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.

They’re all too busy on SM to bother with potty training.

I obviously don’t know how common it is around the U.K. but it’s certainly not uncommon in my area. I don’t agree with your comment about the local alcoholic with “terminal lice”. The parents who don’t bother to potty train their children come from a range of backgrounds, so saying an alcoholic does it so everyone can do it, is wrong (as well as not very understanding of alcohol addiction).

I mean it's hard to potty train I had to potty train my sisters kid and if a 16 year old can do it anyone can lol @Catpiecenot all parents are lazy it's just kinda hard and sometime parents just don't have the time to train so it leaves the teachers to pick up after them

It’s very hard. My sons are 28 and 36 now. Nobody went to school in nappies in the 80s/90s. It’s pure laziness and yet another problem passed on to the teachers who get the blame for everything.

@Catpiececan I dm you I need some advice on something?

The headlines are really misleading. There's a stat about 24% of children starting school "not toilet trained" which gets used in articles where the headlines proclaim children are starting school "in nappies" which implies that a quarter of children start school in nappies.

It's misleading because the 24% stat comes from a study where they asked school staff what proportion of children come into school having "toilet mishaps" frequently as opposed to occasionally. Nothing about nappies at all (although still in nappies would be included in this). And if you look at the figure just from reception teachers they on average say slightly less than 20%, not 24%. It's also clearly split between schools because a bit less than half of teachers report up to 10%, 2/3 of reception teachers report up to 20% and the remaining teachers reporting higher numbers are split over a wider range.

It's also not unprecedented as there have been studies about this kind of thing previously e.g. this one from 2013:

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-23931080

I used to have an earlier link to an article from the 80s or 90s talking about the effects of poverty/deprivation on children where they also cited things like toilet training, I can't find it now though.

I'm sure it happens, especially at nursery school age like you said but even before my son had his EHCP, it was always TA's that changed him.

Another poster said teachers weren't allowed to do it.

@DARNLY I have had this argument on here before! absolutely no excuse for not toilet training a normal child but you get the numpties on here saying this that and the next thing to make themselves seem better. they dont seem to realise that you must stay in the house for a couple of weeks with a pile of pants and potty out permanently! that means no nipping to supermarket or meeting friends for coffee. mums just dont want to put the work in! I have never known in my area a normal child not to be toilet trained prior to starting nursery or school!!

I mean being drunk all the time certainly makes it harder to do things, the untreated lice is proof of laziness when it comes to her kids and still they’re all out of nappies before school. But fine to be less insulting I’ll use myself as an example had my son at 16 he had to have surgery just before his second birthday and was still potty trained at 2 .5

I’ve only ever known of special ed kids start school in nappies, the idea there’s a quarter of four year olds starting school in nappies is bs. Who really believes this?

IMO it’s a massive factor.

If mothers* still had to wash and dry a load of nappies every day, I doubt there would be many people saying that their 3+ year old ‘still isn’t ready’.

*because it nearly always IS mothers, isn’t it?

That makes sense. I think a lot of kids will have accidents when they start school as it's a new and overwhelming environment.

This is such a lazy attitude! It is a job for the parents

Teachers are allowed to change nappies and support clothes changing, but ideally a TA will be free to do it. However, with intimate care, we have to have two adults present (as a protection). When you have a Reception class, a number of whom haven’t been toilet-trained, then it’s all hands on deck, as well as supervising the other children, of course.

Mine had to be clean and dry during the day before they were even allowed to start at playgroup.

Obviously everyone has unique situations. But we are cloth nappy users and have attempted potty training DD 3 times. This latest attempt we have been doing since April and she is still not reliably dry, luckily she is an October baby so doesn’t start school until next September otherwise she would be one of the children everyone thinks has lazy parents.

She hasn’t worn a nappy in 5 months so I am just washing clothes instead of cloth nappies. Things are getting better but we are certainly not lazy, it’s actually giving me sleepless nights and anxiety about how I am failing as a parent and how not to pass this anxiety down to DD.

She will happily use the potty but also happily her pants too and wouldn’t always flag being wet. I’ve raised it with HV’s who said it’s normal and they wouldn’t even consider a referral until she is over 4. Consequently we go out with 3 spare changes of clothes and have been lugging a potty around for months, another bone of contention as MN hates seeing people with potties too. It’s exhausting.

It's a massive factor but 'waiting (forever) until they're ready' plays a part too.

Sounds like you need a potty training reset instead of plugging away in this semi-trained state.

Agreeing with the comments that having to wash nappies was an incentive.

Lazy parents should not be fined, there should be a meaningful sanction. Including absent dads.

What do you mean by meaningful sanction?

Maybe we should live in a society that didn’t require both parents to work to afford to live. Then women would have lots of time to ensure the milestones of their children are all hit.

Women would have the time? Or parents?

Parents can’t drop the responsibility of teaching their children the basics because they have to work.
Why do you think it is that 20 years ago a child starting reception in nappies was unheard of? Do you think toddlers were smarter in previous generations, or that children weren’t put into a nursery because their parents were at work, because they definitely were.
From my experience there has been a parental shift of responsibility.. We’re to busy so someone else should be responsible. Or this weird idea that children will let you know when they’re ready, an idea that’s clearly not working out well for the children involved.

Dgd has just started school. Bog standard primary in the east Midlands. She was trained by 3 and went to nursery. So far no evidence of others in nappies. Is this "trend" actually documented anywhere?

I was a working single parent and I managed.