To be appalled that parents need to be supported by government to potty train their child

Says it all! 🌟

I'm reminded of Red Dwarf when Kryten briefly became human and wondered why he could no longer use the zoom function when reading 😆

ETA - get yourself some varifocals, they really are a boon! If you're not sure about them, Specsavers will let you swap them for separate distance and reading glasses should you find you really don't get on with them after a couple of weeks' trial.

Ah yes, let's blame working mothers. As usual.

To be fair I'm 45, well aquainted with books but in denial about needing to make the switch to varifocals and I've found myself try to 'zoom in' on a page in a book in desperation on more than one occasion!!

I think it's absolutely necessary that the government has a wake up call about this. They can't continue to blame "COVID years" for kids who were born long after the pandemic.

A lot of European countries have a lot more support from paediatricians and other medical professionals (speech therapist etc) in early years. At minimum a yearly check up, and direct access through self referral.

The only thing we have here are GPs who don't really care about young children, and HVs who are mostly useless (in my and my friends experience).

Plenty of parents have just no clue what to do with a toddler / pre-schoolers, and not all have the means and resources to research it.
And let's be honest, a lot of us rely on nursery staff to teach our kids the basics...

Ending Surestart was a disaster. Those centres did good practical work in communities

Their mum wrote to me with some of the email in all CAPS asking let me ask YOU a question, have you ever stopped to ask her about her mental health?!

For fucks sake!

Yes. It was encouraged to wait until they showed interest but they also had to be school ready by 3. Most people would started in the March before the September start.

Nobody is talking about three things - how early kids now start full time school (often just weeks after they were still 3), the much higher percentage of kids with SEND in mainstream and the percentage of kids with 2x full time working parents to keep bills paid so kids in childcare don’t get enough one on one support with the process.

these three things explain the whole thing - it’s categoricallyNOT just fecklessness

I'm also in secondary and this is absolutely my experience. Ring home and get an earful. Had an email back from a parent of a child who'd gone on their phone in class and then shouted "why did you even become a teacher if you're so sh*t at it?!" Their mum wrote to me with some of the email in all CAPS asking let me ask YOU a question, have you ever stopped to ask her about her mental health?!

Other students were also telling me this child was vaping in class and they were upset about it, I really tried but could never spot it. Another student in the class has asthma too. Absolutely nothing I could do unless caught red handed.

Some of these things aren't a bad thing. Free school meals and breakfast is an entirely seperate issue from potty training and for many children this is the only decent meal they get a day and I think it's a great thing it's been introduced.

Sex Ed and Citizenship have always been part of the curriculum. I'm not sure what that is to do with anything. No one thinks my child is being taught about sex at school so I don't need to potty train!

I think the advice to potty train "when children start showing you they are ready" hasn't helped.

DS1 it was very obvious as he has sensitive skin and started pulling his nappy off straight after a wee from just over 2 - he was potty trained in a week. DS2 was still completely unbothered at 3.5 which is when I decided right you are too old to still be in nappies and potty trained him - he took ages.I think it would have been quicker if I had done it the summer before when he was 2.5.

@scalt But dc who are 3 or 4 now weren’t covid toddlers! They weren’t even born. I didn’t need a community or connections to potty train but I guess, for a few, the need to get on with it disappeared. That’s not the case for current 2-3 year olds though or even those starting school. So what’s their excuse?

I tried very hard to potty train two of my children many times from the age of around two. I made a lot of effort. I took the nappies off. I sat them on the potty. We made zero progress. When they were ready, it was still hard work but they were closer to the age of 3 1/2. At least with one accident a day and lots of successes you feel like you’re maybe achieving something.

My other Child was at that stage much younger and was mostly potty trained at around 2 1/2 I think. But they also had accidents for good while after that and took longer to become dry at night. It is easier with some children than it is with others and it’s even easier to judge other parents when you don’t know what the experience is like for them.

Laws would have to change if we want to exclude children who aren't potty trained from starting school. The laws are currently in place to prevent discrimination against disabled children and/or children with medical needs which isn't always obvious at only 4.

I know several pp's have said 'exceptions for disabled children' but I think it might be easier said than done than some people may think and attempting to punish a minority of parents will also punish some parents with children who genuinely can't be potty trained by 4.

Competition and marketing advantage. Manufacturers at the premium end are constantly looking for differentiators - their nappies are softer, dryer, more secure etc. - but there aren't that many ways of making a nappy distinct.

Yes, they want children to keep wearing them, but at the same time they do know there is a cut-off point, there has to be for children's nappies - at a certain size/age they would become continence aids, which is a different market .

Hence nappy manufacturers do already market 'transitional' products - those pull-up nappies that look like pants which are supposed to help children make the switch. This could be another thing marketed as a transitional product.

i remember sex ed lessons and free school meals back in the 1970s.

Why would the manufacturers of disposable nappies want to make a product to help children stop wearing them?

Disposable nappies can make it harder for the child to realise when they need to pee for themselves. If the child knows when they have peed themselves it will be easier when they potty train. If the child is used to be being disrupted from playing to be changed when they pee it will help too but if they can pee in their disposable nappies and be comfortable to keep playing it means they can get used to it. Disposable nappies do make potty training harder.
It's not the only factor but definitely a factor.

Yes, I guess modern cloth nappies are a lot nicer in design than the greying, fraying terry nappies of yore!

And, yes, lower incentive for the child to move on if the nappies are no less comfortable than pants.

If we are taking the view that disposable nappies are going to remain the default, perhaps some bright spark manufacturer could take up the gauntlet - 'wet feel' nappies (in the larger sizes, not for new babies) to help with potty training - reverse whatever amazing tech 'locks moisture in' as they say in the adverts so the child will feel discomfort.

I agree with this. There seems to be no shame or consequences any more.

as for the PP that said that this is the fault of the generation of parents above this one, you are having a laugh!! My DMum had an appalling childhood. Verbal and physical abuse and deprived of possessions, shut up for days in her room with no food or water etc. but when she had us two girls, she was a good Mum and tried to be everything her own mother was not. I could read and write and tell the time in a rudimentary fashion before I started school and all the kids in my cohort could go to the loo by themselves. This is a modern and lazy phenomenon.

It's certainly not a class thing. I have lost count of the amount of friends who are adamant that their children aren't ready for potty training.
Increasingly, people cannot bear the thought of their children upset or uncomfortable for more than a minute. So they put it off until before they know it, their child is due to start reception.
Back in the day we just used to let our children run around with no nappy on until they got it.

I've seen a few posts alluding to it been a poor thing. It isn't. It's parents been petrified of somehow damaging their child permanently by expecting anything from them.

The insanity of month after month of lockdown didn’t help: not just this issue, but many others. Although some might argue that it meant parents had all the more time to do potty training, people lost their communities, connections, support networks, routines, and many children lost the skills they should have learned in their formative years.

@IzzyGone I’m not sure in what era it was 18 months. Some dc are barely walking by then! My dc are 31 and 34 and no dc was potty trained in my social group before 2. Most were between 2 and 2.5. 2 was considered early. My DD1 was late at just gone 3 but then she was dry at night a month later so her learning was concentrated into a short space of time. We had tried for 6 months plus and our GP suggested I stopped for a few months and then started again. That was great advice and it worked.

Yes, these parents need to be shamed. Our nursery didn’t take non potty trained dc. There needs to be a much bigger push back from nursery and YR. Even when my dc started school, it was unusual to have dc not potty trained.

I would say though that it wasn’t unusual in some cultures. When I was working in education, I had a central TA budget to help schools who had dc arrive in yr with sen and no statement. The other issue in some schools was dc who were not potty trained. I remember one school had a record of 8/60. None white British. I’ve no doubt it’s a widespread issue now but there used to be pride in parenting, and dc meeting milestones. Now parenting is a long list of excuses and no-one cares. Children are being failed. We need tougher rules about starting school - not potty trained, dc does not start.

Don't shame the child, shame the parents.