Children should be potty trained by the time they start school....

[Littlepurpleprincess]

According to This Morning I am 'lazy' and 'unskilled' because DS wasn't potty trained when he started school! He was FOUR and he tried his level best. We worked with him and our health visitor for 2 years to get him potty trained.

HOW THE FUCK IS THAT LAZY?!

I am childminder and have potty trained many children. HOW IS THAT UNSKILLED?

I do wish people who new sod all about child development would stop commenting on other peoples parenting skills!

Any other additional need and people wouldn't dare say it's down to poor parenting on National TV!

MrsHeffley 'week that is hell' - well let's see it took me three years and two months to get DD to daytime dryness. So that's a heck of a long week!

This is so sad. Why, in this country, are we so obsessed with formal education at such a young age? Development is still quite variable at around 4. On the continent children start school much later. We are all quite mad. If we did likewise the teachers would not have a problem as the children (those without SN) would all be toilet trained by 6 or 7.

Children are potty trained by 2 in France.The age formal education starts and potty training is completed are 2 separate issues.

It is not the job of teachers to potty train children, that is a parents job.

I work with reception teachers and their intake of children in nappies (without SN) has increased over the past ten years, as has the number of children who don't recognise colours or their written names. These teachers say that communication skills are lacking, with many children being unable to form sentences or having basic social or life skills.

15 years ago our LEA nurseries would not take children who weren't toilet trained at 3. They had to start taking everyone because of 'inclusion' (i.e. they weren't allowed to refuse places on the basis of the child not being toilet trained).

I would agree with MrsHeffley that the comfort, ease and disposability of Huggies has had some effect on toilet training.

I used to think that children who werent potty trained by 3 had lazy parents. DD was dry day and night by 2.3yo. Ds 2.11yo is still not potty trained. He point blank refuses to sit on potty/toilet, carries on playing in wet pants, doesn't say if he's done a poo. No amount of bribery begging persuasion will get him to sit in the potty. How exactly am I being lazy?

I am not saying teachers should be expected to toilet train children, clearly that is a parent's task. However, if some are slower to do so (and there's not enough evidence, apart from anecdotal, to convince me that there they are indeed slower than before) then surely a lot more will have caught up, leaving teachers to get on with teaching?

I trained my three children the same way. They all became dry in their own time, one at 2, one at 18mths and one was still having regular accidents at 4. However, I suppose I must be lazy.

Mrsheffley, the week of hell isn't a week of he'll if the child isn't prepared to join on with the project. It's months of pointless inconvenience and mess and irritation, for some dc the wetness just becomes normal after a while so you are reliant on the parents' disapprobation to make them change. Which isn't as effective. Wait until the child is prepared to try and it becomes a week of virtually no problems at all. IME very few children aren't trained by reception but quite a few aren't by nursery. Suggesting the right age for many kidis is around 3 years of age rather than the 18m to 2yr that most people seem to try for the first time.

One more reason I am so glad to be in Scotland where the intake runs march to February, so no kid starts school in august younger than 4 and a half (and parents have the option to defer the youngest ones with jan/feb birthdays for a year so they start at 5.5 not 4.5).

Ds trained himself at 2.8 very quickly, a month before he had shown absolutely no interest in the whole idea. But I know some mums whose kids weren't really dry till after 3. Having the idea of school impending on them just a few months further down the line would only have added to their stress and worry I am sure.

The reason that we didn't see kids in nappies years ago is because they were in special schools. You could be sent to a special school with dyslexia, behavioural problems (just being extra naughty), hearing difficulties and a whole load of non-SN that included incontinence. My friend had a permanent limp and her mother had to fight tooth and nail to keep her out of the special school.

DS has a 31st August birthday so will be the youngest in the class when he starts reception in September. I feel extremely relieved that he decided that he was ready to be toilet trained at 2.5 as we had issues with him witholding when he was 18 months. He's not dry at night and I still don't trust him to wipe his bottom after doing a poo. I'm guessing I need to spend the next 6 months 'training' him to wipe his own bottom - but it's a shame that his friend who was born a week later gets a whole extra year to learn this.

Surely there is some flexibility in how developed children are in reception class? What is reception for if not to gently ease them into school-life. They're not going to be doing sums and writing essays - so if the teachers have to take some of the children to the toilet and help put their coats on at playtime is that really a massive drain on resources?

"According to This Morning I am 'lazy' and 'unskilled' because DS wasn't potty trained when he started school! He was FOUR and he tried his level best. We worked with him and our health visitor for 2 years to get him potty trained."

You sort professional help. I do not think you are lazy. Its no different to a child having a delay with speech. However not all parents are caring.

If a parent has made no effort to train a NT child by four years old or not asked for professional help with an untrained four year old then that is child abuse.

I feel that rules forcing schools to take children in nappies have gone too far. I think that school entry should be conditional on a letter from the doctor to state that the parent has made a reasonable effort to train. If a school knows that professional help has been sort then an IEP can be drawn to meet the child's needs.

This is the link to the BBC news report on the subject.

Perhaps children are having more 'little accidents' in schools these days but when I heard this news report on the radio this morning my immediate thought was OBVIOUSLY they are!!

Children are now encouraged to bring water bottles to school and drink water throughout the day... this was certainly not what happened a generation ago. I think I never had anything at all to drink between leaving for school in the morning and getting home at night... now just about every primary school child brings a water bottle to school with them. Surely this MUST have something to do with it?

It's actually quite a positive thing imo, it's much healthier for children to be drinking more throughout the day. Just another example of the media turning something positive into an accusation against parents to cause controversy imo...

Clearly there are exceptions, SEN being the most noticable one, but there is no denying that there are nowadays many more children in Reception not potty trained. This means that two members of staff have to deal with each child which had an accident. Absolutely fine, but clearly it has a massive impact on how much teaching is going on. Up to parents what they find more important: parents potty training and teachers teaching or teachers dealing with accident and not having time to teach. I know what I would prefer. Also, on most of the Continent children are potty trained at two years of age. It seems only an issue in Britain, well, let me guess why ...

you never had water at school? I was in primary school in the 70s and drinking water was actively encouraged.

"20 years ago, no child started school in nappies, they weren't even allowed at playgroup in nappies at 2.5" - this is still the case in France. Of course you would send a change of clothes at 2.5 in case of the odd accident, but they wouldn't accept a child in nappies.

I was there in the 70's too and it wasn't encouraged. I think we had one drinking fountain between the whole class (in the toilets if I remember rightly!). No-one brought water bottles. It's definitely encouraged far more these days imo.

I have 4 dc's and know for a fact that all children are different when it comes to potty training. Anyone who says that all children should be potty trained at age 2 has had a very easy time of it in terms of their experience with potty training I think! DD2 basically trained herself at two with very little input from me, whereas was still struggling at four with massive efforts from me!! I think most parents do their best to be honest, after all life is much easier once they're out of nappies!

Opps I meant to says DS1 was still struggling at four...

Also can someone tell me the French method of potty training? If they are all trained by 2.5 I DEFINITELY (genuinely) want to know more about it...

Freddo- if anything like the way my friend did, it involves smacking them quite hard every time there's an accident.

Also the fact that most French children go to free nursery but have to be out of nappies means the parents push the issue quite hard.

Well the French seem to manage it. I wouldn't say it was easy, but it was very motivating from my point of view to have a deadline, the reward being that the dcs would be able to take up their place in Maternelle at 2.5. If they can manage it by 2.5 then having to do it by the age of 4 doesn't seem that arduous. It goes without saying that I am not talking about children with SN. But I can't help thinking it's a case of the task expanding to fill the time available.

I agree that it is very sad that there is all this talk about children at nursery not being potty trained. It is nursery / a playgroup, not school - so what do people expect?! As someone else has said, in most of Europe if children go to daycare before their school age of 7, they go to a kindergarten. They are allowed to be children and treasured as such. It is only natural for children so young to have accidents and is really not news.

I tried to push the issue quite hard with DS1 but to no avail Hmmm the smacking thing does sound a bit drastic to me... think I'd prefer to leave them in nappies a bit longer and not do the smacking myself, but if some parents want to go down that route that's their prerogative.

DS3 still in reception - in a pull-up. He has medical issues - but regardless of that - the incontinence service (our PCT) does not kick in until they are 4 years old. HVs trot out the same information and advice on training - which we did regularly - leaving the requisite gap between each try (as HV suggested). GP not interested at all.
Yes there may be more children not trained by reception, but also there is less help available. Gone are the days where a GP or HV would send time with you, helping you work through any difficulties. These days you're on your own. Many parents do not have a family/social network around them to help and advise when attempts fail.

i remember my son going to playgroup and 2.5 and I think he had to be toilet trained.

Also who wants to keep paying out for disposable nappies. They are expensive. I think if you can get them out of nappies sooner rather than later it is a good thing.