Mayflower primary school - nappy changing facilities for school aged children

[2011j]

AIBU to think this shouldn't be necessary?

Not including those with sen, children should be potty trained before starting school - AIBU?

I hope so too.

They are definitely unique. His cancer started in his bowel but 99% of the time isn't going to cause what happened to his bowel, it's possible it was actually the sepsis that did it because it caused multi organ failure but then he also had a cardiac arrest which obviously deprives organs of the oxygen they need to work correctly so that could be it too. So much happened to his poor bowel at once that they couldn't work out what actually caused it.

It's like he has short bowel syndrome except that he doesn't have short bowel syndrome because though he's had several bowel surgeries and they had to remove some bowel, it was never enough to cause it.

It sounds horrific the last thing you need to be worrying about is his education so fingers crossed his transition to high school is smooth .

Thanks.

Do you happen to be aware of the lack of SEN educational provision?

I'm parent to a child starting reception this September so feel well placed to offer an opinion on this.

The problem begins with, I believe, the NHS website. Which advises you to look for multiple signs of readiness and also the notion that children should be sorted in a weekend.

My ds didn't show these readiness signs so I delayed training but then discovered the eric website which advocates potty learning from a young age. I was too late too implement a lot of this at the age they suggest but did do bits of no nappy time every now and then and hot him able to wee on the potty and then bit the bullet and got rid of nappies at 2 and 3/4s and it went OK. He mostly had it at home after a couple of weeks but out and about and at nursery took longer.

Thank goodness I didn't keep delaying though because he became very very stubborn as a 3 year old and would not be taken for a wee any more and wouldsit screaming on the toilet and refuse to go, despite being desperate. He needed to be in control at that age and it would've been so much harder to train then.

I think lots of people miss the 2 year old boat because they're looking for readiness signs or they try it for a weekend and their child doesn't get it reliably straight away so they assume they aren't ready. Then they hit 3 and it's a behaviour based nightmare, hence their kid not being trained at 4. Add on to this the need to take annual leave to train and not just being able to seize the moment at the optimum time and you have school aged kids not trained.

Because people start far too late
Mine were also all toilet trained by 2.5 or earlier .
Its lack of organization/ planning , just getting it done .
Potty training is just that , training , it involves effort and time from parents , sadly lacking these days
I sent my kids to nursery , they were already fully potty trained and had kids standing next to them at the sand table peeing themselves and they had to step away from the puddle of pee.

Puddle of wee at the sand table happens until 3-4 whatever the potty training schedule. Mine was trained by 2 and 3/4 s but we were on hols in Florence and he had a wee whilst admiring the view from the Ponte Vechio aged 4.5. Fine in school though

@LGBirmingham

hard agree with this. Mine both trained at 1.5 and 2.5, 1.5 was actually the easiest, as she wanted to be like her older cousin and was eager to please - there was obviously a phase where we did lots of practice where she would sit on the potty whilst I did a wee on my days off with her, it wasn’t like I was forcing her to train, but she got the idea and we just progressed from there. There were a handful of accidents, but she was reliable. My son was harder but still done and very reliable within a couple of weeks. There is no advantage to waiting until they are ready - they are ready when they can communicate and when they look as if they understand when they might be able to do a poo or wee, but they are also ready if you try to practice and they look as if they might be getting it.

incidentally, i did the second week of potty training with my son on holiday (first at home on annual leave). so many people have said to me that they don’t want to take annual leave to potty train or to potty train on holiday! I mean, wtf wtf parenting is tough and time intensive and involves a level of sacrifice - no holidays with kids are as easy as without them - you just have to suck it up.

I think that a lot of people now seem school essentially in the same terms as a child care entitlement.

I used to know people who said that putting too much on schools would make parents think it was the schools job to raise their kids, and I thought that was silly.

It seems I was wrong.

I do think mobiles is part of it. And children don't seem to call their friends on their own, their parents handle all of their relationships.

But typically the kids often won't know their home address as well, and a surprising number can't spell or are even unsure of their last name.

To a large extent it seems to come down to no one thinking their child might need to tell someone how to call a parent. I also suspect many parents underestimate considerably their child's ability to do things like memorize an address or phone number.

I think this is absolutely what happens to a lot of people.

The need to be telling people to start soon after the 2nd birthday and that they should book some time at home if at all possible.

I think with 3 and 4 year olds you are going to have a much easier time if they are eager to train but a far harder time if they are resistant. It's a gamble I didn't want to make so I did it around 2 when they don't have as much of an opinion.

I think taking my kids with me to the toilet and having a potty that looked like a mini toilet was key in potty training. It was thee from turning 1

Yes exactly I don't think every kid does these signs of readiness but it doesn't mean they're not ready. But I think if the government doesn't want some children to have slipped through the potty training net they really ought to change the guidance on the NHS website to align with the eric guidance.

Parents could be very diligently following the NHS advice and just completely miss the boat!

This thread isn’t about SEN.

All kids are different even without disabilities
I cant remember exactly when i started training my oldest son as hes 18 now ,but it was from around 2-21/2 and it took ages before he waa reliably dry ,he was just turned three before i could,take him out with no accidents
In the great scheme of things most kids will train between 2 and 3
My oldest was toilet trained by the time he started nursery so it was no big deal
My youngest has complex disabillities so it wss a whole different ball game with him.

Agreed ds could probably have been fully reliable a lot earlier if we'd started earlier. I think we could have ditched the nappies 3 months earlier then he would have been fully reliable in every setting by 2 and 3/4s.

Luckily we didn't keep holding out as advised by the NHS and seemingly everyone around us and just cracked on.

I'm now also thinking we may have missed the night time training boat. He had loads of dry nights when we first ditched day time nappies. But the narative around is you can't train night time and you should wait it out. Well at 4.5 ds is only dry 50% of the time at night. I was fully out of nappies at this age but my mum did lift me for a wee. Maybe we should all be going back to this approach as modern guidance seems to be a complete non-sense for day time training?

My response was to suggestion that those who aren't potty trained should attend sen schools. There are children in mainstream with all kinds of ASN, because that's how the education system has decided to educate. Inclusively. Inclusive education means changing facilities and staff to fulfil it. This thread is an ableist nightmare

Ableist nightmare? Do you mean that you think that the loser parents who can’t be bothered to toilet train their non disabled kids have an undiagnosed disability themselves?

No, I think this furore is because some children in school are not potty trained. I cifentally in my son's P2 class (in Scotland so kids 6-7) 1 child is still in nappies, he has significant additional needs, there's 1 child in the P1 class also and he was a 23 week old preemie who had a brain bleed. That's 2 kids out of 60, no other kids started school still in nappies. That's at least in part I suspect due to most kids being 5 here when they start and deferral u til they are 5 with a P1 start if kids aren't ready and provision of an extra nursery year in that circumstance. I know the parents of both kids in my son's school who still wear pull ups and they are extremely involved, brilliant parents with kids with special needs. Thank goodness our school is a lovely and inclusive place. Including of son's epilepsy and associated ADHD. So yes. This thread is an ableist nightmare refusing to believe developmental delays and and inclusive education models are the main reason for changing facilities being required in schools.

Lol I'm 51 I remember my friend being quietly led away when I was in infant school
And when I looked down there was a puddle of wee
My dh is 50 and remember, s a teacher taking him away to be changed when he was 4 or5 due to a poo accident although he does actually think he was blamed for another child's accident
Small children have always had accidents.

Completely agree with the above.

Children who can’t take clothes on/off.
Children who sulk if they can’t do something straightaway and not used to trying.
Children wet themselves because parents don’t like to remind them as they get cross and won’t go to the toilet when we ask because they want to play and won’t try.
The list goes on!

The expectations from parents about what their child can do is low. Parents talk about them only being babies, therefore not expecting them to tidy or pick up food they’ve dropped on the floor.

I find the ‘rougher’ parents often have more expectations of their children or their children have had to get on with things themselves(as sad as that is). It’s the pandering parents who can’t bear their child to be upset for a moment that are much worse and their lack of expectation on manners!

All the children I have known that started school in nappies had recognised disabilities and an EHCP in fact one boy who started school in nappies at my older sons mainstream school, was apparently the only child to have ever been in nappies in reception, he had a diagnosis of global development delay and a rare chromosome disorder and an EHCP.

There are parents who can’t be bothered. If this was tackled then there’d be time for the kids who, through no fault of the parents, need a nappy at school. I’ve not seen people on the thread refusing that special needs exist.

Do you personally know parents who can't be bothered? Because I don't know any. My sister for example whose eldest has autism and trained at 4 and still has accidents at 7 has a 4 and 3 yr old who were out of nappies at 2.

The problem is the people wanting to pin this on a parenting issue while discounting social issues in the cases of genuine neglect, SEN, lack of provision for SEN education, lack of available resourcesto diagnose early etc etc