To have expected her to take the kid out when this happened?

[OneAmusedShark]

Best friend came round for lunch today with her (just) 4 year old who my DD and DS absolutely adore.

She’s not toilet trained (nursery age, not yet at school so not judging).

To cut a long story short, she squatted down and started to take a dump in her nappy in our lounge.

It was obvious what was happening as she stunk the place out, and was grunting,
red in the face etc, and my friend asked her “have you finished” on more than one occasion.

Afterwards, my friend took her out to the bathroom to change her.

I didn’t say anything but surely the polite thing to do would have been to
remove the child as soon as it was obvious what was happening? (or even ask her
to take herself to the bathroom if she knows she’s going to fill her nappy!)

The room still stinks! 🤮

My DS moved up a room in nursery at 2yrs and 11 months old and he had to be potty trained at that point. Does she wear nappies at nursery?

Or the Daily Mail.

Why can you not move a child mid poo? I had a fairly urgent one earlier (sorry if that is TMI), and managed to get to the bathroom in time. A NT four year old is capable of doing that.

It sounds like lazy parenting.

This. It's not acceptable. We've reached an all time low.

Parents just CBA. It's easier changing diapers that toilet training your child apparently

Yep. They are so absolutely disgusting.

Yawn. I don't think it matters to be honest. If it was a 2 year old doing it most people would be fine with it, the age is a red herring. Should she be toilet trained? Maybe - but she's not.

The uproar about late toilet training is also short-sighted. People congratulate themselves on doing it before 4, or 3 even, but that's only because our current societal norms make you feel better. In many places and cultures the idea of any baby of any age shitting in their clothes is not the norm and they'd judge us here as lazy and disgusting for allowing it. Encouraging it, even.

So, you know, everything's relative.

She’s not toilet trained (nursery age, not yet at school so not judging).

I'd be judging the hell out of that situation.

Absolutely revolting and peak lazy parenting.

Obviously assuming no additional needs but where’s the dignity in that? My 2yo (potty trained) would find that very embarrassing even and retreated for privacy from very young, like many little ones do. Poor kid doing that at 4 - and in front of friends.

YANBU.

This is not as easy as you think at 4.
now none of us know if this child has something going on but your post is about if there is something the child suffers with.
all my DC apart from 1 were trained at 2.
1 really struggled with opening bowels and it was very traumatic. We went to do the drs multiple times and was fobbed of for years with just more and more laxatives. Dc needed nappies no matter how hard we tried and then once the more and higher doses of laxatives happened they couldn’t control when they needed to go.
now has a stoma due to it actually being a very significant bowel condition that for years was labelled as toiletry withholding, poor diets , poor toilet training etc

It’s really not a good idea health wise to interrupt a poo by changing rooms. How about you try it? Start a poo in the downstairs loo, and then mid poo….go to the upstairs loo to finish.

Very surprising. My youngest does have SEN but potty trained at 3 and before he did, he would take his nappy off to poo so we’d have to quickly put him on the toilet. In ways this was how and why he trained so quickly, he just couldn’t bear the thought of doing it in a nappy anymore.

I’m surprised this girl who doesn’t even have SEN is happy to brazenly do it in front of strangers. She needs training, I would be judging at that age personally and yes, the mum should have taken her out of the room.

Four year olds shouldn’t be in nappies
she should have whipped out a potty or taken her to the toilet

Your example of societies not using nappies isn't helpful.

Which society in the world has the latest age of tolerating a child unable to control their bowels sufficiently to move to a toileting area for a crap?

The age is NOT a red herring. A 2 year old is much less capable of controlling their bodily functions than a 4 year old. A 2 year old is not producing the volume of shit that a 4 year old is. A 4 year old has had at least a year past the normal age to be potty trained to lean the skill.

To be honest I'd be starting to question why the mother wants her daughter to remain infantalised.

The most astonishing thing about this thread for me is that 38% of people so far in the poll think this it's reasonable for a non-SEN 4 year old to crap in someone's else's lounge!

Four????? 😳

that’s fucking lazy parenting, yes I’m judging. they should at least teach her some dignity if they can’t be bothered to train her.

How on earth is a non Sen 4 year old not potty trained in the day. Wouldn’t judge at night as that is hormone based but day time potty training is parent based! We need to be expecting better of parents and being judgemental of piss poor parenting

Well societal norms are important. We need to be bringing up our children to follow them.

if she had killed the dog and started chowing down would you have written a post about some cultures eat dogs and therefore being appalled by it was “short sighted”

following cultural norms in a society is importance-removing the expectation that a child follows these norms is a major part of the decline in our society.

so if someone if some other time or place lets their kid shit in the street I don’t care..That’s not the expectation here. The expectation here is a 4 year old should be toilet trained and not pooing in someone’s living room.

I'd worry that if mum is showing such poor judgement as to let a 4 year old crap in the living room then what other poor judgement is going on there. I'd also be concerned about the lack of inhibition in a child of that age, it's not necessarily abnormal but the adults should be guiding them into an understanding of what's appropriate at that age.

Not pleasant. You probably need to shampoo your carpet if you can still smell it. It must have leaked.

My kid was 3.5 before they cracked potty training, it wasn't lazy parenting. We'd be working on in since 2, and I must of cleaned up 1000x more accidents then the smug parent who trained in a weekend. In the end DS got it when he got it, if it had taken 6 months linger, there's nothing different I could have done, so would have been in the same position as your friend.

Realistically you can't stay home for years, so if it's takeing longer then usual they sometimes go back into nappies when out, otherwise people like the op would have a lot more to complain about. To an outside observer, it looks like they aren't/haven't been trained, no matter how much work is actually been done behind the scenes. Mine did turn out to have SEN, but at 4 I was only just realising this, so most friends wouldn't have been aware.

The age is a red herring? So you don’t believe there are developmental differences between a 2 and a 4 year old? Good grief.

The developmental differences of NT children at those ages are absolutely huge. There’s the language difference (the average NT 4 year old will have vastly more advanced receptive and expressive language,) greater physical control, and - really importantly - a far more advanced sense of self and of what’s acceptable in different contexts. A parent who ignores those factors is being neglectful and not treating their child with respect.

A one year old shitting in their nappy in someone’s lounge won’t have the language to say what they’re doing and may not even show any physical response.

A two year old is already more likely to want some privacy - hiding behind sofa etc.

A 4 year old still in a nappy who is taken out for lunch and very obviously squats, grunts and takes a shit with the parent just periodically asking ‘have you finished?’ is just grim on every level. It’s totally demeaning for the child.

it sounds like some people just don’t believe that this happens for a minority of NT children. They don’t believe what schools are saying - that it’s become increasingly common for reception class children to not be toilet trained. The OP’s situation sounds exactly like that - the only difference being that the kid isn’t yet in school because of when their 4th birthday fell. I don’t get why a minority of posters are minimising this, as if a child’s dignity and right to have their developmental needs met just doesn’t matter.

I have read this story before on MN. I think it had a 7 year old in it that time though.

Exactly. There is something really strange and off about the entire scenario.

Well said!

It doesn't have to be SEN, my GC withheld. It meant longer in nappies and we couldn't interrupt her, otherwise she'd withhold, then it would be constipation overflow all day. Some children aren't easy when it comes to their bowels. There were the issues about when I was at school in the 70's (before it's said there wasn't) but there wasn't pressure for children to attend school. I can remember number 2 accidents from other children in class and their mum's talking about overnight accidents. Those were the days when there were toilets everywhere and kids could go in alleyways and squat over grids, without judgement.

@crossedlines and yet the continence service won't see a child until 7. My NT GD wasn't under Alderhey until that age, when it turned out she needed two small (but under ketamine sedation) procedures. Withholding is a nightmare and softly softly is needed.