Would it BU to ask the teacher to remind DD to go to the loo before hometime?

[Natsku]

DD nearly always forgets to go to a wee before she leaves school and then she ends up desperately needing it while on the walk home and the last few days she's come home soaked from wetting herself (which is not just unpleasant for her but verging on dangerous as I expect walking in wet clothes increases the risks of hypothermia and it's been -15 lately in the afternoons)

I'm not there to remind her myself as she walks alone and I just physically can't go to pick her up at the moment because my SPD is too bad and no amount of reminding her in the morning seems to help her remember by hometime, but I'm worried it would be a bit unreasonable to ask the teacher to take responsibility for reminding her as she is probably very busy at hometime and I don't want to be that parent (I'm worried I already am for some other reasons and don't want to be more of a bother) but fed up of washing DD's snowsuit every day and her skin on her inner thighs is getting really sore from the wee and the wet trousers rubbing on her.

myrtleWilson your inverted commas around paedos makes it sound like you don’t believe in paedo bears. Bears can be paedos too.

I think you are justifying your decision to let your 6 year old walk to school because it's your only option. Cultural norm or not, your child is telling you she doesn't like it. You need to listen to her and not tell her that you'll do it at some point in the future but do it now. Your dh should have rearranged his working times the minute you were unable to take her. That's what parents do. Yes it's inconvenient sometimes but your child deserves to feel safe going to and from school OP. It probably takes longer coming home because she's tired after a day at school.

BlueMirror I had assumed it was happening earlier because of the state of the skin on her legs when she got home, thought it took a while of walking in wet trousers to get so sore but apparently not.

Have to sort it day by day cracker as he doesn't know when he needs to start work until the day before usually except for when he's got a longer term project on but he doesn't right now.

I've had the key in the door syndrome before beezie didn't know it was a thing but makes sense.

Even if the weeing is just key in the door syndrome and not related to any issues, now I know DD wants me to walk with her in the mornings until it gets lighter again so that's good, I can make that change as soon as physically possible. I'll keep a sharp eye out for those paedo bears though, lurking behind the trees with the wolves...

Don't forget to look out for evil Snow Queen’s and Witches houses made of sweets and gingerbread!

Sounds like it is probably a combination of nearly being home and the cold and it taking longer in the evenings, hopefully it should stop soon then.

Still no baby then?!

It being Finland, we probably have to watch out for the Groke and the Lady of the Cold. But I've read Hansel and Gretal to DD, she knows not to go near gingerbread houses.

Still no baby, seems to be happy to stay put, hasn't even dropped yet.

Ridiculous posters making jokes about the ‘evils in the forest’.
A 6 year old has said she’s scared walking alone in the dark through the forest do you think she should just suck it up?!

Most people saying it’s fine it’s Finland it’s normal don’t know the first thing about Finland, or its forests. I’m sorry but this isn’t normal for a 6 year old to do this. If there were buses etc then yes or a short walk.
She does this because there’s no other choice.

How hard can it be to understand that your definition of normal might not be universal?!!! It is the very essence of narrow-mindedness.

The jokes are a response to the ridiculous fear-mongering about bears and wolves in the forest - of course she wouldn't be walking alone in the forest if there were bears or wolves there!

And ahem, I do live in Finland, I do know what's normal here and walking 2km to school is normal. DD could walk along the road instead of through the forest but there's no pavement on the road so the forest is safer. 7+ year olds bike from the other end of town by themselves, much further than DD walks - you need to be 4km (5 from 3rd grade onwards) away to qualify for the bus or for special reasons like the journey being too dangerous or the child being SEN as the assumption is that children will make their own way to school, for preschoolers the limit is 3km.
Hmm apparently they don't cover journeys for bear danger during hibernation season and 1st and 2nd graders aren't covered unless the trip is further than 700 metres through bear territory, 1km up to 6th grade, and 7th grade onward is apparently old enough to deal with bears. That is weird, no bears here though anyway, they're in the other forest. There's an exception if bears come close to the houses, I guess they're more dangerous then.

Where do you live exactly natsku? Send a map please. Just so I can get organising for a mass emigration of all the mumsnetters wistful for proper freedom for their kids. I might avoid moving to bear country, but where you are sounds just about perfect.

I must admit I'm slightly boggling at what government committee came up with those bear distances relative to age! Is the idea that they get faster at running as they grow older?!!

I'm boggling at it too, I would have thought any distance in bear territory would be dangerous for any child. That's the guidelines for my municipality specifically, maybe areas with more bear issues have more sensible rules about it. There are a lot of bears in the municipality but they're not anywhere near where people actually live except for the odd farm house so I doubt it's an issue that comes up often.
I've been walking in the forest where the bears live (which used to house a very innovative for it's time psychiatric hospital that closed down after one of the patients killed a local, there's a long and creepy history to that area! Also a witch doctor who was still around a few decades ago - OH's grandmother visited him for help with something) and it terrified me even though I didn't see any bears, just seeing the marks that they leave (scratches on the trees) was enough to make me want to get out of there pronto!

Eek, bears! People think Australia is scary with the wildlife here but at least the big things that can kill you live mostly in the water.

I do love the idea of skiing through snowy forests though

2k is fine for a 7 year old Op. People have got very pathetic here! (Well, not all people, but many!). I told my son about your daughters walk home from school and he thought it sounded heavenly. I lived in the countryside as a child and my friend and I would walk several miles along paths to the riding stables and back when we weren’t much older than 7. (And then look after our ponies all day).

My DM always harps on about her 3 mile walk to school dragging her sister along when they were at primary school (rural life in the 50s) and that was just to the bus. My DF grew up in a third world country crammed into a mud hut. I he had to walk a lot alone but as he skived off school a fair bit so he doesn’t talk about it much lol.

I didn't say she might be eaten by a bear. I said there are fairy stories around wolves, bears, dark forests and little girls walking alone through them. I said she's clearly frightened, and maybe she's frightened of wolves and bears, as she does seem to be treated like a victim character in a fairy tale - "Walk through this dark forest, alone, covered in urine, in minus fifteen"

I'm sorry, I should have been more considerate of the Op's need to feel better about her child's misery.

I've read parts of this to my sons and they absolutely want to move to Finland.

'My DM always harps on about her 3 mile walk to school dragging her sister along when they were at primary school (rural life in the 50s) and that was just to the bus. My DF grew up in a third world country crammed into a mud hut. I he had to walk a lot alone but as he skived off school a fair bit so he doesn’t talk about it much lol'
my dad had similar stories 3 miles walking to school however later i happened to be in the area and realised it was no more than 1

You did, though. You said 'Finland has wolves and bears. And six year old children are small.' Which does seem to me to imply that you think she might be spirited off by a wild animal.

And you are being totally ridiculous. She wets herself in the afternoon, when it's light, not in the morning. She's not alone in the afternoon either, because she usually walks with friends. And the whole idea that she's frightened of wild animals, or might be grabbed by a paedophile, is your adult projection. She may well be scared in the dark morning, which is why the OP has said she will consider walking with her when she is able. But she'll be imagining monsters and fairies, not adult fears. And we all accept that those are part of childhood to an extent. My kids are frightened of monsters in their bedrooms at night, but I still make them go to bed. Does that make me a monstrous parent too?

She knows there aren't bears or wolves in the forest (we've spent so much time in this forest, walked all over it throughout the year, she knows it very very well and what does and doesn't live there), she thought it was silly when her friend got scared of the sound of a low flying plane and thought it was a bear.

There's a lovely elderly lady I know who as a child had a THREE hour walk to primary school, through rocky terrain to the next village. And three hours back again in the evening. Every day. With friends, but no parents, from age 6. I know it's three hours because I've walked it - it's a tough walk. She is still hard as nails at nearly 90! Our kids don't know they are born, yes, even the ones who have to walk 2km to school in all weathers, let alone the ones who get ferried there by car!

Bloody hell that's a long walk to school!

Don’t know if this has been suggested as haven’t rtft (it’s way too long at this point) but could you get her a shewee or something similar so she could quickly go in a bush or somewhere without removing any layers?

Frog I’m not narrow minded I am talking about Finland, half my family are Finnish I have lived there.
I have said repeatedly that it’s perfectly normal there for young children to make their way to and from school at young ages however it’s not my experience at all, nor of family or friends that 6 year olds walk an hour in the dark in -15 temperatures.

But you still don't know exactly where OP lives and what is normal there. I am french but don't profess to know how kids in Marseille make their way to school as opposed to in Alsace. Also, she doesn't walk an hour in the dark. That is just a fantasy made up by the more paranoid elements on this thread, who are conjuring up a red riding hood in deep woods scenario that probably bears (ha!) very little resemblance to the reality - natsku talked about some of the way being lit by ski floodlamps for instance!

No it isn't frogsoup. The timings have jumped from forty minutes, to an hour, then back to half an hour. The child is now also wetting herself on arrival at the door of her home, where as OP was worried about her walking in -15 when she first posted. Next year her "classmate" will walk with her, why not this year? Clearly not all the children are walking, if so there'd be someone to walk with. Assertions by one or two others that this is normal in certain Scandinavian/ European countries yet many of us are from this background and dispute that, I lived in a Germany for many years, that length of walk wouldn't happen there. I told my Danish friend she said no, wouldn't happen there either. Lots of little discrepancies to get mixed up in on this thread.