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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be extremely abgry that ds's teacher ignored him when he said he needed the toilet?

85 replies

mustsleep · 06/02/2008 10:19

ok so i picked ds up from school yesterday and noticed that he had a carrier bag with his trousers and pants in it, when i asked him what that was all about he told me he had wet himself (he is six)

i had to go to work so couldnt question him further until i had got home

when i got home i asked him about it he was v upset and said that he couldn;t hold it, i said thats unusual for you (he hasn't wet himself since he was three) he went on to say that he had asked his teacher if he could go to the loo and she said no and then he had asked the ta and he had said no, so poor ds wet himself in class infront of all the other kids

now i am fuming that they would deny him the right to use the toilet and also that she didn;t think to discuss it with me herself and just left ds to tell me about it

now all this week he has been saying to me that he doesn;t want to go to school as he has a tummy ache and i just thought it was a phase but now he's sayoing that on a dinner time when he needs the loo noone will let him go (he has speech prob so i'm thinking maybe they can not understand him although he's never had any trouble b4)

i do not know what to do about this i have let him have the day off today and am taking him to the docs what with the tummy ache and the pants wetting to rule out a bladder infection, i have also told him that if he really needs the toilet and he is told no to just go and use it

aibu???

OP posts:
roisin · 07/02/2008 20:57

I agree completely pointydog.

Maybe it's just grumpy old teachers. We can't just walk off and pop to the loo whenever we like, which is why we begrudge it for the kids

LittleBella · 07/02/2008 20:59

I think it's extraordinary that it's still considered OK to allow a child to wet themselves in front of other children and shrug and say it's a price worth paying for ensuring some little tykes don't exploit the facility. It's the sort of incident that can put kids off school or give them hang ups for years. How can that possibly be worth it? I find it really depressing that there's still such a matter of fact approach to children's feelings about something which might be a really enormous big deal to them. I can understand that as a teacher you might get inured to it because for every child who wets themself and is genuine there are 10 who are messing about, but I still feel very uncomfortable about the quite callous attitude to this sort of incident.

Having said that, you do sound very angry and I think you need to get into reasonable mode before you discuss it with your DS's teacher. You need to give her a chance to explain the rationale. However, the fact that there's no contact book strikes me as very crap tbh. I thought every infant school had them, I'm surprised to hear of one that doesn't.

trockodile · 07/02/2008 21:00

Can you imagine a thread eg'I work on the till at tesco and wet myself because they refused to let me go the loo'? We would all be horrified. I still think it is a basic human right.

justpinions · 07/02/2008 21:01
Angry
pointydog · 07/02/2008 21:03

You don;t know if they are pretedning because you do not watch. Rules are needed. Including basic ones like not going out while the teaching bit is going on.

It is usually possible to have a reasonable idea if a child is really needing or not and I do feel sorry for your son. You need to talk calmly to the teacher and find out what happened. You need to hear what rules, if any, there are. If your son will find these rules difficult, you need to tell the teacher and request he is an eception to these rules. If a parent tells me there is a reason (whether physical or emotional) why their child needs to go on demand, I happily accept that. Maybe this teacher will too.

pointydog · 07/02/2008 21:06

It would be very disruptive to all the children's learning if people were streaming out to the toilet during teaching. And at certain times on certain days, that is what would happen. A stream of toilet trips.

roisin · 07/02/2008 21:07

It's not 1 in 10 though LittleBella.
OK, I work in secondary, but on average I would say I have at least 1 child asking to go to the toilet during every lesson. And many of them will swear blind that they are absolutely desperate for the loo, make a huge drama, claim human rights and all that stuff.

Over the past 2.5 years I must have refused in the region of 1400 requests to go to the toilet. And not one has wet themselves yet!

IF every member of staff in the building always refused to let kids out to the toilet they would stop asking, and the problems that are caused by children missing part of the lesson and/or getting up to whatever nonsense in the corridors/toilets unsupervised during lesson times would stop happening.

LittleBella · 07/02/2008 21:19

Yes but as you've said, that's secondary, so I would say that's a totally different beast.
Six year olds aren't likely to be shouting about human rights. (At least not the ones I know ) And by secondary, they can control their bladder unless it's special circs and they know the score.

However, that story about the girl not being allowed to go when it was her period is horrible. And I can imagine that if it's a first period and you don't know what to expect and that it's happening, that sort of accident could happen. How would you feel if that happened to one of your pupils? Wouldn't you be utterly mortified?

LittleBella · 07/02/2008 21:21

Oh god I think I'd have to move county and school if that happened to me.

MotherFunk · 07/02/2008 21:24

Message withdrawn

pointydog · 07/02/2008 21:27

No one has even wet themselves in class in my presence.

And I am not talking nonsense. I really don;t mind at all if you choose not to believe it.

LittleBella · 07/02/2008 21:32

They may not have wet themselves, but can you really argue that it is healthy?

This thread has made me realise that I should probably speak to DD's teacher about this issue. DD is so frustrating as she quite often needs to go to the loo 10 minutes after she's just been - she's not messing about, she really does go. It's particularly irritating when you're out shopping with her. But she gets unexplained belly aches quite a lot and I'm wondering if she's often holding it in in school. Hmmm...

southeastastra · 07/02/2008 21:34

this thread has been going on for ages. there comes a time when one has to learn to control their bladder.

MotherFunk · 07/02/2008 21:34

Message withdrawn

pointydog · 07/02/2008 21:35

It's healthy, yes, because children go to the toilet at the soonest convenient time unless there is a good reason to do otherwise.

LittleBella · 07/02/2008 21:36

That would be a nice, helpful, sympathetic thing to say to an upset 6 year old SEA.

MotherFunk · 07/02/2008 21:37

Message withdrawn

pointydog · 07/02/2008 21:38

I'm just guessing but I don;t think southeast would say that to an upset 6 year old. she is saying it to you on a message board

MotherFunk · 07/02/2008 21:38

Message withdrawn

LittleBella · 07/02/2008 21:38

Why? I don't have any problems with bladder control.

southeastastra · 07/02/2008 21:40

at six you would expect a child to have control

pointydog · 07/02/2008 21:41

two sarcastic faces at once. Lovely

MotherFunk · 07/02/2008 21:43

Message withdrawn

southeastastra · 07/02/2008 21:44

i haven't read the whole thread but ime if a child suddenly wets theirselves there is an underlying problem

pointydog · 07/02/2008 21:45

I don't think it was his own fault at all.

I'm off.