Have parents given up parenting

[Dearparents]

So I was just watching some news.
And apparently their is a rise in reception school children, that 1 in 4 children are not potty trained ,can't eat or drink independently and try to swipe pages in books.

Some parents are saying it's down to the teachers to teach these thing's.

Most say it's because their child has some sort of SEN.

It got me thinking of a family member that has 3 kids 3/4 and 5 that are all in nappies and sippy cups and all glued to a screens.
The 4 and 5 year old dont go to school as teachers said they have to be potty trained first.
I said to said family member the teacher is right, it's your job to parent ther job is to teach.
But im wrong apparently because her kids all have SEN.
I just see 3 normal kids that have not been taught the basics.

Now i do understand some children are unwell and can not do these things.

But im talking about kids that can but parents are playing on the sen to back out of parenting the basic things.
Am I wrong about it?

As a Reception teacher I don’t thinks it’s necessarily laziness although that obviously can play a part. The biggest issue I see is that parents underestimate how capable their young children are. They assume children can’t dress themselves/put on their coat/wipe themselves. I regularly watch parents at the gate taking off their child’s coat for them before they enter school. Children call me to wipe themselves and are astonished when I tell them they need to do it themselves - no one has ever asked them to try. Children are never told off for toileting accidents but they are handed clean clothes and sent off to change themselves. I only get involved if it is clear that a child is soiled and is not managing to clean themselves- I would never knowingly leave a child dirty but they are expected to try to clean themselves first. Parents are under lots of pressure to be perfect and lots are overly attentive. It comes from a good place but is contributing to a real lack of independence.

As a Reception teacher I don’t thinks it’s necessarily laziness although that obviously can play a part. The biggest issue I see is that parents underestimate how capable their young children are. They assume children can’t dress themselves/put on their coat/wipe themselves. I regularly watch parents at the gate taking off their child’s coat for them before they enter school. Children call me to wipe themselves and are astonished when I tell them they need to do it themselves - no one has ever asked them to try. Children are never told off for toileting accidents but they are handed clean clothes and sent off to change themselves. I only get involved if it is clear that a child is soiled and is not managing to clean themselves- I would never knowingly leave a child dirty but they are expected to try to clean themselves first. Parents are under lots of pressure to be perfect and lots are overly attentive. It comes from a good place but is contributing to a real lack of independence.

My eldest was potty trained around 2.5 but I give preschool most of the credit. But when she started Reception she began having toilet accidents, which continued into Years 1 and 2. She’s since been diagnosed (in Year 1) asd and has severe sensory challenges. which explains a lot in hindsight.

With my youngest, I waited as she clearly wasn’t ready and I didn’t want to push it too early. When we did train her, just before nursery at age 3.4 years it took a week or two and she was fully independent. I think parents have to give a reason for using the toilet, " your a big girl now" your friends will have to use toilet too" stickers and rewards help.
also I asked if wee was coming, after she had food I watched her, took the portable potty everywhere every room.
prepared. I was so relived she is successful because I had enough of being judged from school staff already with my eldest.
Nursery staff were very pleased with how independent my 3-year-old was, but I do wonder if they assumed my eldest hadn’t been properly potty trained because of her later diagnosis when actually it was more about additional needs than training itself.
its hard for send kids to understand their bodly functions.

Id be furious if my child's valuable education time was taken up by constant nappy changes during lessons.
Average class of 30 pupils; what would happen if they ALL needed a nappy change every 2hrs??

Just as your priority is your child, a SEND child is going to be their parents priority too.

No child should have priority in a class of 30 children. They are all equal.

How can parents find time to potty train their children when they have such busy lives at the gymn/hairdressers/nail bar/nights out with colleagues/wedding planning/sports training?
maybe there’s a fortune to be made by someone developing an app so kids can train themselves via the iPad attached to their pushchair?

Children requiring support to access the same education other children access without support isn't making them a priority, it is making them equal. That's the whole point.

And how do you suggest that's facilitated if 20% of the class are in nappies? Especially without negatively impacting the others. It's not possible.

I think the effects on children being brought up by iPads is going to be huge. It’s a massive problem for children of all age groups and is probably worse in disadvantaged areas.
We should bring back the Sure Start scheme to help these children and educate their parents.
My son started nursery age two and the rule was, unless there was a disability you were expected to have potty trained them. 99% of two years old managed it, they weren’t all geniuses, it was just the norm. This was 20 plus years ago.

It's state school. In a large class of 30, negative impacts are always going to happen to a certain extent and if it isn't a child who needs support with toileting needs, it might be a child with behavioural issues or a child who is disruptive and likes to chat not to mention the noise levels 30 children can bring and obviously the lack of individual attention.

The system is far from perfect and I'd say helping a child with toileting needs is way, way, way down the list of negative impacts from the state school system.

Half of children haven’t been read to when they start school. How can that be the case? It’s just shocking

In what ways?

Apart from SEN children, that negative impact shouldn't even be an issue and it shouldn't be adding to any distractions/negative impacts to the class. Toilet training has always been a parents job. They need to do it, not teachers.

You seem to be living in a dream land to be honest and you cannot see the obvious problems.

Teachers shouldn't be changing nappies.

Maybe, I heard a woman talking recently saying that she had to let her kids sit on screens all the time because otherwise they would misbehave and mess up the house. I get it but she is doing her kids a disservice.

Another issue with kids on screens is that they have no idea how to ‘play’ take turns or ‘ be a little bored’ because the minute they moan a screen is shoved in front of them, also language skills are lacking as well because there is no conversations going on with a screen

and again, how can you tell the difference at 4? That's the issue and that is why it's applied to all children who start school with toileting issues as it is often too early to tell if it is SEN or even a physical medical reason or there isn't any reason at all.

The incontinence team often aren't interested if the child is under 7.

@Joanne200019 I was about to write your post almost word for word. I teach pre school so our job is to work on those independence skills but it so often feels like the parents are working against us not with us. For example helping a child put on a coat when they have been told the child can do it themselves. A million others examples too. Parents massively underestimate what a child can do physically and equally overestimate their emotional maturity and expect them to understand the long winded explanations and make complex decisions. We have seen kids sob because they can't put their coat on a hook and we spend so much time verbally encouraging them and rewarding etc but we will absolutely not do it for them. Then we finally make progress and it's mid term and they are useless again. It's so frustrating.

I don’t recognise any of this tbh. None of the young children I’ve know including my own and their class mates went to school like this.

When I went to an all-inclusive hotel recently, very child-friendly so full of pre-schoolers, the amount of families who just automatically set up a screen for their child to watch during the meal was shocking. There were some families there day after day who barely interacted AT ALL with their children. Just shocking. See also: toddlers in prams with screens, rather than engaging with the world. Sad. And I'll be accused of being judgemental, but it is basically neglect.

Yes, she'd rather have a tidy house than well-rounded children who have time to play. She just doesn't want to put any effort in to parenting at all.

Agree.

I get frustrated hearing parents saying that their toddlers don't have the 'language' to be able to potty train.
My DD was barely able to put two easy words together at two, and had intensive SALT throughout her pre-school & reception year.

She was 90% potty trained for poos by 1 and out of nappies by 2 when she started playgroup. We had to lift her and take her to the toilet before we went to bed until she was around 5 or else she wet the bed, so she also wasn't 'hormonally' more advanced from a urine control POV either.

She is only 7 now, so this wasn't in some bygone parenting era.

I'm curious, how did you access that level help?
We have the same problem and he has been having laxido from the GP since he was 2, but that's it.
No paediatrician , no nurse, no advice beyond the link to ERIC website (which is useless). HV was on WhatsApp only so took ages to get any response, in the end it was the same stuff as ERIC.

Our son is starting school in September, no idea how we are going to solve this issue by then.

Yeah, it's not difficult to potty train for poos especially at an early age if you watch carefully for your toddler's cues. It requires being really engaged and focused on your child, but we also potty trained for poos by 12 months (though less impressive than you, as our DD's language was good and we taught her to say 'poo' at that point too) and for wee before she turned 2. If I hadn't been a working mum, I could have potty trained her for wees earlier too, but I didn't want to put that expectation on my childminder as, like I say, it does require quite a lot of focus and attention when you potty train at a younger age. But it's 100 percent possible.