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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

518 replies

Natsku · 24/01/2018 11:30

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.

OP posts:
Whowhatwhy · 28/01/2018 15:32

I would have thought the whole incident would do that rather than posters pointing out how if she were a proper parent like them she would have done it months ago

Well yes you would think it would be enough but it clearly wasn't. The OP wasn't asking whether she was unreasonable for sending a 6 year old on a long walk in the dark and cold. She was asking about the likelihood of hyperthermia due to the poor kid wetting herself on the way.

Whowhatwhy · 28/01/2018 15:35

The point is OP you should have done it from the get go. A 6 year old child walking alone all that way, presumably having only just started school, is truly shocking to me.

Original poster
Natsku · 28/01/2018 15:55

It's shocking to you but that's because you don't live here, you're not in this culture, you don't see children that age walking alone all the time. When she was happy to walk then it was perfectly fine, no matter what you think of it, because she was happy with it. Now that she's unhappy with it then it's not fine, but that doesn't magically make all those weeks when she happily walked in the sun suddenly bad and wrong.

OP posts:
TornadoOfToys · 28/01/2018 16:06

Not quite! Only yr3 (8-9) and above are allowed to take knives on school trips here.
Maybe it sounds bad when you write it like that Whowhatwhy but by the time they start school they've often done 1-2 years of kindergarten in the same place (can't speak for Finland obviously). So its not a new, unfamiliar walk or concept.

Whowhatwhy · 28/01/2018 16:21

When she was happy to walk then it was perfectly fine, no matter what you think of it, because she was happy with it. Now that she's unhappy with it then it's not fine

But with all due respect OP it hadn't even crossed your mind that she was unhappy until people on here pointed it out to you. Your plan was to tell the school to send her to the toilet with little consideration of her emotional well being.

Original poster
Natsku · 28/01/2018 16:36

Yes I didn't consider it until now, that's my failure, but sending her in the Autumn term was not a failure.

OP posts:
tinkyp · 28/01/2018 17:10

Hi, I just wondered if you would consider buying her a she wee. They are sold in the UK and means you can pee whilst standing up? Much easier than having to pull garments down and quite discreet, particularly easy to use with stretchy waist bands.

GeekyBlinders · 28/01/2018 18:05

becotide please stop conflating things to make it look worse than it it. You look like you're reading comprehension skills are lacking.

Natsku's daughter isn't walking anywhere in the dark having, as you put it, 'pissed herself', your clear implication being that she's urinating in terror from the dark scary walk.

Yes, she has JUST admitted that she doesn't enjoy the morning walk in the dark, but she's wetting herself on the lunchtime walk back, in the daytime, after she's dawdled along chatting to her friend.

GeekyBlinders · 28/01/2018 18:05

*your reading skills

NoMoreUsernames · 28/01/2018 18:33

I’m in the UK and a teacher. In our school children age 10 can walk home if they’ve got written consent, none of the younger children are.

That is ridiculous. I'm also in the UK and most kids here walk home with friends from 7/8 including mine, and yes we're in a city. Other than an increase in traffic there is no more danger now than there was when I walked home at that age in the 70's. Just teach your kids how to cross roads safely.

NeverTwerkNaked · 28/01/2018 18:40

At our school kids can walk home on their own the school year they turn 8. But there are lots of busy roads. The Op has already said that her daughters walk home is traffic free.

Cracker09jacker · 28/01/2018 18:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
Natsku · 28/01/2018 19:21

Will do cracker

Thanks Geeky Blinders some people are rather misrepresenting the situation

OP posts:
arlene123 · 28/01/2018 20:16

I don’t think you would be unreasonable to ask teacher to remind dd to go to the loo but I do think that a 40-60minute walk without a parent/carer most definitely is. Even being able to track her route home WWYD if her gps started going 60 miles an hour in the opposite direction!?! She’s nowhere near mature enough to be able to handle any unexpected changes (eg an accident meaning she would need to change route) I totally understand how difficult it is with SPD but surely your dds safety is paramount and enough for you to ensure someone is able to see her home (IMO)

frogsoup · 28/01/2018 20:40

"I would also ask ss if there is a parenting course they can send you on to help you communicate with your daughter."

Oh for crying out loud. She's communicating fine. They have cosy chats in the sauna, and the DD immediately told her mum something she wasn't happy with!!! So she may have some anxieties around the new baby, but people are adding 2 and 2 and making 576 here. It's not actually clear that the wetting necessarily has anything to do with emotional issues. My eldest sometimes had accidents coming home from school at a similar age, over a similar distance, and she was walking with me and (alas) not through forests! So it's good that it's come out that she doesn't really like doing the dark mornings, but it's not an indication that Natsku was negligently wrong to let her walk to school on her own in the first place! How many times does she have to say that almost every child of that age in her town walks to and from school without an adult?! It boggles me how many people are failing to understand the cultural context here.

MsGameandWatching · 28/01/2018 20:45

It does make me laugh how people romanticise these daily treks through snowy forests. It is fun and exciting every now and then. As a daily requirement it becomes a chore like anything else. I used to be in the army and spent a lot of time in rainy, snowy forests, on hilly, though admittedly picture ground etc. Believe me the novelty soon wears off.

MsGameandWatching · 28/01/2018 20:48

And I am NOT failing to understand the cultural context here, having living in a similar culture for a good few years of my childhood and teenage years. I get it, I do but it's just not the sentimentalised joyous bounding through the forest with tinkling streams and beautiful landscapes that people on here seem to want to believe it is.

frogsoup · 28/01/2018 20:56

Fine, I get that. But there are still people wilfully misreading and madly exaggerating the situation.The OP is not abusing her child by making her walk alone, every other child in the town does it too. It is not an hour's walk in wet clothes in the dark. It is not an hour's walk, in fact. It is 2km, 20-30 minutes max. My kids do that every day as well and have done since reception, it's just their bad luck that most of it is trudging next to busy main roads and that they can't do it with their friends and without me!!!

Greensleeves · 28/01/2018 20:59

I heartily agree with frogsoup. OP you don't need a bloody parenting course, you need your baby to make an appearance and the SPD to bugger off. I think sauna chats with DD sound lovely; she is telling you how she feels, and you are responding to what she is telling you as best you can within the constraints of your situation. Nobody can do more than that.

Please post when you have your little one so that we can congratulate you! Flowers

MsGameandWatching · 28/01/2018 21:01

Its a shame, when all the other kids are supposedly doing it, that there isn't one to walk with isn't it? That confuses me a bit, and I have not exaggerated anything on this thread. I have gone on the information given. As I said previously I don't think the OP is getting as much support as she needs and she and her child are having to suck up difficult situations.

limitedperiodonly · 28/01/2018 21:37

It was just something you did, like every other kid

My parents left school at 14 to support their families KatharinaRosalie. It was something every other kid did at the time. That didn't mean to say that their parents thought it was a good idea.

Original poster
Natsku · 28/01/2018 22:05

I do think there was a point about the communication because I've not been communicating with her like I should the last few weeks. Last term I'd ask her every day how her walk went, did she see any animals etc. as part of my usual asking how school went but I haven't been doing that since the first few days of this term. I could try to excuse it with all the stress at the moment but no, I have let her down by not talking with her properly.

Other children walk the road way which is a bit shorter (but more dangerous in my opinion) or bike it, and at varying times because of the timetable system.

OP posts:
limitedperiodonly · 28/01/2018 22:14

It is not an hour's walk in wet clothes in the dark

It's an hour's walk in pissed knickers in -15 in daylight at 1pm. That's what the OP said originally before revising it. The little girl is not happy. OP and the child's stepfather really need to step up because she sounds like one bloody miserable six-year-old.

Original poster
Natsku · 28/01/2018 22:23

She's not bloody miserable! And she's not walking an hour in wet knickers, don't be disingenuous.

OP posts:
frogsoup · 28/01/2018 22:36

If she was uncomfortable she'd be walking faster, because it isn't an hours walk, and she's already said it often happens just as she gets in the door. She clearly wouldn't wet herself 2mins after leaving school! Why are you so determined to put the boot in? It's bloody horrible. Natsku you sound like a lovely mum, and most of us would be lying if we said we'd been as present and responsive for our kids as we should be in the final months of pregnancy!