Can school exclude over toileting?

[SleepingStandingUp]

So I know they can't from an equality pov if the child has issues etc, but if they believed / the parent believed it was down to laziness not a physical issue? At what age would they kinda draw the line and say the child can't attend until they're clean and dry?

I've always excepted my child hasn't got the feeling yet, Dr has said maybe because he hasn't had it previously he's not yet learnt to interpret it but I'm increasing worried he just doesn't want to.

He's utterly unbothered about being in a wet or dirty nappy, shows no distress if he's in pants and wees himself. Will deny there's poo in his pants at home so he doesn't have to go and change himself but will tell at school after it's done.

We're waiting for another appointment and have a follow up following the initial constipation diagnosis but what is its just shit parenting and lazy child? I don't know how to make him tell us in time!! Rewards don't work, I've been told not to shame him although we've had discussions about being a big boy Vs a baby that have upset him. He wants to be a big boy, he seemingly doesn't want to stop using nappies.
He's 5 and year 1

Do you suspect other needs?

It might be worth starting to research strategies that are used to support children with autism to transition off nappies. I'm not saying he's autistic at all, but the strategies are very structured and might help.

Outreach from your 'hub' special school might be able to support the staff at your school. A specialist OT would also be a good referral.

Does he have any other developmental issues op?
You say he was pretty much non verbal til gone 3 - how is his speech now? And how is his understanding / comprehension? Are there any other behaviours that concern you?
I’m just wondering if there could be other things going on too?
It may be a medical issue and other posters have given some good advice upthread that are definitely worth pursuing but it also may be worth speaking to his teacher about his general development too.

Scroll down on here to 'habit training'.

www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behaviour/toileting/parents

I don't know OP as honestly I haven't worked with a year 1 or 2 who was still in nappies. But id be amazed if exclusion wasn't a form of disability discrimination. Even if he doesn't have a physical reason to not be toilet trained there are clearly psychological reasons at play and they should be treated as just as serious as physical problems. As to his 1-2-1 being fed up, if she is then she needs to find a new job. I've been a 1-2-1 with some seriously seriously challenging children and that's just the job. You don't judge the children, you just support them as long as they needs it. If you think she isn't doing this then I'd raise it with someone higher up.

@PickAChew

With such a combination of issues has he been investigated for any neurodevelopmental conditions? Are any other aspects of his behaviour of concern to you?

He had an MRI at 3, some immaturity in the coating of something and some excess fluid but the former was expected to resolve with age and there's no pressure associated with the latter.

Behaviour wise, he's always been young for his age, developmentally he's largely caught up but I mean it's hard, all 5 year olds are "quirky" and lockdown has impacted on kids behaviour a lot

@Arosadra

Alarm bells rang for me when you said he was non verbal until the age of 3. Lots of autistic children have these issues.

No one who's met him thinks autism is a possibility. On paper they do but his medical history is complicated and I was trying to not over complicate because everything gets bogged down. He had an operation at 10 months, when they extubated him he cried but he stopped talking / babbling. They said sore throat to start with but it never got back on track. When he started nursery at 3 he was pretty much just grunting at people. School helped massively and although he's still under speech and people still struggle if they aren't familiar with him, it's come on in two massive leaps, the latter being lockdown

would suggest waterproof pants (they aren't really all that waterproof) as he will start to feel wet. He'll just sit there wet. If I put normal pants on him and he wees he doesn't tell us, just carries on. He'll happily sit in a nappy with a decent sized poo in it or a heavy wet nappy. He doesn't care

@ivfbeenbusy

You said you only attempted toilet training "on and off" - what did that involve? A day here and there or a weekend or two? Or did you take 2 weeks off work and stay in the house and do it all day everyday?

We were advised to do 3 or 4 days at a time and if there was no improvement to stop and try again. This was the advice from the specialist health visitors who also run the toilet training sessions. At no point has he ever told me he needs a wee or poo, instigated his own visit to the loo and done a wee or a poo, or told me when he's dirtied his nappy. You might be right and it's just down to bad parenting but even with bad parenting you'd expect the child to be at least bothered by now

He'll happily sit in a nappy with a decent sized poo in it or a heavy wet nappy. He doesn't care

I think, regardless of possible underlying medical issues, this would come into the category of lacking social motivation. I do think it would be worth addressing it from that point of view.

OP I would be pushing for an autism diagnosis. The lack of awareness is due to interoception - awareness of sensations within the body.

He has a 1-1, so he clearly needs a lot of individual attentions. He is under SALT. He grunted until he was 3.

Who is telling you he's not autistic? Friends? Family? Because all mine told me that and my son has a diagnosis of Level 2 moderate autism and attends special school.

@ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings

I don't know OP as honestly I haven't worked with a year 1 or 2 who was still in nappies. But id be amazed if exclusion wasn't a form of disability discrimination. Even if he doesn't have a physical reason to not be toilet trained there are clearly psychological reasons at play and they should be treated as just as serious as physical problems. As to his 1-2-1 being fed up, if she is then she needs to find a new job. I've been a 1-2-1 with some seriously seriously challenging children and that's just the job. You don't judge the children, you just support them as long as they needs it. If you think she isn't doing this then I'd raise it with someone higher up.

I've massively misrepresented him 121 of that's how I conveyed her. She's lovely. She really is. And she's very good with him. I just accept that it isn't everyone's dream job to be changing a yr1s nappy of you apply for a job on mainstream school. School have so far been understanding, he wears pull ups at school so he can change himself and she's helped support that independence. I'm also conscious she isn't always in and it isn't what the standard yr1 TAs signed up for

@mintyfreshh

OP I would be pushing for an autism diagnosis. The lack of awareness is due to interoception - awareness of sensations within the body.

He has a 1-1, so he clearly needs a lot of individual attentions. He is under SALT. He grunted until he was 3.

Who is telling you he's not autistic? Friends? Family? Because all mine told me that and my son has a diagnosis of Level 2 moderate autism and attends special school.

Sorry I don't mean to drip feed, I was trying to keep the issue to "of my 6 to still uses a nappy, what will school do" kinda thing.

His speech was put down to the operations he had between 10-18 months (and possibly a delay in anyone dealing with his bloody tongue tie)
121 is for physical needs, he's on o2. But she does the rest of it too.

Yes he's a little behind maturity wise but we had a difficult first 18 months as mentioned above. There's also an underlying chromosome issue. See, it gets over complicated. That's why the surgical doc has agreed to see him in bowel clinic, because he's so frigging complicated.

But what after all this if there IS no reason being laziness and not wanting to do it?

@reefedsail

He'll happily sit in a nappy with a decent sized poo in it or a heavy wet nappy. He doesn't care

I think, regardless of possible underlying medical issues, this would come into the category of lacking social motivation. I do think it would be worth addressing it from that point of view.

I'll have a look on the link when I get 5 minutes. How do I address it from that point of view? I've asked if he wants to be a big boy like X, Y and Z, they go to the toilet like big kids, the babies wee on their nappy. When he's lord about having a poo I've pointed out no one will want to sit by him in school of he's smelly etc. He's like "yeah yeah no o don't want that" but nothing changes. Ivfbeenbusy implies, I think it's just down to us not doing it right

Hi op no school can't discriminate against a child in nappies for any reason ,you mention an underlying chromosome disorder? My son has a chromosome deletion which is believed to be the underlying cause for his complex disabilities ,as well as autism and severe learning disabilities he also suffers with chronic constipation ,if you are a member of UNIQUE ,there are lots of parents on there with children with similar issues .

Sounds so difficult.

My nephew is now 12 and still wears nappies as he will poo and just sit in his poo. It doesnt bother him. He does have ASD, and got that diagnosis quite early compared to others, and now attends a specialist high school, although he was in main-scale primary.

And my cousin’s son, who also had delayed speech, (unrelated to nephew and have never met) is now in year 5 and was pooing his pants well into year 2 and his grandma was being called in to school regularly to change him. Ive no idea if he still is doing this now though.

Id do what the poster above suggested and join all the support groups you can find.

I didnt mean main scale

@x2boys

Hi op no school can't discriminate against a child in nappies for any reason ,you mention an underlying chromosome disorder? My son has a chromosome deletion which is believed to be the underlying cause for his complex disabilities ,as well as autism and severe learning disabilities he also suffers with chronic constipation ,if you are a member of UNIQUE ,there are lots of parents on there with children with similar issues .

Not with my kids chromosomes unfortunately. We applied for the info if any kid's sharing his diagnosis. It's so hard to seperate out what's duer to his extra bits and what to his experience because of those and what's just our parenting

It's definitely not your parenting OP, and it's not laziness, but it sounds like there needs to be a lot more in place for your child. Again, not your fault, the system is just broken.

Lockdown has been shit and especially shit for SEN kids, but the sorts of delays you're talking about can't be fully explained away by lockdown.

My 6yo (autistic) has only just noticed when he's wet/dry and now immediately removes his pull up wherever he is, no matter how sodden or shitty it is. It's not much fun to deal with but it is progress.

Sorry what I meant was regardless of what the actual duplication ( I'm assuming?) Is on UNIQUE many parents are facing similar issues ,regardless of the actual chromosome disorder.

@x2boys

Sorry what I meant was regardless of what the actual duplication ( I'm assuming?) Is on UNIQUE many parents are facing similar issues ,regardless of the actual chromosome disorder.

I think cos he's considered to have a mild phenotype, and is mosaic albeit with a trisomy in two chromosomes I always feel like I fit on with organisations like unique, or SN parents really. He's got additional needs but he'll grow our of them

Do you think he’s genuinely “not bothered” or do you think it could be more “lalalaaalala nothing to see here, if I don’t tell you won’t know” type thing?

Either way, school isn’t allowed to exclude due to toiletting problems. Even if school are ill-informed enough to believe it’s down to “naughtiness” or “parenting”. His consultant / incontinence clinic may well be able to fire off a letter to the school if it came down to it.

Hi, my DS is in reception and still in pull-ups, it's so hard to get help. He will sit on the potty and fluently read a potty-training book but still has no clue when he needs to go.
We've tried everything and it's just not working.

No advice, sorry but just wanted to let you know you weren't alone.

I know what you mean about people thinking you're lazy too, I'm paranoid that everyone thinks I just didn't bother to train him.
Teachers made comments like, "maybe get a book or a sticker chart?" We have all the books, songs, apps, charts, bribes, etc. Not Working!

*Yes he's a little behind maturity wise but we had a difficult first 18 months as mentioned above. There's also an underlying chromosome issue. See, it gets over complicated. That's why the surgical doc has agreed to see him in bowel clinic, because he's so frigging complicated.

But what after all this if there IS no reason being laziness and not wanting to do it?*

But, but, but, isn't the chance higher that it IS connected? A friends DS was/is behind, speach delayed and has autism and also didn't care if he poo'd his pants. He wasn't dry till age ten (although most are before then). He just didn't care, didn't react to feeling if needing to go and all the therapy in the world didn't work. He needed to mature out of it (or better said, catch up in his progress). His parents were told to not react negatively, not use nappies, keep reminding him to ask for a toilet or just go if he felt he needed one, and just let him soil himself in the hope that one day he'd feel it and be bothered. They did clean him up every time of course and there was a potty in every room. He couldn't help it, nicest most giving kid, he wasn't being naughty, it was just part of his problems.

My son with sn did reception in nappies . He had an EHCp though

@Saz12

Do you think he’s genuinely “not bothered” or do you think it could be more “lalalaaalala nothing to see here, if I don’t tell you won’t know” type thing?

Either way, school isn’t allowed to exclude due to toiletting problems. Even if school are ill-informed enough to believe it’s down to “naughtiness” or “parenting”. His consultant / incontinence clinic may well be able to fire off a letter to the school if it came down to it.

O think he isn't bothered. He isn't very socially aware id say, it's hard to get him to understand why don't do things other people don't like etc, but that's part of being 5 i guess so not the right example.

But no, if he's upset he's more shrieky than introspective

The last letter from respiratory does say it can take months for his bowel and bladder to readjust so I don have something in writing et least.

One wee on the loo so far - I told him when to go. One on the floor, seemed genuinely supported but unbothered