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

30 years ago I did work experience at a country park and several kids from a few miles away aged 7 and 8 didn't know what a sheep was. This stuff has always happened.

This thread is very us and them, isn’t it? Lots of extreme examples of poor parenting and that sort of puts the person posting in the corner of what is right - we have mango, broccoli and papaya freely available, they have cans of monster and bars of chocolate. We read books, they can’t even turn the pages. (I still don’t believe this one.) We potty trained our children, they didn’t bother.

Do you not think people will be sick of changing disposable nappies? Much easier and cheaper to have a toilet trained child so I don't think banning disposables will make any difference.

Some LAs have put out a "How to potty train your child book" and paired this with health visitors running drop in sessions specifically about potty training. Apparently it's made a real difference which suggests it's lack of knowledge for many families rather than just "can't be bovvered".

but were blaming the parents of today for being shit parents, but surely the blame actually lies with the generation above who raised the "adult children"? so what went wrong two generations ago that these blue adults were failed so badly?

How would punishing their parents help? Surely people need help not punishment, in the first place.

The role of state school in society is to make life better for the next generation and make society more equal, not to further entrench inequality that exists by the time the kids even get through the door.

One of the boys in my son’s reception class regularly had a can of monster on the way in to school. Teachers had to confiscate on the gate and his mum always laughed. During the food tasting session I supported at they had MANY students had no idea what some fruit and veg were, even things I’d consider basic like a cauliflower or mango. Lots refused to try saying they never ate ‘this weird stuff’

Married to a teacher… am informed a number of pupils have never even held books before, try to swipe instead of turning pages and try to zoom in on books.

Also incidents of phoning parents to be told that if something happens in school it’s the teachers responsibility not the parents so don’t bother contacting them again.

Well I had my dc at end of the 90s, and we both worked FT (only had 3 months maternity leave too) but we managed. That's not just anecdotal, or me patting myself on the back, that was normal.
Mine couldn't start playgroup until they were 2.5 and out of nappies. It was just parenting.

There’s a lot of exaggeration and hyperbole about this topic.

I heard a good theory which was that nappies are so good now the children never feel they’re wet - so don’t learn the unpleasantness of the feeling.

And when there were fabric nappies, everyone was very focussed on stopping using them as soon as possible because of the work involved in using them too…!

What’s the scheme?

I’m a Reception teacher and honestly, it’s an absolute nightmare. I have 5 children in class now that aren’t potty trained 😔 Of those 5, only one potentially has a developmental delay which would make it understandable in his case. The other 4 are chatty, bright children who can tell you when they have wee’d or pooed, they just don’t see the need to use the toilet. Frankly, it is lazy parenting and when you have this many children that need changing on a frequent basis, it makes teaching almost impossible!

And don’t even get me started on the toothbrushing! I have to support my class to brush their teeth every day, after lunch. The amount of children who have no idea how to use a brush or even gag and heave because they’re not used to the taste of toothpaste is ridiculous. I despair, as school seems to be becoming the default provider for these basic life skills, which takes so much teaching time and then people wonder why education standards are dropping!! Because we’re doing the parents job before we can even begin to teach them anything else!

If I'm being kind, I would say that - for a great number of years- there has been this myth peddled that "children will train when they're ready" and that, if a child is ready then training will be effortless. So a lot of parents have inadvertently missed the training window waiting for the child to declare readiness, or go through this hopeless start/stop cycle when kiddo doesn't get it in 3 days.

I agree disposable nappies don't help in all sorts of ways. And some parents are reluctant to teach their child to do anything that they don't want to do (see also table manners, saying please and thank you).

While I agree abandoning Surestart was a bad idea, parents managed to potty train their children and teach them to eat at a table and look at books for hundreds of years before Surestart came into existence!

Even just 17 years ago when my DS started preschool this wasn’t an issue. Admittedly, he never used a potty, poor kid always had really long legs* so went from pull up pants straight to the big loo with a stool and a little insert seat.

*Tried a potty once, his knees were up around his ears and it was all just too awkward. Unsurprisingly, he’s now well over 6ft.

Tbf, this was very common in my Reception classes when I started teaching in the 1980s. None of that is new. It is just a shock to people who never taught in certain areas.

Though the not toilet training children didn't seem to start until around 2005, and has got steadily worse since then.

I absolutely agree. Standards have fallen so far.

I do wonder if it’s because parents are so busy now - most families need two working parents just to survive.

If you have limited time with your DC, doing the hard stuff like potty training and cooking and enforcing a healthy diet/exercise are all less appealing.

I've said on other threads that when I was working I had a responsibility for primary liaison in the '90s. My primary colleagues had children refusing to sit at the dining room tables, use cutlery etc then.

The scheme sounds like a good idea to me. All these problems are because the Tories cancelled Surestart and the like.

My daughter is a secondary teacher and she says the kids with manners stick out a mile because they are so few and far between. She says when she rings home about a child’s behaviour or lack of homework the parents will
more often than not ask her what she wants them to do about it. I should mention she is working in a big city in England and she said this is the worst behaviour she has seen having worked all over the uk.

It's already happening in Scotland.

https://www.childsmile.nhs.scot/parents-carers/toothbrushing/toothbrushing-in-school-and-nursery/

Some areas have rolled out support groups and have seen an improvement which is why it’s in the news again. Why you need a support group is beyond me.

Completely agree with you re the adult children. It's practically an epidemic. So many people these days can't cook, clean or even talk to people properly.

It is terrible for NT children to still be at nappies at 4. Is it actually getting worse though? I swear this is in the news at this time every single year.