know literal children of heroin addicts who wouldn't want to be in a nappy at school. Alcoholics who drag their kids round pubs almost every day. Do people really think an otherwise normal parent being "lazy" is a reason? I'd say 99% of kids in nappies at school age have special needs not always been diagnosed yet.

I.agree most typical kids regardless of their background would be embarrassed to be in nappies at that age and other kids will point it out
And as the parent of a disabled child who wasn't toilet trained untill.9/10
It really isn't easier to change the nappy of an older child rather than toilet training them.

I don't really buy the "bad parenting" argument for kids being in nappies at school no neurotypical child is going to want to be pooing in a nappy in front of their classmates.
They will quickly learn to go to the toilet themselves. I've known the children of heroin addicts, alcoholics and parents with really low iqs and the kids were all toilet trained before school, it's not hard to toilet train a 4 year old unless they have other issues.

I say this as someone who's kids were toilet trained at 2 so no "excuses" here before you come at me

@Barnbrack
I’m not sure how to explain it any better.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s classed as obligatory school age or not. In Italy nearly all children go to the free, state nursery from 3-6.
They aren’t required to go, but they almost all do. I am saying that they potty train before starting at 3 because up until very recently they weren’t allowed to go if still in nappies so parents were used to training them before starting.
It has nothing to do with what age compulsory school starts.

At present there is precisely 1 child in nappies out of the roughly 65/70 children enrolled at the preschool where I work. This child is Autistic and came at 3 with a 1-2-1 already in place.
NONE of the other 25 3 year olds were in nappies when they started!

It’s not a new thing where I live at all.

My MIL worked as a school nurse in the area I live now for 30 years, she was always talking about the children who started school in nappies, and other issues (unable to hold a conversation, use cutlery, etc). She wasn’t talking about children with SEN.

I was a school welfare officer in another part of the country and I didn’t see it at all. I thought she was exaggerating.

Then we moved here. It’s a very, very deprived area. The sort of area where parents are smoking weed on the school run and starting fights with each other and the staff in the playground.

I saw what she meant when my children started school here. The children are dragged up and the parents don’t give a shit, they only care about arguing amongst themselves about who is shagging who.

So here, it’s not about hard working parents with no time, the area I worked in schools with was full of those and we didn’t have issues, it’s about scum where dragged up themselves and who are now doing the same to their children.

My youngest has just started reception and they are still, in May, putting on workshops for potty training.

I’ve heard parents blaming lockdown (they like to shout a lot in the playground at pick up; you don’t have to eavesdrop, it’s like Jeremy Kyle live on the school run) - I also overheard one exasperated teacher comment to a TA, “lockdown, what a joke, what was the excuse when she couldn’t be bothered with the older two either.”

People don’t like to hear it when I talk about where I live though, so please, call me a snob, I’m glad you didn’t have to move to such a dump to experience it yourselves.

That's nonsense when my now 18 year old was a toddler both me and my dh,worked full time in undesirable shift work
My son was fully toiled trained at just over three maybe that's slightly older, than average but he started nursery fully toilet trained
My youngest is severely disabled,and it took years to.toilet train him but he's always gone to.a special school so it was never an issue
There are a lot more children with complex disabilities.

I think there's less support now. When my then 3 year old refused to potty train, I was able to contact my Health Visitor for advice. She advised on signs of readiness and different methods to encourage her to try. (All the standard advice, books. Rewards weren't working for us). We got there by thinking outside of the box, and she was dry day and night within days.

I'm lead to believe that a lot of support services have been cut now. Without her support DD would have most likely taken longer to train.

Children in most European countries don't start school until 6 or 7. You don't think that makes a difference? Our reception and P1 aged children are in pre school settings in other countries

I wonder how the DCs feel if their friends are toilet trained, go off to the toilet when necessary - kids don’t usually like being g different.

@Barnbrack
Unless you think that the changes in outcome for children who in the past may have grown into adults with higher needs is unique to English speaking countries, and this improvement isn’t seen in general in the Western world, then this isn’t relevant.

I’ll try to make it clear. I am in no way saying that there aren’t children for whom toilet training is nigh on impossible. I am saying that in countries where free state education starts at 3 and that all children have the right to go, almost all children, are potty trained before they start. Full stop.

Parents and caregivers start at the most convenient time after turning 2 - 2 and a half and that’s it.
They don’t wait and observe whether they believe the individual child is ready. They don’t angst over whether it’s the right decision or in the child’s best interests, they get on with it because if you are being provided with free full time care, and being toilet trained is the expectation , then you train your child.

I am not debating over whether this is the best choice for each individual child.
I am not saying that it’s necessarily a “better” way of doing things, I ‘m saying that this is what happens here and I believe in other countries mentioned up thread, France and Belgium.

There isn’t pride in your child not being toilet trained like there was.
I teach reception and we’ve had nursery children come in nappies with parents saying they aren’t ready, we start the process (child doesn’t like it) and before long they’re trained.

This is really not a viable answer. At that point you take a week off, do what you can that week, your partner takes the following week fof if needed then you send to nursery in underwear and you all work together.

What’s changed is both parents have to work full time or nearly full time, making a task like potty training which can take months for some children, much more difficult and lengthy.

Where are you getting your data? Because I have friends in a few different countries. Interestingly 1 in Germany whose son grew up her until he was 4, and is now in a specialist school for P1, despite not starting until 6 over there because he wasn't deemed school ready. He is toilet trained but that's 1 of the reasons a child would be sent to a specialist school for their first year or 2. He would DEFINITELY be mainstreamed Here and would have stared school at 5 at the latest.

That's the other thing, we have the earliest school starting age in Europe with most children starting at 6 or 7. So imagine not starting 4 yr olds in formal school probably reduces a lot of toileting issues as while a fair few 4 yr olds aren't toilet trained many fewer 6/7 yr olds are in that category

Do you think this is unique to the UK and US? Why aren't other countries in Europe seeing the same things?