Teachers toilet training

I started teaching my child when she was 2.5 as that is what the guidance is

Not any more it’s not. Think you’re supposed to be sitting them on the potty when they can sit up, at about 6 months.

As many of us did, back in the ‘good old days’, when we didn’t have guidance, just used our common sense and tried to avoid any more washing of nappies than necessary.

It annoys me when people slag off all parents of today as being lazy. There have always been bad parents. Im 55 and so many of peers were abused and neglected by their parents. You could get away with beating your kids in those day and nearly all our mothers have fags hanging out of their mouths including mine. No flipping seatbelts in the back of cars. Leaving kids in hotel rooms or chalets. I could go on.
Disposable nappies will probably be the main cause. Sitting in a terry nappy must be so uncomfortable. If a child isn't aware of being wet, they want to carry on playing.
I started teaching ny child when she was 2.5 as that iswhat the guidance is. I followed all the rules and it didn't work. She just would not go and got a urine infection holding it in and started stammering. We put it off and would just gently try but to no avail until just after her third birthday and she just started going on her own. Straight to the toilet, never used the potty.
Yes there will be very bad parents but if you ban children from school because they're not potty trained then you're leaving them even longer with bad parents. Look how many children died during lockdown because they were kept away from society.

What has happened to this generation of parents where nothing is their responsibility, they can’t brush teeth, toilet train, cook or discipline their children, maybe if they spent less time on their phones they would have time to parent.
I absolutely agree theexwife

I throughly agree with the issue of disposable nappies and late toilet training.
My two are now aged 54 and 52 and like many other parents on here, I used Terry nappies as there was nothing else available.I got so sick of washing and drying Terry nappies I made sure both of my children were toilet trained by two years old.
My older boy regressed for a bit when his brother was born, he saw the baby using a nappy so thought it was alright for him to wear one again.It was hard but got him out of nappies again.
My mother, who had five children in 12 years had us all trained by 18 months, ay child still in nappies at two years old she considered a disgrace.
Disposable nappies seem far more absorbent than terries.When my younger son started walking he objected to having what was a wet rag between his legs by trying to get it off or screaming till it was removed.
My grandchildren and great grandchildren were all brought up in disposables and I noticed it took longer to train them but they ere all out of nappies before starting school, including one who has autism.

I will repeat, I worked with Reception classes for many years and never received any child in nappies, and there were plenty of special needs in those classes. The children in the particularly deprived areas in the 60s and 70s (hackney, Smethwick) tended to live in small terrace houses with downstairs bathrooms and some outdoor lavatories; they were all toilet trained.

If parents are working someone is caring for the child, there is no excuse at all.
Am I surprised, no not at all.

Children start reception at age 4 not 5 in England. Some only just 4 - others will have been aged 4 for longer. The children about to start reception in September were too young (small babies) to toilet train during lockdowns.
If a child does have additional needs, it can take years before the needs can be officially recognised by the education system- despite everyone ( parents, teachers, other parents) clearly seeing the needs.

Many special needs were created during Covid when young children were left in the sole care of their parents, the most important one being poor understanding of language, because nobody bothered to talk to them. Stuck in a slow-moving lane of traffic I watched young children being collected from an activity by their mothers; in three cases I saw little girls holding their mother's hand, chattering animatedly away while their mothers focused their entire attention on the mobile phone in their hand and made no response whatsoever.
An increasing number of parents are not bothering to toilet train their children because they know someone (nursery or school) will do it for them. At one time schools, and nurseries would not accept children who were not clean and it was amazing how quickl y they became toilet trained.
My first Reception class was in 1968, and all the time I taught Reception, in comfortable suburbs and very deprived areas I never received one child who was still wearing nappies. Accidents occurred but that is not the same as going to school without being toilet trained.. . When reception age was lowered to 4 there were still very few children untrained; it has only happened in the past15 to 20 years and very rarely had it anything to do with unidentified special needs; (as Senco I was privy to their medical and social records and discussions with Ed.psychs) and far more to do with lazy parenting. Mothers were sent for to change their offspring when the nappies were soiled, and it was no surprise to see how quickly they became clean. Now schools are forced to accept these children, and TAs employed doing something that is the responsibility of the parents.

Have just read that one in four children are starting school still in nappies.

Not talking about ones who have medical conditions or special needs, the rest of them.

And don’t bring up Covid. If they were at home, some time could and should have been spent ‘toilet training’ by whoever was in charge of them.

VioletSky

A lot of additional needs have been missed due to COVID and it would actually be very hard to know that for certain about children just starting school. Some additional needs don't get picked up until after children enter reception class or much later because the age range of the children is an entire year, and that is a huge range during many key stages of development where children are not moving at the same pace.

It's also not unusual for any child not to have bladder control when starting school. Doctors would only really be concerned about lack of bladder control after age 7.

Reception class is not mainstream school either and previously those children would still have been in nursery.

I don't personally have any issue supporting children to use the toilet properly. It's not ideal by any means and it is placing a small amount of pressure on schools but I'd be shocked if any decent teacher would walk away from a job due to that. A great deal of time and work goes into managing a whole class and there is far more to manage than toileting. Every child is different and needs support in different ways, whether that is with their education, socially, emotionally or because they need help to toilet.

We are with the children 7 hours a day. If they could be dry easily we would achieve that in a small space of time. Especially as children that age tend to want to be for themselves

Thanks for this perspective from a firsthand point of view!

Too many people thinking let's have a kid, but not thinking about all the "crap" that comes with kids! Too put it bluntly!

I've bought 2 pups over the last 2 years due to the loss of older dogs! BOTH were said as house trained, HA! The one came from Spain 4.5 month old, NONE of the litter were trained, the entire litter also came complete with worms and other lovely issues!.

The 2nd pup, bought last year, when I asked the owner if she were house trained, of course!!

Was she hell!

I got her house trained in a couple of weeks, the owner when we contacted her, "what's it matter, just mop it up like we do!" She has hard floor, we have carpets !

Parents CAN'T & SHOULDN'T use the excuse that they don't have time, they wanted the kids, they should make time. It's NOT the schools responsibility to potty train kids.

This has been going on for years, I taught in a nursery and an equality rule came out that said you can no longer stipulate that only those potty trained can attend .Result of this is many parents simply don't bother now. schools and nurseries are expected to do it. The age of potty training has gone up to just about 3 and people give up at slightest hurdle as they are busy/not ever home. I was once so exasperated that I potty trained some twins myself as the Mum found it too hard and had half heartedly just tried with one of them. A bit of patience is required.

It's been a revelation to me too biglouise. I had no idea there were children without starting school not toilet trained, unless there were specific circumstances.

As has been said on this thread, our boys had to be before they could attend nursery.

When children were in terry nappies virtually every one of them was toilet trained by the age of 2. If you had a bucket full of nappies hanging around that you had to boil wash you made sure your child was out at them as soon as possible

I was 7 when my sister was born (1952) and would have been about 9 when I saw my mother hanging a collection of very tatty cloth nappies on the line. When I remarked on the fact that they had holes in them my mother told me:-

"This will be your job one day and you will be very glad to see them getting tatty like this because it means your coming to the end of it"

At the time I was aware of how much time my mother seemed to waste looking after my sister. In particular buckets of smelly nappies in soak. By age 11 I was determined I was having no children.

This thread has been a revelation to me.

I specialise in SEN and emotional support. There are many times I am 1:1 with a child.

I do my job

Well we’ve seen what happens at nurseries, so I’m surprised you’re happy to have just one person around. But that’s up to you VS.
Your common practice is what you know. My knowledge obviously only applies to the school where I work or where I’m connected with. I’m happy that they make the effort.

Mollygo

Glad you don’t think 2adults are needed , VS.
It only needs one child to say something that parents don’t like and the parents are in like greased lightning.

We send 2 adults until the children can cope for themselves. Children in nappies usually can’t, any more than young children with diarrhœa can.
As little as 10 years ago we would not have done that, but things change.

That's not what I said, I simply said that it's not legally required for 2 staff members to be there

And EYFS is one step up from nursery where changing children alone is common practice

If another staff member is unavailable is a baby or child to be left soiled and at risk of developing sores?

Staff use their common sense depending on the situation obviously

Glad you don’t think 2adults are needed , VS.
It only needs one child to say something that parents don’t like and the parents are in like greased lightning.

We send 2 adults until the children can cope for themselves. Children in nappies usually can’t, any more than young children with diarrhœa can.
As little as 10 years ago we would not have done that, but things change.

Screen time? I don't mean kids screen time, I think a lot of adults are almost addicted to their phones, screentime takes up so much time without even realising, so less time to spend helping wee one learn essential things like toileting and hand washing? I don't know though, chaotic lives are everywhere... lack of routine doesn't help. Sure, many things are easier now such as toddler nappies that work like pants but life is more complicated generally....

VioletSky

Legally, schools cannot turn away children who are not potty trained and are in nappies. It is in the equality act

Equally two members of staff do not need to be present to change a child. That is not the case.

Some parents are struggling and some children are struggling for many various reasons.

It's just not that simple and we should never be standing in judgement over individual situations when we do not know the cause

Totally agree with you VioletSky

I have twin 4 year old DGS, one was toilet trained last summer, the other is autistic,with global development delays & has no concept yet of his bodily functions. They will both start school in September, and school is aware that he is still in nappies & will do what is necessary to help him as he's also non verbal & can't tell them he needs changing. I would expect that a neuro typical child would be toilet trained before starting school .

What terrifies me is the number of disposable nappies going into landfill. I know the amount of environmental harm caused by washing terry nappies has also been calculated as high but I feel they were used for only half the time that disposables are now used.

To be honest I'm horrified that children are not properly toilet trained. I was a class teacher of little people for some while and then chose to become a stand in when teachers were off site. I have to say there were no problems and if a child needed the loo they were free to ask to go to the toilet and it worked fine. So what has happened? It all seemed so very natural so where is the appropriate parenting? It's not up to teachers

pooohbear2811

I think half the problem is with disposable nappies the children don't even know they are wet. With terry nappies they could get the link between pee and discomfort and therefore much easier to train.
Like everything else parenting has become "lazy", along with the rest of society. disposable nappies- no stigma, microwave meals - no stigma, child crying - bung them in front of the tv, clothes that don't need ironed, so no pride in how your child/husband/wife goes out the door.

Why should there be stigma? Most women are out to work these days when they would have been able to stay at home many years ago. Putting a home cooked dinner on the table, washing Terry nappies, etc when you are time poor is just asking too much for some. There should be no stigma when you are continually running to catch up! Actually there should be no stigma at all even if you don't work. Using things that have been invented to make life easier isn't a sin...I bet you use a tv remote!

I think half the problem is with disposable nappies the children don't even know they are wet. With terry nappies they could get the link between pee and discomfort and therefore much easier to train.
Like everything else parenting has become "lazy", along with the rest of society. disposable nappies- no stigma, microwave meals - no stigma, child crying - bung them in front of the tv, clothes that don't need ironed, so no pride in how your child/husband/wife goes out the door.