6yo forced to wear nappy

[AmberValentine]

Hi, so my DP is currently in court proceedings regarding his DD who will be 6 in Sept.
DPsDD is currently living with him after his ex said she couldn't cope with her own MH and initially agreed DPsDD could live with my DP so DPsDD could get to school.

For context DP lives 50miles away from ex due to his work. So DPsDD had to transfer to new school.

Prior to the move, there has been a lot of correspondence and investigation by SS against DPs ex revolving around neglect and other concerning issues.

Interim order currently states that DPsDD lives with him for school and visits DPs ex on the weekend.

DPsDD has brought it to our attention that DPs ex is making DPsDD wear a nappy during the day when travelling on the bus and throughout the cinema even though DPsDD is toilet trained, has been for nearly 3 years. She's always been really good at going to the toilet, stopping what she's doing to go and there's been very few if any accidents that I can recall.

Aibu to be appalled by what is happening to DPsDD?

That's a very distressing update, OP... and hopefully a bit of insight for those on here who are excusing it and think it's OK (or even sensible) of the mother to do this.

Denying a child the opportunity to toilet properly (AND WITH DIGNITY) and insisting that they use a nappy is abuse in my book.

Ring the SW dealing with it and ask their advice. Sounds like mum isn't able to care for her dd adequately but not sure if you can cut contact. Is it going through family court atm? This needs to be logged. Your dp needs to explain very clearly to her that she is not to wear nappies and is allowed to go to the toilet when needed. Personally I'd not tell her until I told the SW and see if the SW can tell her in a way that won't cause conflict between them or make dd feel like she's got her mum into trouble.

That's not suprising, a school setting is different to a day out with lots of travelling. Day to day my 5 year old would be in underpants, but travelling, up until recently I'd put him in a pull-up. If you were his teacher you would never know this. I'm sure I'm not the only person to have done this with a small child.

Either way there is clearly more going on here that wasn't mentioned in the opening post.

Obvious that many of you have no idea about safeguarding or things that shouldn’t be occurring. @AmberValentine hope things get settled soon, how awful!

Holding back a child from meeting expected milestones, compromising a child's independence and dignity is a form of abuse whether it is laziness on the parent's behalf or an indication of some mental health issue of the parent's. As an anecdote, I was once very surprised to have a reception child come to the familiarisation day in a buggy and wearing a nappy (it was the early 80s and it was not uncommon that reception would be the child's first experience of a group setting). During the subsequent home visit it became clear that Mum (and Nan) had significant mental health problems but it was in no way neglect - quite the opposite. But it had to be dealt with for the child's benefit. And was dealt with over the next year or so.
As with all things social services related, my advice would be not to recant the situation in full but to invite the social worker to explore the subject 1-2-1 and draw out the facts themselves. You could just say you have some concerns around toileting.

No. This isn't true. It definitely could be neglect. Failing to toilet train, or forcing toilet trained children to remain in nappies is a really common form of neglect.

OP inform the social worker/ social services if not currently assigned a worker.