LACK OF POTTY TRAINING BEFORE STARTING SCHOOL.

[DARNLY]

I think he is just trying to make a general point that many children (not specific children with various health issues such as prematurity, of course they should have extra support and help). are turning up to school at the ages of 4/5 not potty trained at all. Parents surely must take some responsibility for this. 1 teacher, 30 plus children with what appears to be levels of up to half the classes not potty trained. This is an impossible situation for the teacher, disruptive for education and difficult to time manage and not good for the child. Along with issues of an increasing lack of discipline in some very young children, teachers are leaving in their droves, we are in crisis. They are teachers not parents and do a fine job caring for our little ones in exceptional difficult circumstances these days. I was a working midwife and mother of 3 children. It was expected among parents of reception classes to try to ensure children were potty trained Potty training surely is a parents responsibility not a teachers. I don't remember any child in any class not being potty trained or virtually there. A busy state school with 30 plus in the class.

@autienotnaughty the part about nappies is exactly what my mother used to say about potty training being later and later in recent years. She said when people had to soak cloth nappies, boil them, dry them etc etc they potty trained much, much earlier. Also in other countries where disposable nappies are not in common use, children are also trained earlier. Disposable nappies just make it so much easier for parents not to have all the faff and bother of cloth ones.
Also, each disposable nappy takes around 500 years to decompose in landfill.

I’m glad someone clarified this. As I was wondering whether this was just about children who have the odd accident, and we have become much less tolerant about that now.

my child was potty trained at 2. She went to school at just turned 4 (august born) and had 3-4 poo accidents that year. She never once had an accident at home. She was fully toilet trained.

but we seem to have forgotten that school is a difficult experience, can be incredibly overwhelming and some children just become distracted or don’t feel comfortable for whatever reason. She had never once had an accident before she started school and could independently use the toilet. She just became overwhelmed and frightened of it at school. I had no idea until she actually had the accident.

Both parents working isn't a new scenario, and neither is potty training, yet children going to school in nappies is a relatively new phenomenon. Special needs aside there is no excuse for leaving potty training until school age, it is definitely lazy parenting. And waiting until a child is ready, what does that even mean? It seems to mean waiting until the child themselves wants to do it.

The Nightinghales, the parents with Wfh jobs and kids in childcare all day are a lot likelier to be pushy competititve parents "advancing" and enriching their kids from birth than keeping them in nappies till five. Their kids are likely to have travelled half the world, and have the skills aged 5 you and me got aged 25. They are extremely unlikely to send a kid to school in nappies.

In contrast they are the ones more likely to do damage and slighyly delay potty training by being pushy and starting early rathet than thr other way rou d

What is people's experience of people, omg. It's like people on mumsnet never leave the house or step outside the carefully curated circle of people they see.

I mean private nursery, they should be trained before pre-school at 3.
When my DC started preschool, last one 7 years ago, they had to be fully trained.

I think the issue is the official advice changed from what it was for previous generations, but is also contradictory. The NHS and much of the parental guides (provided by health visitors etc) recommend waiting for signs of readiness, and are annoyingly vague on methods; ERIC contradicts the waiting approach, so I think the NHS webpage guidance etc may need updating. I also think parents now work more (both full time & longer hours) with less family & other forms of support. We are just coming out of the other side of potty training for DS at the end of 2 years of age, working on potty training in tandem with DS’s nursery (following our lead), with DD being born (3mo) & a nursery change along the way, so it took a few months to get through. We had to wait for a bank holiday to jump start it (did the naked method).

Some seem to think the goal of parenting now is to be your child’s best friend, never to push them to do things they find difficult, prevent them from ever being upset.. no, the point of being a parent is to teach them the life skills they need to navigate school, and then the wider world. They won’t always like it. They won’t always like you. But parents shouldn’t allow their children to fail. They think they’re being kind to their children, but in fact they’re doing them a great disservice.

This. My DD has just started reception and none of the DC are in nappies including one with a significant disability.

I've done a bit of googling to find the 2024 research - it's a survey of 1000 teachers and 1000 parents with a report. Data has been picked out for quotes and graphics in the report and then further cherry picked by the media for headlines. I'm not saying that we as parents shouldn't be trying to make every child school ready and I think more education and information for parents would be good, I'm just not sure it's as stark as they're making out.

I also can't find the exact question asked of teachers regarding the "24% not toilet trained" statistic - does this mean occasionally having accidents? Need reminding to go to the loo? Can't wash their hands? The wording of the question makes a difference as the media make it sound like 24% of reception children are in nappies all the time and I'm not convinced that is how "toilet trained" is being used here.

My DD had a "school readiness check" 6 months before school by a HV (a test programme in some areas which I think would be great if they do roll it out everywhere) and was found ready, no issues. If there had been issues, I believe the HV would have given advice or worked with us to resolve with enough time to do so before school started. However, I'm very aware she's in the older half (if not third) of the class, has attended nursery from 1 and has no SEN/health etc issues. There are some DC that have only just turned 4.

No, not them. The ones working two jobs, or parents working opposite shifts, the ones who can't afford childcare.

The irony of you saying people need to step out of their own experiences...

I don't recall anyone when i started school not being potty trained and my Mum always commented on the 'pull-ups' adverts, that i was potty trained well before the age of the children in the adverts. I knew a reception teacher who was surprised to find that several children turned up in to school in nappies but relieved she wasn't expected to change them, any child who did turn up in a nappy was sent home which almost halved her class size.

I agree. Lots of lazy dads about who don't bother to make sure their kids are toilet-trained before they start school.

It was much better back in the day when fathers had to wash nappies by hand and therefore had an incentive to make sure their kids were out of nappies as quickly as possible.

Fathers should be called at work and have to come in and change their kids if they need changing at school.

I would love to know the background of kids not potty trained by school age. I suspect it is often those from parents who expect the state to do everything for them... but would be interested to see the facts.

That is just lazy parenting though - me and DH were both working and potty trained DS well before school

I can understand a little later, I don't think we pushed ours as young as my mum would have liked 😂but we were definitely ready and trained by 2 or 3. One of ours was still bed wetting and not great at wiping but could still manage himself to use the loo if he needed it.
Still in nappies at school age could be seen as lazy and probably is in some circumstances.
However, it would be interesting to see the data around the family set ups and poverty issues for children that are not ready. Lots of people are worrying about food on the table, foodbanks, working crazy hours for wages that don't cover the basics. Living in mould ridden one bedroom flats with no family support. It doesn't take an awful stretch of the imagination to see how living a chaotic, stressful and crappy existence could have an affect on how much time and headspace you have to potty train.
I would be flabbergasted if the non potty trained kids are from families where the cuboards are full and days out are plenty and homes are spacious with lovely bathrooms and money for fancy toilet papers and handsoaps.

How can you be totally sure of that? It was only part way through my daughters reception year that I learnt that 3 of the kids were still in nappies, none of them had SEN. This was in a class of 18

I don’t think there were any untrained children when either of mine started school. When my youngest started there were many children having accidents until half term when they sensibly introduced a toilet schedule.
If your child isn’t ready for toilet training and you have to force it, as it did with one of mine, it can takes weeks, difficult if you’re also working and impossible if nursery aren’t working with you and will continue the potty training.

Very well put.

To the one asking where that is.
I don't want to name the areas so as not to accidentally devalue someone's house prices... oh wait what are the chances anyone on mumsnet lives in one of those vast and many areas, zero if that😂

In reception I used to go in every fortnight and 'read' with the children and was told which of them was in nappies in case it needed changing when they were with me and who to notify/what the process was because obviously I wouldn't be changing them, even though I hold higher levels of vetting than teachers due to my job.

We got a letter from school once our son’s place was confirmed in April (I think, or May), laying out all of the different things they needed to be able to do before starting this September. So everyone had the summer to practice anything their child wasn’t confident on.

It included things like toilet trained, can dress themselves (including shoes and coats), can use a knife and fork, sit a table to eat, follow instructions, share nicely with other children, confident in communicating with adults etc.

It was really helpful! I don’t know if other schools do it though.

This ⬆️. I can't believe the whole "lack of time" excuse.
I've no idea why parents don't make time to support the development of their own children.

I’m sure for some parents it is far easier for them to keep their child in nappies. What could be easier? For my mother (I’m 60) the incentive was getting rid of changing, soaking and washing nappies. Getting rid of a nappy bucket. The incentive for them was enormous. My DC were out of nappies by 2.5 and they just used the loo with a seat and skipped the potty stage. I took a week off work, we stayed at home a lot and cracked it.

A friend’s daughter works in a nursery and they are very keen to train the children. A child may have had an excellent week at nursery with no accidents and when she asks the parent at drop off on Monday how the weekend went nine times out of ten she’s told they put them back in nappies.

This is a definite representation of lazy parenting.

When i was teaching we had a young lad in nursery (3+) whose DM (A primary teacher, taking time out)) hadn't even attempted it because she didn't think it was fair on him when the new baby had disrupted his life! He was 3 and brother was over a yr. That was pure laziness and the kid had no issues and pickd it ip immediately.

When she brought him she had to take him yo the toilets, get him to go, pants on instead of pull ups. She didn't like that we didn't do that for her!

That's what I received when my daughter was starting reception about 12 years ago and I'm glad to hear it's still being sent.
I was wondering if that had been axed, since so many children are starting unprepared.

I do know there's a lot of 'nursery, school, childminder etc should follow parents' leads and parents are following the children's leads', and no-one seems to be getting anywhere.

I hope all schools are and continue to send them.

Potty training is not hard. Even with two working parents. That's like saying weaning is hard with working parents so we're just going to feed him milk until school.
Parents need to parent.