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.

Is it? I don't think "a lot of people" wanted 5 year olds in nappies 😂

there isn’t one but are they necessarily disabled?

I would say autism is a disability especially those on the more severe end.

What do you mean?

A special school place where they'll be changed by... a teacher or TA!

Edit: typo

@jumpingjohnny Not by a teacher! A care assistant is who should be employed.

@laurini In a wider sense, it is the outcome of more non judgemental attitudes and the “be kind” brigade. There should be some judgement and some shame attached to not readying a child for school, but there isn’t. Every failure is met by the state helping out. It has to end and expectations must be higher.

I agree that expectations need to be higher but this clearly isn't the outcome that lots of people wanted!

Schools can't afford enough paper and pencils to last the school year. How are they going to pay care assistants!

It's certainly the case that any school that I've worked in has used a Pupil Support Assistant for pupils who require this type of help.

In mainstream, we had to share one PSA amongst several classes and they were very stretched - the provided both educational and medical support. The only situation where a child had one-to-one with a PSA was in a Special School or Special Education Department. (That nomenclature is still used in parts of Scotland,)

Our professional associations would be telling teaching staff that they should not be dealing with nappy changes etc - teaching staff are not trained for this. (Before anyone comments that any competent adult should be able to do this, I'm talking about the health and safety aspects of personal care.)

There's also the fact that the class teacher cannot be expected to abandon the rest of the class while s/he takes one pupil to the toilet.

I dont think there's anything wrong with the state supporting parents by providing clear advice on things like healthy diets, potty training, screen time etc Its nothing new and is obviously far better than mopping up the pieces years later when it all goes wrong.

Only after there's clear support and guidance out there is there perhaps a role for shame and judgement (or peer pressure as its commonly known).

It’s up to the parents. Jesus. It’s a simple thing.

If its such a simple thing then why do you think it's gotten worse and also why do you think the pilot areas providing support and a "how to" guide helped?

Parents laziness.

But how would putting out a booklet on how to potty train your child and running health visitor drop in sessions combat parental laziness? Doesn't the success of the pilots suggest a level of willingness plus a knowledge gap?

How is using nappies lazier than using the toilet , especially after a certain age? It literally creates more work and faff.

There’s a potty training thread running currently. Mum struggling, kid nearly 3, she wants to sort it. Most of the replies? “He’s not ready yet”. “Just wait until he’s ready”. 🙄

Let’s keep pretending that that doesn’t happen though, right?

What does?

Changing a nappy. Finding a proper space to change them, take nappy off , wipe, change the nappy, dispose of the nappy. It’s a lot of faff with a bigger child(faffy enough with a baby too, but needs must). Never mind the smell, smears etc. It literally is a lot more work than your kid going to the toilet by themselves.

That's why we toilet train them.

Obviously. She's saying its less work to have a toilet trained child than to have to regularly change nappies. None of the posters who say its because of lazy parents can answer why making more work for yourself is lazy nor why outcomes improve when drop in and booklets are provided (surely lazy parents don't bother reading or attending these).

@HedgerowDThey become accustomed to changing nappies. It’s habitual and they persuade themselves dc cannot do it. Don’t forget some dc are behind in language and are poor communicators. They are not being taught to speak or say what they need so it’s just a circle of continuing slow development. It’s also definitely the case that leaflets do next to nothing. A GP visit, that lots of dc do, might. Dr to refer these dc on to the HV might help and at least have a conversation about what the proposed potty training timetable is.

There's definitely something going wrong. I agree that we expect too little from toddlers and it stunts development.

The scheme which is now being rolled out to other cities provided booklets with confirmation of school place along with them being in libraries, nurseries etc and offered drop in sessions for extra help. And as a result the number of children who started school not potty trained dropped by 43%.

I'm not arguing that something hasn't gone wrong but just to say lazy parenting doesn't seem right to me. If it were lazy parenting then the scheme surely would have just been a failure. The problem seems more complex.

Lazy and feckless parents would not go to drop in sessions.

I would have loved that when I was potty training my eldest DD. We really tried, started when she was 2, even bought a book on potty training. At one point she just refused to sit on the potty. She would have a meltdown every time I tried to get her to go on it. Tried many different things, reward charts, special books, special underwear, different potties. In the end we had to abandon it because we were getting nowhere and it was only getting worse.

After a long break she did pick it up before she went to school.

@CuteOrangeElephant I could not quite understand why DD1 wasn’t interested. Weed when she got off the potty! I mended it to GP when he did development check - yes back in the day! He said just stop. Go back to nappies. Don’t talk about it. Give it 8 weeks and start again. And - it worked. Perfect within a week. Just before 3rd birthday but you and me tried. We did not give up.