To be shocked at teacher telling DD to 'hold in' period.

[yaela123]

DD is 15 and her school have a no going to the toilet during lesson time rule, which I completely agree with on the whole as I know how disruptive it can be if people are constantly in and out, and how everyone just uses it as an excuse to bunk off (I am a teacher too - very different environment though)

Only exception is if you have a medical note from a doctor.

Today in one of her lessons DD says she could feel that she really needed to change her pad, she was getting quite worried about it leaking. She eventually asked the (male) teacher if she could go to the loo.

Teacher: No, you know the rules
DD: I really need it.
Teacher: What did I just say?
DD: It's a girl problem...
Teacher: What do you mean?
DD: Umm... I'm on my period
Teacher: Break is only in half an hour, hold it in til then

Obviously those aren't the exact words said but she says it's pretty accurate.
DD is quite shy so did just wait til break (no leakage btw).

She doesn't seem overly bothered but AIBU to be pretty shocked at him telling her to hold it in? Surely even men have some basic idea that it doesn't work like that?

Going back to the OP, I would bypass the teacher altogether and send an email to the Head asking for clarification should the situation arise again. Then you will have the reply in writing.

This is outrageous. I remember when I was in a geography lesson in school and the girl next to me whispered to me that she had leaked, I told her to ask the teacher if she could go to the toilet and he said ‘no’ she then continued to hint at the teacher that I was a matter of urgency and he still refused to let her go. I then backed her up and said to the male teacher ‘sir she really does need to go, she is on her period’ he refused once again I then told her to just go and he gave her a hour detention. I told her to call her parents which she did and they told her not to attend the detention. I’ve stil never forgotten that to this day, it’s just disgusting.

YANBU what if she had flooded her pad and leaked everywhere? It happened to a friend of mine at school, she asked to go to the toilet, was told no and 15 minutes later she had bled all over the chair and was mortified.

But the OP's DD didn't suddenly gush! That's my point.

We don't know that we weren't there! She might have had a light flow day and thought she would be fine and then had a bit of random heavy flow which meant she suddenly realised she needed to change her pad.

Even if her issue could have been solved by changing her pad before the lesson your advice wouldn't help others with gush issues which was my point.

If she really needed to go then she should be excused, but we've been told that actually she didn't leak - so she didn't need to go.

You don't always know when you've leaked, you can feel that you might have leaked.

And if you know you might have times in the future where you might leak, then all you can do is mitigate it as best as possible as you cannot guarantee in the future that you will have access to the toilet. I don't see why posters want to argue that point. What do you do if you know you will be somewhere you can't leave? Do you not prepare to the best of your ability, or do you just let the gush happen?

If necessary you don't go. There aren't that many places where you can't access a loo. But essentially you prepare and you gush as you can't stop the gush from happening.

This is why women take the pill for their periods.

I still remember being about 15 at school when I suddenly came on during a lesson. I wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom and ended up leaking through my trousers onto the chair. It was humiliating

penggwyn I've seen you make some pretty stupid comments on threads but holy shit, surely you get that people have different experiences of periods?

When you 'flood' towel or tampon, it isn't that you will continue bleeding at the saturating flow rate for 12 hours and hence bleed to death...its that you have a sudden gush that will soak through anything, but which stops again usually within a few minutes.

It happens to me when I've been sitting very still and then stand up, everything gushes out and I need to get to a loo pronto if I don't want to have to change my clothes too.

On the other hand, before I went on the tranexamic acid I could flood a mooncup and lost sufficient blood at a sufficient rate that I had to get several iron IVs to treat my dangerous anaemia.

People can and do die from menstruation - though not often in the UK.

1. I'm really hoping that the teacher was referring to wee and didn't realise what OP's DD meant.

1. Hold it in by strengthening your pelvic floor, lol.

1. The reason so many people have taken umbrage with Pengggwn is that she out and out accused PPs of lying. Another advocate of the Mirena coil here - from starting my periods at 12 until having it fitted at 32 my periods, although regular in regards to cycle, were an absolute nightmare. One month could be light and trouble-free and the next I'd swear I'd lost a whole person worth of blood. At school I would wear 3 or 4 pads at a time (sort of spread in my knickers) but could quite easily change at break then halfway through a lesson I would know I'd need to change again. Just before I had my coil fitted I was taking a change of clothes to work just in case.

It makes my blood boil that a woman would call another woman a liar because she experiences something differently. What hope do we have of men taking us seriously if other women don't?

My periods are heavy I can actually feel it coming out of me and I can soak a pad in half an hour of changing. I have been for scans and nothing is wrong I just have very heavy periods. No one would be stopping me from going to the loo. I would complain.

I didn’t get the hang of my periods til I was 16+, having started at 12. I leaked often. Poor girl.

Weirdly, my DCs' school manages to have a hall pass system that allows staff to keep track of piss taking as opposed to genuine need.

It can identify students who are simply not engaged with school, so staff can then devise appropriate interventions instead of ploughing on with the silly idea that keeping them all in the classroom all the time is enough. This approach helps nobody and hurts those in real need.

What would be the point in exaggerating your periods? This thread is getting weirder by the minute.

Even if you think some people are prone to exaggerate you must surely be aware that flooding is something that can and does happen ?

@mathanxiety clearly that's far too sensible a solution!

To all the ladies saying how they are going through pads/tampons really fast. I was having the same problems for months after having my second baby. So I switched to a moon cup and it holds so much more! No more leaking!! It won't be for everyone but definitely worth a look into.

I have leaked at work where I have no restriction in toilet use, if you have heavy periods sometimes you can flood, on the first day of my period I could flood a towel in 2 hrs.

Pengggwn I am not sure what your aim is here TBH.

What would be thepointin exaggerating your periods?

If we were not exaggerating then Pent would ve wrong...and that can never happen

I'm really quite horrified to see that so many women do not understand that periods are not the same experience for every woman. Some women have rather uneventful and predictable periods - for other women, the only predictable thing about it is knowing that every single month is going to be pure hell!

For the record - yes - you CAN flood and soak through a pad in 5 mins. Those saying this cannot happen have clearly never experienced the joy of "blood clot hell" - and should think themselves lucky that they have avoided this delight. What tends to happen (or at least this is how it was for me - and I had difficult painful heavy periods from the start!) is that you change your tampon and pad (yes - both - I always doubled up - didn't dare not to!), you feel all fresh and clean, all is well... and then 5 mins later, you're sitting there minding your own business and you feel a massive blood clot release itself and descend followed by much gushing and there isn't a tampon or pad in the world that is going to stop it! You then know you have just moments to get yourself to a loo - and if you're lucky, you may have to do the "running through a really big open plan office while trying to keep your legs clamped together" action! That's a treat! And if you're really super lucky, the experience may cause you to faint. Yes - it's a most joyful experience... there were times that the "birth" of my clots were so memorable I almost bought the damn thing a pram!

Still - it's good to know that actually I must've been just imagining it... that women cannot flood or soak through tampons and/or pads quickly or have periods that are more like a raging tsunami than a nice predictable trickle that will magically conduct itself according to your schedule. This is incredible news. Just wish I'd known it before I had my uterus surgically removed!

Well mainly because I thought surely no one could be that ignorant.

[[https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/heavy-periods/ the NHS manages to “believe” it.