to think encouraging a child to wee in the street is inappropriate?

[HeyNannyNanny]

I'm upstairs in my house with the windows wide open to air out last nights fish and chips let in the lovely sunshine.
We live on a reasonably busy residential street.
I hear a family walk down the road (think its Mum, friend/sister and son) chatting to each other loudly.
Suddenly I hear the Mum say "right, I need to make you do a wee" (actual words) and then "trousers down".
I glance out the window to see the son (perhaps 4 or 5 years old) in the middle of the pavement with his trousers and pants around his ankles, holding his willy and weeing into a plastic tub the Mum is holding in front of him.
She's encouraging him loudly ending with "that's right. Now shake it. Well done."

I completely understand that children always need to wee at the worst times but AIBU to think in the middle of the street, in plain view with cars driving past and people in their gardens is just a bit off?

There are 2 pubs which are less than 2 mins walk away, as well as plenty of countryside areas to surreptitiously wee in if its an emergency.

So the container was a good idea, from your point of view, Pink?

I imagine it went like this:
*Child does wee dance

*Mother whips out random empty box to stop wee going everywhere

*Mother puts wee in bag, to be taken out later whilst she's having a lovely wine with her new man

Or something..

Is anyone else now pressing the area between their belly button and their groin? Or is it just me

Wow, you learn something every day, Jason

The town nearest to where I live has had lots of public loos shut down by the council to save money. The result is kids and adults peeing in the side streets because they are desperate and don't know where to go! It is a particular problem at night.What with that and the new fortnightly rubbish collections about to start, one could be forgiven for thinking that we are living in a developing country instead of the one with the 6th best economy in the world!

All sorts of reasons a small child could be caught short. I'm told marathon runners do it under bridges. It's only a bit of pee.

by virtue of having a container maybe it is a regular issue..But how many people who have kids who wait till the last second then grab there bits and can't walk in desperation...

I find motorway driving I end up saying it is 34 miles to next services are you sure you don't need wee...

This child is 4 or 5 ...so who knows how long toilet trained.. we get many threads on here worried about getting children toilet trained for school.

If it's an emergency and Childs dignity is protected as best as possible then I've no issue. Otherwise no no and no. I'm pretty sure that woman wouldn't have peed with her fanjo on view to passing traffic. Although if she did that another issue entirely...

Well if he had to be made to do it then there was clearly time to make the to a bush somewhere.

Caught short would surely sound more like "mummy I need a weeeeeeeeeee "

Laziness

"Mummy I need a weeeeee" can easily be followed by "I'm too scared to go in the pub/gutter/behind the bush" and pulling out a finished with sandwich box rather than child having an accident while arguing the case. Without knowing the child or the situation involved I don't think we can possibly say.

There's a difference between an emergency wee where the kid really can't wait, and a parent encouraging a kid to see outside.

This situation doesn't sound like an emergency wee - if the child was desperate for a wee, you'd expect OP to have heard the child saying they needed a wee, or even the mum saying something like do you need a wee as you're clutching your bits.

I think that unless it's an emergency wee, then a child should be taken to the nearest public loo. Or even behind a tree / bush if there's no public toilets anywhere nearby.

I do know some people who are quite happy to encourage their small DC wee all over the place in public when there's public toilets close by. I'm not talking emergency wees either. I'm talking about the "have a wee before we go back to the car because we don't want you wetting yourself in the car" type of wees.

The container bit is a bit odd, but I can't really get aerated about a child needing a quick wee in the street or by the side of the road.

As an aside, I had to do a 24 hour wee sample once, and the hospital gave me a container that was basically a 4 litre milk carton. I remember standing on the tube coming back from work, convinced that everyone could hear the sloshing in my rucksack.

quite odd as "I need to make you do a wee" doesn't sound like an emergency wee!

Yes, I have to say, "I need to make you do a wee" is a phrase I've never needed to use...

Sorry, I thought I was clear in the OP.

I have no issue with small children having to do a wee in a public place but in my mind it's the done thing to be subtle about it - at least move to the side of the pavement where there's a wall, or near a bush or something. This was facing the traffic, on a main road with absolutely no effort to move.

Plus I've always encouraged children to hold it where they can (within reason) at least just for practice.

I can't say about SEN but the weeing wasn't him "needing" to go that I heard, but the Mum making him.
As for needing a sample - why not just wait and get one at a better time? We're nowhere near a Drs surgery or hospital where it may have been something they needed to do before they arrived.

I had to do a 24 hour wee sample once

It's a nightmare isn't it, as you can't use other cartons, mine overflowed!

Maybe he is a little Olympian?

I've never in all my days seen a child poo/pee in public!

Never seen a potty used in public either. But I read about it here all the time. It's just weird, people carrying around potties

I saw a father and son doing this in a morrisons car park yesterday. There were toilets right inside the doors.

It's just weird, people carrying around potties

We used to carry around a portable potty in a backpack when DS1 was toilet training. It doubled as a toddler seat that could be placed on top of a normal toilet. It didn't tend to get used as a potty out and about in public (except when a long way from any toilets) but to begin with, DS1 was scared of sitting on strange toilets, even on a toddler seat, so we used to set it up inside toilet cubicles for him.

It sounds like she had to collect a wee sample. Could have gone behind a bush or something.

When DS2 was about 3 he said he needed a wee as we were walking to collects DS1 from school school. I squatted him down over a drain and he proceeded to do a nice healthy poo. In front of assorted Primary School parents and Secondary school kids. Nice

AWFUL!

MadameDeathStare I snorted at your cat analogy. Thanks for that!