Holiday club - public toilets

[Robynfaith198]

My little one year 2 attends a holiday club with some of his school friends at a leisure centre. They do lots of sports, cake making, bouncy castle etc. He LOVES it!

He came home yesterday and said he went to the toilet on his own (lady waited near the main desk whilst he went in the toilet) and he said he had to go in the men’s (he’s used to coming in ladies with me which I understand he likely can’t do that without me there). Anyway he said when he went in there was a man having a wee at the urinal and he saw the man’s Willy whilst he was having a wee. (I obviously asked all the relevant safety questions and all seems fine aside from feels a bit weird when I wouldn’t send him in the men’s alone if we were out and about!)

AIBU to think this is a bit wrong at a holiday club considering it’s like public toilets that perhaps the holiday club staff should check nobody is in there? Or wait right outside the toilet? Or let the kids use the disabled toilet?

I don’t know if I’m being over the top 😅

Quite a few people are comparing holiday clubs to schools but the reality is it’s not the same. Schools are staffed by fully qualified 4 year degree, often experienced adults with decades of safeguarding procedures in place.
holiday clubs are not. And you could argue that you want them to be, and that’s valid, but they would no longer be able to offer their services anywhere near as cheaply.

To be honest, it probably wouldn't have crossed my mind when booking (it will now!). My son goes to holiday clubs at schools so the situation has never arisen. I am surprised that OP's leisure centre hasn't considered this though and I think she should bring it up.

It’s a public toilet and your child is going to a club in a public leisure centre. They can’t stand outside and stop members of the public using public toilets.

Disabled toilets are for disabled people.

I think if I had an issue with it (and I might have, because after all we never know and assaults do happen in public toilets), I probably wouldn’t send him to that club.

Ive had a son that age and I also think the op is BU. It's a leisure centre, not some grotty out on the street facilities. At 6/7 years old he should be capable of doing this and it's v v unlikely that in the middle of a daytime session in a well lit, well populated public facility anyone is going to be doing anything dodgy. Unclench. No wonder the country is collapsing under the weight if people who can't work due to anxiety if perfectly normal things like this create such stress.

Lol the men’s toilets isn’t some war zone or something. It’s a toilet. It’s not full of rampant sex offenders waiting to pounce. My nephew is 6 and happily uses the men’s on his own and has done since he was 5. My DSS on the other hand is 10 and is scared to go in the men’s toilets because his mum has told him some nonsense about how there’s dangerous people in there and insists on taking him to the ladies with her (I’ve seen her say/do this). When he’s on his own, he will hold it in, eg at school, which is really unhealthy but he says he can’t use public toilets on his own. I have relented when I’m on my own with him and taken him to the ladies (as I don’t want him to hold it in) but I know it’s not right and we only get away with it because he looks very young for his age. I try my best to reassure him and encourage him to use the gents but his thinking is quite rigid and his mum feeds it. It’s all arisen because he’s been told that toilets and particularly men’s toilets are a scary thing. My nephew has had none of that crap and is very confident. People think they’re protecting their kids by telling them the gents is a scary place but it’s doing them no favours.

It is v.v. unlikely, but it’s not impossible. There are several fairly easy ways to reduce the risk even further, and these should have been considered and documented by the setting. Let them go and hope for the best has never been in any safeguarding policy I’ve read.

Another school safeguarding lead here and I think your approach is unworkable and I have complained about a school doing similar. At a big event for schools at an arena (NB all toilets schools only not public) a teacher tried bringing a group of boys into toilets where my Y6 girls were. It made them feel deeply uncomfortable not to mention adding to the huge queues for the ladies toilets. This event was for 5000 children many of whom were only accompanied by female staff and she was the only teacher I saw try that. My y5 and y6 boys would have been both horrified and embarrassed had I done that plus I’m sure I’d have had parents of both boys and girls complain.

In the OP’s holiday club situation and in a school situation, I insist boys (and girls) go to the toilet in at least pairs and wait for each other whilst an adult is stationed outside. Any longer than a couple of minutes and I will call in to check they are okay. If I had a large group of boys and lots of members of the public, I’d be lining the boys up and sending a few in at a time and suggesting any men also join the queue. This is also my approach to the girls. I’m thinking of venues like York Railway museum where each set of toilets only have a few cubicles. I know some boys are insistent on always using a cubicle in public toilets but this is personal preference. Toileting 30 children in a public venue is a huge undertaking without restricting them to ladies toilets only.

OP in your situation, I’d train your son to ask if a friend can go with him and speak to staff about ensuring children go in pairs if the public toilets are in use by other centre users. Whenever possible, have him go in the men’s with a trusted male adult rather than the ladies so he is used to the set up ready for going in independently.

the past decade or so has seen swathes of lefty ideals focussing only on what is best for an individual only and not on the impact of said ideal. I don’t think it’s worked as we now have a generation who have never been told no or to consider others.

the ideal for this 7y old boy would be to go to the toilet whenever he wants, to be taken in to the ladies by 2 (required to protect them) female members of staff. This has knock on effect to other people (all points raised in this thread)…

1. staffing costs increase thus increase of cost of club for everyone
2. 8-12 yr old girls in the ladies feeling uncomfortable
3. increased queues at ladies. Every plan I have seen of public buildings allocates the same size space to men’s and ladies. Despite the fact ladies take longer - clothes, sit down and periods; plus 90% of under 8s are in there too; plus urinal take up less space. In it insanely patriarchal in our society that new toilets aren’t build with whatever% of the total space is required for queues to be equitable.

I'm a teacher. I understand safeguarding thanks. Nothing is impossible. It's unlikely I'll get hit by a car when I cross the road but you take reasonable precautions and go ahead. In this case, daylight, a well lit and populated staffed facility with a staff member aware that the child is in there and when they went in is reasonable precautions. If it was dark, in a outside, public park type toilet, not so much. I stand by my comment that we need to stop doing the "worst case scenario" thing for every normal, everyday activity.

This is absolute nonsense.
I’ve been a parent helper on multiple trips.

In years 1&2, an adult is always in the toilets outside the cubicles by the door/ sinks. Boys in male toilets. Girls in female toilets. Parent helper or teacher. They’ve always managed to borrow a male teacher or TA from another year group if there wasn’t one in the year group, or a dad volunteering for this age group.

Years 3-6, teacher or parent helper can wait outside boys if nobody is there to go in with them.

For Reception - it happened there were private toilets, maybe deliberately.

True, however, the most likely person to abuse a child is someone known to their parents or who have groomed them over a period of time. I was annoyed because the op sent her child to a public place, where . adult men will be too and was angry that a child club member of staff (and id bet they are all female and young) hasn't vetted the toilet first.

This was going to be my question, surely he knows what a penis looks like he's got one himself and it's a very odd thing for him to comment on.

About 25 years ago I was member of a gym. One guy insisted on bringing his daughters in to the changing room. Fine one was 4ish the other was about 10 and clearly was as embarrassed as I was when I walked round the corner after hanging up my towel to shower.

Based on what you've said, I think it sounds reasonable that for young children staff accompany them into the ladies (or men's if the staff is a man) and supervise outside the cubicle while children go privately in a cubicle, just like a mum or a dad would. For men's this should involve waiting until the urinals are clear. A typical age at which children are expected to use the toilets of their own sex is 8.

basic safeguarding isn't all that hard to do.

when working with groups of young people, we would never send them off to use public toilets alone, without checking first that they were completely empty of unknown random people. we wouldn't have accompanied them into the toilets ourselves either - our training was very strict about never putting yourself in a position where you and a child were alone and out of everyone else's eyesight.

if i was out with a group that contained young boys,and my co-instructor was also female, we would still have checked the gents' toilet area was empty before sending any of the boys in to use them (and would always encourage childrento go in pairs so they were never alone).

Your own penis or your dads penis is not the same as a strangers penis though is it? Let’s be frank. And it’s not at all odd for a young child to comment on that.

I think YABU. My DS is 8, using the men’s, and I’m sick of seeing boys older than him in the ladies.

When I accompanied my children's class on a school trip this year, the teacher made it clear that we volunteers were not allowed to go into the toilets with them. We waited outside the doors, and she was the only one allowed to check on them. I would think the same would apply to allowing them to be in the toilets unaccompanied with random members of the public? It's not necessarily the seeing male anatomy that's the issue per say, but I wouldn't send either of my children into the public toilets alone with unknown adults at this age so I'd definitely feel a bit odd about this one.

All the women afraid of being assaulted by a man using the women’s toilets, but yet it’s fine for a 6 year old boy to use the toilet unaccompanied with a random man because boys are more of a threat to women than men are to children. 🤷🏻‍♀️

OP, I think this may be a consequence of using a leisure centre holiday club because they won’t be set up to have separate facilities. But I absolutely wouldn’t be comfortable with it and no way would my 6 year old be going into a public toilet unaccompanied. Our holiday club doesn’t even let the public past the front door, let alone into the loos with the kids.

DS is 9 now and has been going to the gents toilets for at least 2 years. If he is with me then he has to go on his own. And I wait outside.

That sounds like what happened so I personally wouldn’t really have an issue with this. It may be better - as a PP said if children went in groups

‘All the women afraid of being assaulted by a man using the women’s toilets, but yet it’s fine for a 6 year old boy to use the toilet unaccompanied with a random man because boys are more of a threat to women than men are to children. 🤷🏻‍♀️’

Im not sure why you’ve used 🤷🏻‍♀️, it isn’t that confusing. The difference is the likelihood. 1 in 4 women have been sexually assaulted by a man. It’s so so many. Thank goodness 1 in 4 children don’t have the same stat.

I manage a holiday club
yesterday we took 30 children aged between 5 and 10 to the local town centre for a children’s event.
we took the children to the public toilets and I went in and I went into the ladies and waited for it to empty. We then quickly took all 30 in and explained to anyone who then wanted to enter who we were and would they mind just waiting a few minutes. We were in and out in 5 mins (there were quite a few cubicles)
as there were only female members of staff I was not prepared to send the boys in unaccompanied. Although only a very slight risk it was not one I was prepared to take when I could ask people to be considerate for just a few minutes. Everyone was more than happy to help us.
we as a holiday club take safeguarding very seriously- should an incident occur I would be responsible for explaining why we had not chosen a safer option

Also, not a single person has said, or would ever say, that 7 yr old boys are a threat to women. You just made that up.

Thank you everyone and especially those who actually made sensible comments 😅 those saying I was insinuating every man is a peado - please take a look at yourself - that’s ridiculous - we all know how many freaks are in this world and I was simply thinking of it from a safeguarding perspective to minimum and prevent risk, rather than the unthinkable happen! Also those asking why he hadn’t been in a public toilet with his dad - equally please think before you presume he has a dad who can take him in a public toilet!

I spoke to the club this AM and asked about their approach with this situation and they were extremely kind. So yesterday the man who delivered lunch had gone to the loo and two older boys were messing around so the man snapped whilst having a wee and told them to stop messing around, my child was equally in the loo at this time and I think it likely startled him a little! The lady this morning said she was more than happy for him to use the disabled toilet / go in the woman’s loo’s with her and her daughter when they went for a loo break and go into his own cubicle! So it was dealt with very well and everyone was happy! She also said they walk them to the toilets and wait outside!

also those saying my son needs speaking to about staring at other peoples penis’s - I have no words 🤣 no the men’s toilets are not a war zone and they aren’t full of sexual predators BUT… there are more freaks than not in this world and I’m not taking that chance.

anyway all sorted and it proved to me today - if you’re not happy about something or something niggles you - speak up! They’re our babies and sod what the rule book says as to when they should be going into the men’s toilets alone - I’ll always protect my child FIRST!

thank you to everyone who was kind 🩷

Yeah, forget the rule book about using the right sex toilets by 8 and girls privacy and dignity. Feel the power. So kind. ❤️

Someone should have checked who was in the toilet before letting the child go in alone.