To be appalled that parents need to be supported by government to potty train their child

[Wisefishswimpast]

That^^

Why are these parenting fails happening? - not potty trained for starting school, tooth extractions in young children, rising obesity rates….

Is there no accountability?
Why is this happening?

YANBU - parenting standards have declined which is terrible

YABU - this is how things are because….<explanation>

I know there will be exceptions to the above, for example certain health conditions, late maturation of signals between brain and bladder. I am referring to the more widespread rise in these instances.

The sugar is too sweet . So is sweet corn btw. The kid is weird.

Exactly that. The nursery mine went to ten-twelve years ago would take them if they were potty trained at 2 and 9 months. Everyone wanted to go there so the DC were trained. Literally no incentive these days.

We lived in Central Europe when mine were small. They went to nursery at 18 months and had to be toilet trained by then. It’s still the case now - they start toilet training at just over a year. They thought we “westerners” were terribly lazy leaving potty training until age 3.

I've been in early years for 20 years and the Landscape has completely changed.

we're now told we have to be responsible for toilet training, toothbrushing, getting children trained to out coats on. OFSTED hold nursery responsible if parents pack a terrible lunch. The squeeze is horrendous, we're being asked to do more and more because parents can't and won't. The children's behaviour is appalling. So many are violent, swearing, unable to hear "no."

The safeguarding stress is unreal. We have babies who try to swipe books to scroll because even they only get screens.

My mum is adamant I was potty trained at 6 months!!!

Swap smoking for vaping and it's scarily common. In both meanings of the word.

I say this on every one of these threads. They need to change the advice on the NHS website that says you should be waiting for signs of readiness. My son trained at 2 and 9 months but had I found the advice from ERIC, that says not to look for signs of readiness and begin potty learning at a very young age, sooner then he could have been trained much earlier I think.

My son was neither exceptionally easy or difficult to train. But if he'd been a challenge and I'd continued holding out for all the readiness signs so started after 3, then I can see how people end up with an untrained 4 year old. 3 year olds are so much more stubborn than 2 year olds.

They finally did.

@EtherealcelestialbeingI think you’ve hit the nail on the head.

Cheers for that. It isn't through choice that my non verbal autistic boy has started mainstream school this year in nappies and needs changing.

Sounds like you have been lucky. I couldn't get my daughter potty trained for wees until three and poos until five.

Mine are also long grown and I date from the Terry nappy era, which really incentivised toilet training. I waited until the summer closest to their second birthday and just put them straight into pants. I imagine the sense of liberation helped. Vigilance and bribes did the rest. Girls easier than boys, I found, but all 4 reliably trained by 2.5.
Agree about shame.

From AI

The Shift in Guidance
For many years, NHS resources and health visitors advised parents to wait until their toddler showed traditional signs of readiness—such as showing interest in the toilet, staying dry for two hours, or explicitly telling a parent they had a wet nappy.

However, official UK guidance explicitly moved away from this child-led "wait for signs" model:

• The Reason for the Change: Modern disposable nappies are highly efficient at absorbing moisture, which means many children never feel uncomfortable or display the traditional cues of being wet. Waiting for these signs caused many parents to delay training, leading to a sharp rise in children starting primary school without being toilet trained.
• Current NHS Advice: The NHS website now explicitly states: "You do not need to wait for your child to show signs or ask to use a potty before you start." Instead, health practitioners recommend a proactive "potty learning" approach, starting structural preparation as early as 6 to 9 months and aiming to stop using nappies entirely during the day between 18 and 30 months.

My child is autistic because of genetics and not because he likes chocolate.

Everything just gets worse and worse. There's no shame or embarrassment sadly.

I said 'contributes to' those conditions, not the sole cause - obviously.
And it's not about liking chocolate. It's about giving a kid frazzles or hairdos and fizzy drinks for every breakfast as the whole meal.

I used to be a teacher (of older kids and adults thankfully). Can't imagine how anyone wants to go into teaching primary age, knowing you'll be wiping arses and teaching kids to brush teeth and use cutlery. It's disgraceful that some parents abandon responsibility for these most basic of human skills.

They did this at the Nursey DD went to which is in a very middle class area with mostly professional graduate parents.
It formed a really nice part of the routine of the day along with snack time, where they all sat around the table and did a teeth cleaning song and the playgroup leader demonstrated on an oversized model of teeth with an oversized toothbrush.
I could only see the positives in it.

The playgroup also incorporated my DD speech and language excercises that she had been set into the sessions for all the kids to do together.

There clearly is a societal problem with NT kids not hitting milestones appropriately, but including the fundamentals of personal hygiene into a session for 2-4 year olds is not the problem.

DGS will be 3 on Boxing Day, he’s been out of nappies since last October. He’s dry at night, too.

When my kids were little they had to be trained otherwise they couldn’t start preschool at 2.5. It was rare that children weren’t. Nowadays if someone mentions they’re considering potty training at 2 everyone says it’s too young, but most of the time it’s ideal imo.

These foods might make the behaviour worse but they do not cause SEN like ADHD and Autism.

Oh fgs the whole thread has been pretty clear its talking about NT 4 and 5yos. As in actually repeatedly mentioning "unless there's a disability preventing it" or similar.

That was the whole reason the rules were changed so children with disabilities who were not potty trained were not excluded. And thats a good thing. It is NOT an excuse for parents of non-disabled children to just not bother. THAT is the issue at hand.

How many actually do this? Very rarely imo.

Seems crazy parents are leaving it so late. I thought my DD was late as she was by far the oldest at 3yrs 1 month to start training. Boys were around 2.5. Nephew who is 4.5 is not fully toilet trained but does have some medication which affects his poo, so for some reason he is only using the toilet for wees and they put a nappy on him when he needs a poo. I don’t know all the details but school has said they will change him.

Cheers for that. It isn't through choice that my non verbal autistic boy has started mainstream school this year in nappies and needs changing.

This isn’t ok - teaching staff changing nappies all day - inclusion policies should include money to pay for extra staff to cover this not expect teachers to do it!

Yes but saying it is disgraceful that TAs are changing nappies of five year olds doesn't exactly make me or others feel great. You can shove "excepting SEN" in your sentence but saying it like that doesn't make me feel any better. Makes me feel guilty actually.

That may be the case but it still stands that teachers and TA’s in mainstream schools should not be expected to toilet train or change nappies. That quite frankly should not be their job. If a child is SEN and cannot toilet train, then it’s likely they will require a specialist school where the TA’s are trained and equipped to deal with children in nappies. That there isn’t enough places for SEN kids in specialist schools is the issue and one which should be fixed by the government. Not sending out advice to parents of neurotypical children re potty training. Those parents should be quite capable of seeking the help and advice they need. There’s plenty online. Unfortunately not all people give a shit, no pun intended and will wait until they deem their child is 'ready'. Oh and I happen to have a SEN child. There is no luck in potty training. It took work, perseverance and consistency.