Toilet training before school

[jackass232]

I saw a piece on the news last night about how there's been a big rise in the number of children starting school not fully toilet trained. I think the figures were something like 13% of kids in any reception class are not fully trained and that teachers are on average spending 2.5 hours per day dealing with toileting accidents and issues.

Obviously this is quite shocking (I expected to see a MN post about it actually, sorry if I missed one) but I can sympathise as my ds started reception with issues surrounding pooing - mostly holding onto it, becoming constipated and having leaks. I remember always packing spare pants for him and I know the TA had to help him change a lot. This wasn't anything to do with laziness on my part. He was just hard to toilet train and continued with these issues for quite some years. The school was always lovey about it but I felt very embarrassed and upset on behalf of my son.

I feel the general narrative behind this story is that parents just can't be arsed to toilet train their kids and are happily sending them in and letting teachers deal with them. But that's not always the case. I know it's a big drain on schools but what's the answer? And why has there been such a rise?

It seems these days that ' school ' is all about childcare rather than education.

Once upon a time, children went to school to be educated and learn the 3 r's - reading / riting / rithmetic :)

Now it all seems to be ' me and my oh work full time and our school doesn't offer breakfast club from 7 am and after school club until 7 pm what do we do !!! '
and the child is not toilet trained / doesn't know how to get dressed / undressed / how to use knife and fork / tie shoe laces etc.

Do / did teachers really do their degrees just to change nappies for a % of their working day ?!!!

It's wrong to call parents who don't have the time and rely for longer on disposable as lazy. When it's often because both of them are working full time now, which didn't used to happen in the 60s . An sahp has far more time to devote to this, and there were more of them when kids were trained younger.

Nappies are yet another thing in the long list of costs involved in going to work vs staying at home.

Nearly every child I know that's had issues with withholding poo, has been 3+ when potty training started. I know a lot of children with poo problems.

Back in the day when children were potty trained at 18-24 months, there were very few children who had issues with pooing (a close relative was a health visitor in the 1980/90s and said it was something she rarely came across). Older toddlers have willpower that young toddlers do not have. This creates a problem for many who use withholding as a way to protest about something they don't like (having a comfortable nappy removed from them and being made to use the toilet).

I remember my mum trying to get my sister toilet trained ready for play school, when she was too. I'm a paediatric nurse and many kids (without special needs) are still in napped at 3-3.5 or later..

My son had issues withholding poo, we started at 2. He had about 6 weeks of withholding then exploding, I didn’t want to park potty training as he had nailed weed and I knew it was a psychological thing with poos that we had to overcome at some point.

Nursery were amazing at supporting us. He is the one who isn’t dry at night too - he’s nearly 5.

As I said. My youngest trained at the same age. No issues. I think poo problems are really common.

Genuinely surprised by this thread, which is not to challenge it at all. We have a four year old and thought we were pretty knowledgeable switched on parents. No-one even suggested a potty until he was 2.5, he struggled and then we tried again a month later - fine.

We have younger children and in my head it has always been 2.5 - 3, which does fit with with their somewhat delayed communication. HVs have always approved and no-one has suggested this might be late at all.

It honestly never occurred to me that an 18 month old could make a start. If we didn't know, I doubt other parents in our generation without many kids in the family do either.

Can you explain what you mean? I thought the general consensus was that there isn't more neuro divergent people out there, but it's being more easily diagnosed. Therefore, back what the age when potty trained children was lower, there was still the same number of neurodivergent children, they just didn't have a diagnosis. So more diagnoses shouldn't be having an impact on the increasing age of potty training.

I work, my husband works. Devoting the time to training my second child was difficult and a barrier - we recognised he was ready and delayed it by a month or two I’d say. Ultimately though it’s something that needs to be done. It doesn’t fall under something that’s optional so you have to find a way to prioritise it.

Sadly, there is a growing number of people who believe that their childish having any kind of additional needs, means they no longer have to parent in any way whatsoever. I say this as a parent to a child with SEN. I come across these people regularly. One I'll never forget. She point blank refused to tell her DS to do anything or not to do something (even if it's dangerous) and gave his SEN as a reason. Every time. Zero discipline of any kind.
It totally skews the awareness & understanding for the rest of us with DC with SEN and makes our lives ten times harder

This is exactly it, it’s become so normalized that children start later it’s become odd for new parents to even think the norm is as young as it was.

Im a new ish parent (am 31 with a 3 year old) but still did research around potty training when she was a baby.

Working parents have 6 weeks holiday a year, and childcare providers will support with toilet training when they are at work.

It is laziness.

Those that were ND who were still in nappies were not allowed to start nursery or school.

There have always been some children who have bowel issues that mean toilet training is difficult. I worked in a primary school 2006-2014 and we routinely had kids with issues. We had a special area to change them and for them to get sorted with a shower head etc.

There were also accidents in reception; it's always been standard to ask parents for a change of clothes to be kept at school because small children do have accidents even if generally trained.

I can imagine the proportion of kids not trained is going up though.

It's all part of a general move to more relaxed, some woukd say lazy, parenting style.

Children are poorer sleepers, much more clingy babies, weaning on to solid foods is slower and many more babies are fussy and faddy eaters. The potty training delay is no surprise.

It makes me roll my eyes. The same articles appear every few years. I found one from 2013 last night. I remember one the year I started teaching in 2003 as well.

Agree that it's because parents are either more relaxed/can't be bothered with it. Also, there's less 'shame' now about older children still being in nappies.

DC1 was about 2 years 10 months when potty trained and to be fair, I think she could have done it earlier... In all honesty, I was putting it off a bit. However, she was done literally within a day; in fact we actually went out the first day - I just made sure she went before/after leaving and she was fine. Literally no accidents.

DC2 was about 3 years and 3 months. He actually had a phobia about sitting on the potty though, would wet himself rather than use it. In the end, I used a bit of tough love and made him sit on it to do a wee (all the time cuddling him and comforting him) and after that he was fine, he just needed to get over the initial fear. I don't know whether that was the right thing to do, but again, no issues since then. Some parents probably would have just left it though and he likely would have still been in nappies for a while after that.

@Charlie2121
Theres presumably loads of differences between provate and state kids
-- Money,
potentially time spent at preschool,
sen (sen kids unlikely to be accepted),
--age in year group if selective school will take more older kids

• Sex selection as boys train later

-- Generally tricky personality of child again selcted against in private schools

• Parents working full time, not at all, wfh etc
• Diet more fruit and veg less constipation
• Too much sweets or chocolate etc
• Worry about damage to rental property?
• Having to use public transport and local parks -- with no toilets
• Even shops have none

Agree with pp re it is where you have to instruct more that act passively.

It is likely the higher sen rates and fewer sen school places.
Even a kid i know who was still in nappies at 6+ was still in state till that age.

Both my dc are tricky dc1 with sen referral. Very oppositional. So something involving telling her to do something every hour or 2 just led to resistance.

Dc2 i did start very early but just ended up wjth poop and wee everywhere.

The quality of nursery matters too as some wont remind kids to go.

Ideally schools wouldnt accept kids where it is the parenrs not bothering.

Possibly kids were more placid but what is certain is parenting was more strict.

And compared to decades ago school starts at 4 vs 5.

All my, now adult, children were potty trained by 20 months. Various factors
include I only worked part time around DH’s work so was at home during the day.
Pre-school accepted children at 3 years but only if potty trained.
Nappies were expensive.
Some parents don’t take responsibility and some children have medical issues but many children go to nursery before potty training can be expected or possible. Nursery staff don’t do potty training. I always said I needed 2 weeks of intense (ie stay at home) potty training to feel confident in child’s control. Not easy for working mums.
However, unless there is a medical/neurodivergent reason, parents need to ensure their children are potty trained before they start school.

This is exactly what happened with my LO. Painful experience completely ruined potty training for us and then refusal and accidents. It wasn’t because I was a “lazy parent”. I tried all the methods - pull-ups, complete removal, wearing no trousers at home for a week, potty chart, bubbles, stickers (not all at once obviously).

LO is nearly 5 and still has toilet anxiety. Doesn’t like to poop but much better and doesn’t like people overhearing toilet activities. They will happily go to the toilet now but only with myself or DH but prior to the painful experience she was happy to go with family members. Mostly refuses to go at school unless desperate and has occasional accidents. I’m so embarrassed, I feel like such a failure to LO and people view me as “lazy” because of the toilet issues we have. I’ve cried so many times because of worrying about LO and also what the teachers/ people think of me.

It's surprising the number of people who are suggesting that leaving potty training if you work full time is reasonable or that it becomes someone else's job if you're working. You can't, it isn't, you have to do it. My DH and I took a week of annual leave when we decided the time had come and did nothing else but stay in the house potty training, all day long for the whole week. By the end of the 7 days, it was fine and ready to go for preschool, but you have to make it an absolute priority to get it done.

Of course, I'm speaking of the majority of parents whose children will train just fine with a little bit of effort, not being critical of parents of children who may struggle.

That was the point that struck me.

That and the one about children swiping their fingers across the pages of books.

😟

It’s true that teachers can often feel like some parents are trying to “outsource” as much of their parenting responsibilities as possible. I get it that two working parents is really hard on family life, but having kids is a choice.

If you work full time why does that mean you can't potty train until older? You'll still be working then so you're just kicking the issue down the road...

I'm a childminder and I help with potty training of course, but unless parents are doing it at home too, there's little point.