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.

DS was in a rear-facing stroller the whole time but it was unable to prevent him inheriting my ADHD. Sad but true.

But we have more access to information today than at any other time in history. How difficult is it to do some basic googling?

Around 15 years ago the two funding came in for disabled children and children from deprived families to access free child care with the intended outcome being those children would have trained professionals helping them reach their milestones and they would be more prepared when starting school than if they hadn’t had this additional year at nursery.
Reviews later showed that actually outcomes were worse not improved (please don’t ask for evidence this was information I had due to my job role and no longer have access to)
I do wonder with more two income families and more children in nursery if part of the issue is simply a lack of time on parents part , if you are only with your children in the evenings and two days at the weekend how do you find the time? And nursery’s with loads of kids and few staff don’t have time to do this stuff. Then parents who are literally trying to do it all get slated for not being good enough in a system set up to fail them.

I was going to say exactly this. Shame and judgement are an important aspect of human society- whilst it was right and good to remove shaming for things that are unimportant (sex outside marriage, etc.), it was a bad idea to treat shame as an altogether undesirable thing.

I think it's all too easy to blame working parents and let's be honest it's working mums people are really blaming. But this is just isn't true. Me and all my friends who worked managed to potty train our kids well before school. And it's something that nursery actually helps with. Not by doing the potty training itself but by like a lot of things, kids learn by seeing their peers doing things and seeing other kids use the toilet also helped with mine to be potty trained.

I agree wholeheartedly. We're so positive and accepting and excusing that everything has gone to shit.
I'd be so embarrassed to send a barely functioning (able-minded/bodied) child to school.
It's as if parents have become paralysed except for providing food, clothes and shelter. Very little child-rearing is going on.

This is an issue which as definitely worsened in the last 5 years. Children used to come into school potty trained, able to wipe themselves etc. Now many come in needing support for toileting, all of which takes members of staff away from the actual teaching

I think I was a good age before I ever saw a mango, but prior to the UK joining what was then the Common Market, available fruit was much more seasonable - though we could always get imported bananas and I recall that pomegranates would be available for a fortnight or so.

I'm relieved that Brexit doesn't seem to have affected our access to fruit and vegetables.

The range of fruit and vegetable stuffs available has increased greatly in my lifetime and they're also available for much more of the year. Perhaps more was available in some of the cities?

I did. I had read a lot before I started so had expectations of how it would play out (lots of accidents). My child actually held his wee in for an insane amount of time, which became quite worrying. Also meant that teachable moments were few and far.

Im a reception teacher. I think the biggest factor is a the social media ‘me, me, me’ era. Parents reading ‘don’t worry if you haven’t done x, y and z parenting is so hard’. Parents pouting away, obsessed with how they look, leaving their children with too much screen time. meanwhile the boring but necessary jobs of parenting aren’t appealing and fun to put on social media but taking their child to a really expensive day out (they often can’t afford) is a priority. Too many parents are too selfish and don’t put their children first.

And to add, it’s so depressing when parents who can’t parent their children go on to have more and more.

With my eldest (now mid 20s) I had a named hv who could come the house and was available for advice and I found this really helpful when I struggled with potty training.

Health visitor numbers have dropped a lot and now only focus on specific demographics- so a good source of support has been removed from many.

My mother said I was potty trained before 1, BUT she herself didn’t do it nor my father, it was an older woman who she paid to have me while they were at work. I wouldn’t automatically assume earlier generations potty trained their children themselves if both parents were working long hours and child was being cared for by others.

Going off what my mother said, I was basically raised by nuns in my earlier years (went to a catholic daycare after the older woman moved away). She admits childcare was way cheaper then compared to now and seeing how hard it has been for both my sister and I (both of us struggling to potty trained our tots) she is happy she didn’t have to do it.

Potty training was the part that had me near tears. Doing it my third and last time and it’s an uphill battle with my toddler and I’m close to resorting to bribery.

Lazy parenting, plain and simple.

I think it's because we're all so isolated.

The first baby I held in my life was my own. I was 27.

My husband went back to work and I was left alone in the house with a brand new baby. No one showed me what to do or how to do it

I did not grow up watching and helping cousins and aunties raise babies. I didn't know anything about babies and children.

I'm not a stupid woman. I read to my children and chatted to them and did crafts and took them to mini gymnastics and petting zoos and museums. I tried very hard to do it all right. But I genuinely didn't know that I was supposed to teach them their letters and to write their name before starting school. I thought that was what school was for!

I got myself out to baby groups and made friends with other new mums. I muddled along - but that was 20 years ago. I bet now it's much easier to stay in your home with your forums and your chat gpt. So isolating.

I know that within my own family, one of my aunts was upset that her DIL insisted that the children would move out of nappies 'when ready' because this was the advice at the time. (The aunt backed off so as to avoid being an interfering MIL. Before anyone asks, her son largely left toilet training to the DIL as the SAHP.

The children eventually were toilet trained, but just in time for starting school.

Dbil is a deputy head in a primary - village primary in a wealthy area. They’ve had to employ a teaching assistant for reception to help with toilet training. These are not children with SEN - more than 50% of the dc are not toilet trained. It’s a disgrace. My personal observation is parents leave it too late and then it becomes much harder. Dc are usually ready to be dry in the day around 2 but most wait until over 3. There’s no excuse. I have 3 dc including twins.

Spot on.
I teach year 3/4 - I have had parents this week tell me they won’t read with their child because it’s boring.
I also had a parent phone the office and request that I didn’t check their reading record as it was causing them anxiety that they hadn’t read three times that week so wouldn’t get a house point.
Easily bloody solved - read with your child!
And 3 times is a low bar!

Too much screen time.
Little.ones given.ipads and phones. This affects their attention spans.
Toilet training requires time.and patience.

The “readiness” concept is so insidious that people think they will cause damage by potty training their kid.

I have friends who have never tried to train their 4yo because they’re worried about “forcing” the child. They’re just waiting for the child to do it themselves.

It isn’t laziness at all.

My SIL is super bright, on Mumsnet a lot as far as I can work out but when she was training her DD (late - in the summer before reception in a bit of a panic) she messaged ‘I just didn’t realise that having so many accidents was normal she just keeps peeing everywhere’ and thought that meant she wasn’t ready so they needed to give up. I encouraged her to keep going and that yes soggy pants and stinky washing was usual for a few months sometimes but they had to persevere.

I think PP were right in that the ‘when they are ready’ message needs a massive caveat - or before they start school whatever happens first!!

That was the case for playgroups here in the '70s.

I'm not. When i was young parents needed to be taught not to beat their kids, to teach their kids to cross the road safely, and to make sure their kids were at home before 10 at night.

I did not grow up watching and helping cousins and aunties raise babies. I didn't know anything about babies and children.

I come from a massive family, did a lot of babysitting and was considered the responsible one but potty training was never something I actually had to teach. I was changing nappies or taking children to the toilet, I wasn’t teaching them how to do it. As I said upthread, my own parents didn’t do the potty training. I had to research it with my own children and there was a lot of information and ways on how . I was doing it with mine not knowing they were ND. It was a lot of tears for me tbh getting them there but did before school started.

My friends grandson stays every weekend with her, she asked him to brush his teeth, he said No I don't brush them at home, only at school, I can't understand where this come from. It was a matter of pride to me that DD was as i dependent as she needed to be ehen she started school, toilet trained, dressed herself and cleaned her teeth with supervision

Peddled by Pampers, and repeated by plenty of MNers.

I got savaged on a potty training thread for mentioning that my son and his best friend were trained before 2. After she conceded I wasn't lying, she said they were massive outliers and it wasn't normally biologically possible.

I can see how it's seductive to think that if you wait for the magic moment it will take just a few days.

But tbh, it only took three weeks, all increasingly competent, for my son to get it, before he was mostly accident free. I shudder at the thought of trying to train him now he's almost 3.