6 in 10 think toilet training isn't necessary?

[dontcomeatme]

https://www.netmums.com/child/education/primary-schools/parents-say-potty-training-and-table-manners-not-essential-before-starting-school

"Commissioned by The Department for Education the poll, which included 2,000 parents with children aged under five, found that six in ten parents said toilet training isn’t essential before starting Reception."

I have known for years the number of children entering school still in nappies has risen, many of the schools around here have had to install changing tables and nappy bins etc. But this number has still shocked me! We're in the middle of potty training our 2.5YO and it's not easy at all, but definitely essential!
What's your view on this? If you have DC at what age did you potty train? Or not as the article suggests?

This doesn't include ND or SEN children. Nor is it a goady thread calling parents lazy. Just genuinely curious, I was really shocked reading the article. Although I suppose its good the NHS have made a "get prepared for school" guide for parents.

Before disponible nappies and no washing machine nor drier, mothers soon had their babies clean during the day usually before the ripe old age of 18 months. Parents are parents not best friends, start the baby young as a natural course of events.

In parents’ defence, there is a big thing about waiting for signs of readiness and how if they’re ready, it will be done in a week. I think it must be quite confusing because not all children will show these signs. There is a lot of talk about letting the child lead but I’m sure many children will not do this, hence delay.

Mine were all trained before age 3 before anyone comes for me, but I definitely had to take the lead as the eldest would have happily stayed in nappies until quite old!

I think it’s a conspiracy from Big Nappy. I’m not joking! Nappies now are so much better than previous eras, that kids can sit in a full nappy and not even know they are wet, they still feel comfy.

Add that to the message we seem to get about waiting til they are ‘ready’ and you can see why we end up delaying. I was the same way, thinking vaguely that I would get around to it when my first child “showed they were ready”(how??) drifting along…

Fortunately a switched on health visitor snapped me out of it and pointed me to the ERIC website. We began gradually training from that evening - sitting on the potty with a book at bathtime and first thing in morning, lots of praise if something came out. That was all we started with, it built up from there. I am so grateful for that health visitor especially now having witnessed multiple friends have to go through a lot of stress trying to train later on when the child is older and getting v strong willed - it can become a huge battle and a burden when you need time off work, trying to get it all done at once in time for school

https://eric.org.uk/potty-training/

Yep absolutely this.

I used cloth nappies most of the time, particularly for my middle and youngest DC’s……and it made me fully understand why our grandmothers potty trained their children so early 🫠😂😂 All that washing and drying. And disposables are SO expensive - especially in families like mine with small age gaps between children, so I had 2 in nappies at once.

My dds are early twenties and were nappy free at 2y5m. Because they had to be dry in the daytime as a prerequesite for pre-school nursery at 2y9m. We had a target.

Those with genuine medical reasons were exempt, but to be honest, back in the not so distant past, SEN were barely tolerated. Things have moved on for the better on balance.

With my daughter she was potty trained by 2 and a half, night trained by 3.
Easy, amazing.
My son in the otherhand is 2 years and 9 months now, suspected delay as he's also not speaking yet. Well he says a lot of words now thankfully but no real sentences or functional language.
His receptive language is finally kicking off so I can see that soon I'll be able to start. I mean you can't really potty train someone that has no concept of even their body right?
I've been trying to get him to pick something of the floor and give it to me.
Once he does that consistently I think thats my cue but honestly,the idea of potty training now seems like a mountain, I'm so lucky he's winter born and doesn't start nursery for another 6 months.
Anyway, any tips on how to start potty training with kids that may have some delays please let me know!

I posted the wording of the question above.

It isn't that 60% of parents don't think it's essential. 60% of parents don't think it's more essential than a list of 11 other skills including being able to talk, being able to hold a pencil, feed yourself and understand adults giving instructions.

To be perfectly honest I'm astonished as many as 40% put toilet training higher than those things. I suppose they have been reading the misleading headlines too and feel very strongly about it.

Exactly, my son's been referred and they've said it will be 3 and a half years for an assessment so by the time he gets it, he'll be over 6!
School will do their own assessment without a diagnosis but no label.

I potty trained both of mine quite late - around 3.5 - following failed attempts when they were younger. I posted about it here and got told how lazy and useless I was but I maintain that waiting until they were ready made the whole thing much easier for us all. They both cracked it quickly with minimal accidents whereas when we’d tried earlier (probably when they were about 2 / 2.5) there was lots of resistance, tears and stress. The nurseries they both attended were not demanding about being toilet trained.

I wouldn’t have dreamed of not even attempting it before they reached school age however. I’m not sure how anyone can justify that in the absence of SEN issues.

Unless the child has needs i understand it can be hard.
Other than that its just lazy parenting.
I know of a family that has 3 kids 3/5 that are all still in nappies the 6 year old only wears them at bed time and on long trips.
I kid you not.
The parents words are they all have sen they cant help it.

The relationship with the state is not just rights it is also responsibilities- yes your child has a right to an education, but you as a parent have a responsibility to ensure your child is ready for school, and that definitely includes them being toilet trained. Teachers teach it is not their job to change nappies or toilet train your children, and forcing them to do so is simply unacceptable.
I would definitely deny a child a place at a school if they were not toilet trained.
Why have children , if you have no regard for their development and well being?
It shows an appalling lack of respect for the school the teachers and the whole concept of education.

I think this potty training issue is symptomatic of the attitude of a growing number of parents.

That is, those who relinquish teaching the basic skills, their growing children should be taught by them and not the State when children start school. Includes teeth brushing as well

I think this attitude to be irresponsible, entitled and lazy.

Maybe the school should send them a bill for the nappies that they provide and teachers time involved.

Or insist that that to get supply of nappies for their child which the child can bring into school.

When I was potty training my kids(almost 15 years ago) in my mind it was something that had to be done before preschool. Dd was easy peasy, she was trained by 2.5 I think(like I said it was ages ago), ds was a huge struggle and was definitely closer to 3 and took months. He wasn't night trained for a long time. We didn't know at the time but he is autistic and that explains a lot, he was my first and I just thought I was a pretty rubbish mum, I couldn't understand why others could toilet train their kid but I just couldn't get there with mine.

The problem with that opinion is that potty training is most definitely something society rightly expects of parents.

Some parents just can't be arsed. That's the crux of the matter.

Then they're all over social media claiming they're gentle parenting.

Which basically means, not parenting.

Completely dry before 2.5 (mostly cloth nappies and potty seat and step, never used a potty - which all helped) but still hard work and depends on DC (although this was in context of high level ND).

Around 3 probably quicker and easier but wouldn’t leave starting later unless more complex factors (and would get medical advice/support as needed).

I’m surprised parents don’t think it’s important, it’s a really important IMO for independence and confidence but also cost and the environmental impact (which is devastating when it comes to plastics).

Definitely lazy parenting is a huge issue.

DS has just started Reception and none of the children are in nappies. It’s a desirable village school where nearly all parents have made an active choice to select it over more convenient options. There are hardly any catchment children due to size of village and property prices.

My friend works at my local catchment school and this year Reception there has an additional TA due to the huge number who are not toilet trained.

It’s no coincidence that the school with the more engaged parents has no children in nappies whereas the catchment only local school has lots.

Please tell me what you did? I have an 1 year old. Not ready to start yet but I think I need to start thinking of a plan for the future…
I like your no stress approach…I am a bit OCD so feel like I need a lot of time to plan…thank you!!! Sorry to hijack your post OP.
i dont know if i want a teacher to potty train my kid….

My DC wore nappies at night until 8 - night nappies are available up until 15 asit is hormonal for night time. And long journeys I can understand, as who wants to be changing car seats etc.

If they have SEN why are you judging? Many people have said SEN excluded but it seems that isn't the case. Only if your child is severe SEN.

Teach through play to begin with. Children learn most things through play. That was my approach. Bring the potty into a playtime sit a favourite toy on the potty put some water in the potty ( do this without them looking) and then draw their attention to what’s happened and praise the toy and get the child to as well. Play around with this concept as you will. My DD potty trained in under a week.

So if you have a child you think the school should deal with every aspect of child rearing for you? You don't have a kid unless you are willing to be a parent! You can't sit back and do nothing for 5 years, that's neglect and it's wrong to delay the developmental needs of your child because you don't want to do the job. You are advocating a future where a class of the average size of 26 kids are all needing to be cleaned and changed throughout the day, needing to be taught to use a toilet,taught to wash hands, brush teeth, sit at a table and eat with knife & fork, taught to speak basics and how to interact. By the time they've spent years undoing the damage of years of being not taught critical basics, the real education that should have started at around 5 when they started school, then doesn't begin til perhaps 9 years old because the school had to make up for 4 years of basic skills not being taught.

There isn't the resource for teachers to be doing stuff like that and many won't want to go into the profession for that! A male teacher can hardly be changing and toilet training little girls without feeling uncomfortable and vulnerable to accusations.

Honestly I'm shocked if people genuinely think their children don't need to be potty trained before starting school (no matter how the question was phrased).
My children are currently 6y11m and 2y8m.
The eldest was trained at 2y9m and the youngest trained at 2y5m.
Both boys.
Training the eldest was the most difficult job because a) I think he would have been happy to wear a nappy forever and b) we didn't have a clue what we were doing.
Training my youngest was a breeze because the opposite: we'd already gone through it once, and because of having an older brother, he was actually interested in using the toilet, wanted to go when he went etc.
"Unless SEN" is the usual caveat here but even then not all SEN prevent children from being toilet trained. The VAST majority of children should be trained before starting school (and I am a teacher who has spent the past 17 years working with children of all ages, so yes, I do know what is developmentally normal and reasonable to expect).

On top of this, you need the kid to go commando initially. Pants feel too much like a nappy at first and they think they can pee in them too. Going without undies is a totally different feeling and I think the cold sensation when they wet themselves/when the cold wet clothes start sitting on their skin is more immediate without pants, enabling them to recognise the signals faster.
Only when they are peeing on the potty/toilet more reliably do you introduce pants. I think my youngest went commando for over a month before we introduced pants.

Regarding for long car journeys: sorry but this is nonsense. We do long car journeys all the time (12+ hours) as both sets of grandparents live abroad. My kids are 2 and 6. They pee before we get in the car. We stop every 2-3 hours and they pee then as well. Normally if they pee at every break then they shouldn't be wetting through car seats. We have never had such an incident (yet - the youngest is still only 2y9m so give it time!) but are used to VERY long car journeys. They also tell us if they need to pee so we can stop mid 2-3hr stretch if needed. No reason for pullups on such journeys.

We also used cloth nappies and I do think it's a factor in why children who wear them train earlier. Not for the reasons you state specifically, but rather because the children can feel when they are wet and get used to the (unpleasant) sensation faster. Not like in disposable nappies, which are too good these days in a way: they wick away all the moisture so that the child cannot feel when they are wet.