School toilets

[Sweetheart1990]

School toilets!
Son text me to say he had walked out of lesson after being refused permission to go to the toilet, he had finished all his work. I have always told him to do this if he is desperate but he never actually has before.
He has been put in isolation.
I'm angry as I really believe that students should be allowed to go when they need to and he had completed all tasks so was just say in the classroom anyway.
What does everyone else think?

Rubbish … they would have a break within 3 1/2 hours!!

Pretty sure this kid had neither a flooding period or diarrhoea.

There are plenty of adults in jobs where toilets aren't immediately accessible. Learning to use the loo during your breaks is useful skill.

Not necessarily a wee,can you imagine the embarrassment of stopping someone needing a poo or even a wee from getting there

I was in senior school in the 60’s. No-one, in any class I was in, ever asked to go to the toilet. We all knew that was what breaks were for.

At the end of the day they're teenagers and I'm sorry but they take the piss.

This is what saddens me: the blatant prejudice that people have against teenagers. Yes, I know that many teenagers do take the piss, but it isn't because they're teenagers; nor is it a given for all of them. Lots of people of all ages take the piss in all walks of life and in all age groups - some of them are elderly; yet (rightly) nobody would ever let you get away with saying "at the end of the day, they're pensioners and I'm sorry but they take the piss".

I have a teenage DC who is very respectful, kind and obedient - as are plenty of his friends. Am I supposed to tell him that he's 'teenaging' wrongly, and that he should start being a 'proper' teenager, and acting according to the widespread stereotypes? What point is there in him actually behaving well, if he's just told that nobody believes he will be anyway?

When my daughter was at secondary school, lessons were changed from sixty minutes to ninety minutes in length - a bad decision for many reasons and it also had an impact on toilet use. One of her friends was suffering from a UTI and was desperate for the toilet. The (female) teacher embarrassed her in front of the whole class by making her produce her antibiotics before allowing her to use the toilet while the poor girl was dancing up and down and crossing her legs to avoid a humiliating accident, much to the hilarity of the immature boys in the class. This was over fifteen years ago and things have obviously not improved in the intervening time.

Yes, but I was responding directly to PP who either 'forgot' that people with medical issues exist or otherwise dismissed and othered them and their needs as irrelevant. It's horrible when you're part of a group that is automatically excluded from 'people' as a whole.

But aside from that, there are two issues. It isn't just people with longstanding health issues who sometimes need the toilet and are unable to wait. It can happen to anybody, for a number of reasons which may affect people infrequently or occasionally, as have also been explained upthread.

Moreover, even if everybody who 'genuinely needs it' has been given a toilet pass, how does that resolve all of the complaints that if one person is allowed to go, everybody asks? Not only does a child with, say, IBS or heavy, unpredictable periods have to explain this to (probably non-medical professional) staff at the school; but when they come to need to use them in lessons, either their classmates will either have been told that they have a (likely embarrassing and very personal) reason for needing it, or otherwise there will be cries of "But you let her go, so why can't I?!" - so we're no further on.

As a teacher of more years than I care to remember, I use my discretion. I am not about to allow a kid to wet himself in front of his peers.

Awful that you went through that, I'm sorry. Girls definitely need to be given the benefit of the doubt. When I first started my periods it was a monthly deluge, even a super plus pad wouldn't always last me from one break to the next, and if I hadn't been allowed to excuse myself from lessons I could have ended up utterly humiliated. I was bullied at school as it was, and period leakage would have really put the gold seal on things for the bullies.

Don’t be daft please!

Exactly! People time themselves as best they can - but some meetings go on forever, you can be on your period and have a flood, you can have eaten something that hasn't agreed with you... there's lots of reasons why you might need to go to the toilet and can't wait for a break... and the word 'need' here is important without even touching on the obvious issue of medical scenarios. my dad has part of his colon missing - luckily he is retired now - but if someone expected him to wait for an appropriate juncture when he has very little control over what happens and when, I would think them very lacking in compassion, not to mention common sense.

Yes it’s not difficult. You don’t go prematurely, you don’t hold it in. You just go to the loo when you need to 🤣

Why is this a problem for every other person on Mumsnet, but never for anyone you meet in real life?

Well no one draws attention to their toileting habits.

But it’s interesting because I have historically had a bladder of steel. Never really had an issue. Until recently on holiday when I started going ‘in case’ as I didn’t know the toilet situations and nearly got caught short.

Within a week that escalated dramatically into what I think is called bladder anxiety. Seriously it was quite dramatic. Physically and mentally affecting me. Nearing panic attack and wetting myself when ever I realised I didn’t have immediate access to a toilet.

If you knew me you would know how ridiculous that is. So I wasn’t ashamed to talk about and say what a strange thing was happening to me. Que half the people I spoke to saying they too had experienced similar bladder urgency issues at various times in their lives.

I’m not really talking about the bladder issue, but the issue of falling out with schools about it. All the kids I know at various schools are just allowed to go when they need to, which makes me think there’s more to these stories

Oh I see. I don’t know. I assume it’s only an issue if you have a school who’s doing this.

Tbh it’s a hill I would die on with a school. Access to a toilet is a basic human need.

You sound crazy

Yes, nobody wants somebody sitting there doing an under-chair cossack dance - it's hardly conducive to working effectively.

If anything, a lot of people in a workplace would probably euphemise it and say they just needed to fetch some files from their desk or get the laptop charger or similar - but then 'pop in' to the toilets on their way back.

Children wouldn't have this option in the first place, as even if they found an appropriate school-based euphemism, they would most probably be assumed to be messing about and permission to leave refused.

Was he not desperate in between lessons? Could he not have gone on the way to the lesson?
Does your school have a phone ban and he has disobeyed the rules to text you?
Has he shown respect to the teacher or gone about it in a way that was unecessary?
If you were a fly on the wall it might be that the teacher has a constant stream of students who want the toilet.
i think it’s easy to see why he has been put in isolation.

They go to the toilet to vape , smoke or sometimes an arranged meet up with friends. Don’t underestimate how crafty some children are. I’m not saying your child is, but the teacher does have a whole class to manage.

Stupid answer. You would wait to go, fair enough, but then when you did get to go, you wouldn't be queueing with 500 other people who also need to go

Maybe it's an area thing? Because all the kids I know at various schools have this issue, that's primary and secondary

So you’d rather her kid not concentrate the entire lesson as he needs the toilet?

But if you genuinely couldn’t hold it you would just go to the toilet. And nobody would punish you.

It reminds me of wicked, controlling husbands who make outrageous demands of and put big restrictions on their wives' freedoms... but because she's learned to accept it and keep her distress to herself as she's too frightened to complain, that somehow 'proves' that everybody is happy and so there's no problem at all.