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.

It's a similar picture in children's mental health services. Parents not seemingly able or willing to try and contain their children's anxiety,looking for a ND diagnosis. Even looking for medications as a quick fix. It's going to be an interesting 🤔 workforce in the future

But it would need to be the right attention and support given to potty training, and I think this is where it is going wrong.

The advice currently is leave them in nappies until 2+ when they can fully communicate there need to wee/poo. But by this stage they have normalised toileting in nappies and need to totally unlearn it.

We need to go back to how it was with cloth nappies where both child and parent where incentivised to potty train early. Child because cloth nappies feel heavy and damp, so they 'know' what is going on. Parents because cloth nappies are hard work, so balanced against early potty training, the early potty training is by far the easy option.

Parents need to be sitting babies on potty's as soon as they can sit up, timing it right to build association and routine, forget 'language' and 'readiness'. Seperate day and night (night is hormonal -some kids are bed wetters, others aren't, it's genetic).

Potty training support will only work if it is the right support.

Some parents are fucking useless and need to be shamed. Being a parent does not mean giving birth and then expecting the government to do everything else. There needs to be adverts on TV and elsewhere giving out this message. "Put your phone down and start raising your child properly".

Disposable nappies have been commonly available for 40 years. It’s not disposable nappies.

The ones we have now are very different to the early versions.

It’s because there was a lot of strange advice floating around about potty training. I trained both of mine before they were two and got a LOT of criticism from my peers for it, like I was being too pushy and damaging them in some way!

Yeah I agree they’re too good - kids don’t even feel wet and uncomfortable and are happy running around in a wet nappy now. We used reusables and my kids were very enthusiastic to potty train (as was I to save on the laundry).

Or peer pressure. I think if my kids had turned up at our small village school unable to do these basics (without sen needs) then we would have been gossiped about. And it would be embarrassing for the parents.

I think the pps who say we should bring back shame are referring to the parents not the children.

I notice there have been a few commemts along the lines of young parents not being guided by THEIR parents, but if MN is typical it seems to me that young parents don't want guidence anymore. They seem more interested in keeping their parents st arms' length and criticizing everything they suggest, 'gently explaining' that everything they did was wrong 'because we know better now'.
It's the same with health visitors. Most weeks there is a thread about something a health visitor has said or done that the poster has taken umbridge over and the concensus is always to show thm the door as they don't know anything. Unlike the poster, who has been a parent for two weeks and is of course an expert
We have no respect for professionals and no respect for experience and this is where we end up.

Its because everyone uses the Internet as a parenting guide as they have the no one tells me what to do with my kid attitude so it means they are reading pages and pages off information about how you don't do it until the child is ready and then will be encouraged by multiple idiots on forums telling them its fine as their kid is 7 and still in nappies.

It started around about the time people stopped thinking "am I in a good position to raise a child?" and started taking more of a "having a child is my god given right" approach

No, someone sitting on their phone tapping into AI and Google are not the same as having an actual conversation with someone whose job it is to know about this stuff and to support families going through it. Googling information is not the same as being supported. If these things are seen as synonymous then we have lost something.

Of course there will be people who don't engage, and their children are the reason free nursery hours were extended. But it's a vicious spiral. The less support there is, the more vanishingly rare it gets to actually talk to someone about your toddler, the more people will drop off engagement and that is not all on them, it's on how small the crumbs are that are being offered.

“Unlike the poster, who has been a parent for two weeks and is of course an expert”

Well, I was certainly an expert on babies from my family and how skinny we all were. The HV had me in a panic about DC1 and my mother just kept saying that I had been exactly the same and she wasn’t in the least bit worried. The HV didn’t want to hear it and kept pushing me to give formula. The DOCTOR asked how much breast milk I got when I pumped and I told her. She was shocked: “But that’s not enough!” I pointed out that the amount of milk extracted by a pump wasn’t the same as the amount that a baby got out and she said, “What makes you think that?” It wasn’t actually a question.

So perhaps in some cases an engaged new mother might in fact be an expert ;-)

I’m clearly still seething about that, but I agree with your general points!

I was able to potty train my child easily, and he is super fit and healthy, tonnes of exercise, competitive sport age 7. Can I brush his teeth? Absolutely not. He had autism and whilst he is high functioning, he hates the taste of toothpaste (we have tried dozens) and will only brush with water. When I try to help him he would bite the toothbrush. It was a huge battle every day. He is better now but had to have two teeth removed. Trust me, I felt shame. I still do. Appreciate there is an element of ND behaviour at play here though

Makes me wonder if some parents are contributing towards putting themselves into poverty by paying for nappies and pull-ups for years on end that they wouldn't need if only they'd potty trained their DC.

This is so weird. In the 90s we used to get kids potty trained for three so they could start at playgroups (unless SEND). It all seems to have gone backwards.

I actually genuinely can’t tell if this is a joke or not.

I also think that a four year old who has no disabilities and who refuses to use the toilet should be gently "shamed" ie told that they're too old and only babies use nappies.

But even when the child finds it funny to be pooing their pants, the mother doesn't tell them off/tell them it's disgusting

So they think it's funny and acceptable

This is ridiculous nonsense. Generations of parents toilet trained their children years before school age, taught them how to dress themselves, and to use cutlery amongst other things before Surestart was even an idea on a drawing board. Today’s parents have more help and resources at their fingertips than ever before yet children in general are far more helpless and immature than ever before, too. When will people return to taking responsibility for themselves?

How common is this though? Surely this has to be a very small minority. I can’t imagine kids not knowing how you would read a book even if they haven’t grown up in a household with any.

And of course, there’s the more obvious point that cloth nappies actually allow the child to feel the wetness!
Single use nappies do not.
Those of us who use cloth nappies tend to potty train earlier and often do day and night in one go too.

Single use are also terrible for the environment- and full of chemicals. They are designed to be something that needs to be bought on repeat and keep the child in them for longer.

Not sure about the ‘sick of washing’ comment. My nappies are beautiful, I shall miss not washing them and seeing their beautiful prints when we are finally done with them.

Elephant in the room is disabilities and rising levels of autism and other issues that may be a cause of some of the cases in question. My children have all been in cloth nappies but my one who took the longest to train has turned out to be diagnosed with autism, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence!

I’ve had Brownies (7-10) who haven’t been able to sit at a table and use a knife and fork. Even for something simple like sausage and mash.

I was in hospital with acute myloid leukaemia. My dh toilet trained our 2 year old daughter in 9 days. He said it was hard work but better than changing nappies. He certainly shocked me, he is usually crap at stuff like that, but me in my place, haha. He still goes on about it today , 18 years later...

IMO parents are entirely to blame. Not the government. It is not the governments job to potty train your kids, or to teach them to eat using cutlery, to read books, or to say please and thank you. That is YOUR job as a parent. If you aren't prepared to parent your kids, don't have them. End of,

Wait a minute!!!

Wasn’t it the government that said all the children with additional needs should be going to mainstream schools despite their issues???

Sure, the government have cashed in by not funding more schools for those with additional needs, but did they really not think this through???? No extra helpers in the classrooms, no extra TA’s. They just expect the teachers to deal with it.

Interesting that the media choose to demonise the parents rather than doing a decent report on the ever increasing levels of children being diagnosed with autism among other things, and the fact that these kids are being forced into mainstream schools despite their additional needs!!

The media are as bad as the government.
It’s shocking that people are falling for the warped story though!