Children in nursery and even KS1 still in nappies!

My children were all toilet trained and dry at night early. I was lucky as it was easy to get them dry. However I was not working !!! This made a massive difference, working parents are tired and toilet training does take time and diligence from parents. It must be very hard getting children up and dressed for school / daycare, taking them there before a full day at work, after work collecting children from Grandma/ nursery or after school club. Then it's play time , tea , homework , bath and bed. I certainly do not envy them !! Taking all this into account I can understand why toilet training takes a back seat. Not ideal I know! but I see why it happens.

My older DS gave me a right struggle with toilet training, he was just getting out of nappies at two years old, which was considered late then (1972) then his brother was born and he regressed immedietly caused by seeing the baby in nappies.He eventually got clean and dry during the day, but was still having a few wet beds on starting school.
DS2 was a different story, he just about toilet trained himself by 18 months as he hated being wet or soiled.He would start trying to pul his nappy off so that was a signal for the potty or toilet.He would manage to pul off his wet nappy every morning and throw it over the cot rails and by two year old was dry every night.
I agree with the posters who say disposable nappies have a lot to do with late toilet training. Faced with having to wash and dry terry towelling nappies every day parents made sure their children were out of them as quick as possible. Imagine trying to walk with a soaken wet rag between your legs!. Disposables, as well as being too easy are too absorbent, the child seems unaware he or she is wet.
Each generation seems to be different though, my mother was disgusted that my two were not trained by their first birthdays! She will be spinning in her grave now.

My DS was 6 before he was properly toilet trained and that certainly was not down to my laziness, I started at age 2 1/2 and was still at it as he started school. My DD who was 2 years younger was clean and dry day and night at 18 months, way before DS was. He never went to Pre school or school in nappies he just had to change three times a day. Which is best I wonder, changing an outfit then bagging it up or changing a pull up and binning it.
We must not judge others, ever. You all need to look at yourselves and ask, am I really that perfect ?

We saw this a lot in my years working in a school in an area of extreme deprivation. And yes, it was mainly down to parental incompetence, but these were parents who hadn’t learnt from their own parents, and so the cycle continued. We had many asylum seekers and refugees, families who’d fled war zones with nothing and didn’t have first world priorities. The same parents were still spoon feeding their children, because it was quicker than teaching them to use cutlery. The same children came to school never having seen a book, and not knowing which way up to hold it. They were rarely talked to, so had poor communication skills.

The Sure Start centre set up at this school during Tony Blair’s era was doing great work with these families, teaching parentcraft as well as basic skills and English where needed, providing healthcare and maternity advice for families who never left their own narrow environment, teaching the basics of cooking and nutrition. Things were looking up.

And one of the first things the Tory / Lib Dem alliance did was to axe its funding….

What blue25 and bibbity said

I certainly remember a child in Reception who wasn't in nappies but should have been., We always used to make sure we weren't sat next to her.

Also when my son started school 30 years ago there was a couple with issues.

Grandson says there was one child who wore the pull up types. He had bladder problems and this was beyond his control. His peers were very helpful and the teacher managed to make it far less traumatic than it might have been .

So no, it's nothing new. And some children are not being wilful. They're not cursed with dreadful parents. They are often suffering from medical issues.

So maybe enough of. the castigation.

M0nica

She also had children starting school who could barely talk their vocabulary was so limited

LOTS of this now. The covid effect of being locked in, minimal contact with others for a large % of their tiny lives.

My DGS started nursery at 3, fully potty trained, day and night. All great.

What we DIDN'T expect, was when he wet himself a few times (settling in anxiety and nerves) that they wouldn't notice and put him in the dry clothes we sent in with him. Also didn't expect that when we pointed it out to them, that they would act as if HE was wrong.

I wasn't impressed.

It is sheer parental laziness in most cases. When my children were young we were highly motivated to encourage them out of nappies. Nowadays some parents find it convenient to have the child remain in nappies so there are no accidents. As I said, laziness.

My mother in law was a reception class teacher. her career ran from roughly 1930 to 1970. She told me, that while it was rare, she had had children starting school still in nappies, or not yet fully trained

She also had children starting school who could barely talk their vocabulary was so limited, children who had never seen a book or the printed word, never held a pencil or were unable to tell the difference between a square, circle or triangle.

The same reason, parents who had fallen down on the job and those who should have stepped in and offered them help failing to do so.

I work in a primary school, am part of a wider group of teachers as well as having friends who work in primary. This has been talked about in the media for years, but we’ve never come across it in real life! What parents do nowadays is wait until children are ready rather than forcing them prematurely. I was very fortunate not to toilet train - not because I was lazy but because I have a strong-willed child determined to do it herself!

MerylStreep

Riverwalk

I'm surprised that you're surprised and shocked at this - it's been discussed for at least the past 10 years!

What Riverwalk said. Nothing new.

Yes, it is nothing new.

I remember this from years ago ' long before Gransnet existed.

Both of my DD have taught children who have needed nappy changing.

More are arriving recently, usually those who have missed out on nursery or pre-school.
Unless they have SEN, the routine of toileting in the Reception class sorts it out in a couple of weeks, though we do have a small number of parents who resent their child being sent home in school underwear and being asked to wash and return it.
One child with a stoma settled quickly into school. A couple of TAs met with the mother for training and agreed to support the child with changing the pouch whilst he needed help.

sodapop

5-7 year old children should definitely be out of nappies, I don't think this is something teachers should have to be dealing with.

Me neither, unless that child has special needs.

blue25

Don’t be judgemental. They may have unidentified SEN. Anxiety or physical problems can also be an issue.

It was only the case when children with special needs were given nursery places; other children were expected to be toilet trained before places were allocated at age 3+.

The change came many years ago when it was decreed in the Disability Discrimination Act and then the Equality Act that children should not be discriminated against on the grounds that they were not toilet trained.

The Disability Discrimination Act prohibits settings from refusing to care for a child because they are not toilet trained.

It was implemented by some LAs whether or not a child had a disability.

When DD and DS were going to nursery school, at age 3, they had to be toilet trained or they wouldn’t be allowed to utilise their place. This was 1977 and 1979.

Apart from an occasional accident from a child now and again, this never seemed to create a problem.

But of course, this was 40 odd years ago.

And this is progress nowadays.

Maddyone you are spot on mine were on potties as early as they could be as I didn’t want to be washing soiled nappies a day longer than need be They were all proud as punch to be ‘grown up’ and in their panties /pants
I remember looking after grandchild 2 when she was 15 months old (I know her age to the day as her mum and dad went on a belated honeymoon ) she took herself onto the potty and picked it up walked to the toilet and emptied it I had my heart in my mouth waiting for it to go on the floor but she was so competent
Worked in kindergarten years ago never ever had a child in nappies
Unless a child has medical problems it’s pure laziness on the parents part
I get toddlers (2/3) come in the shop with their mums, stinking of full nappies

Agree Maddyone.

Been in childcare for over twenty years and can see where this is coming from. I work in preschool and the rule used to be that they didn’t come into that room till they were toilet trained. Now it’s the norm we have at least three or four in nappies and no special needs. Just lazy parents. Our ratio is one to eight and when we’re in changing nappies we are leaving others to their own devices. So much so now we have to ask for extra staff to come in and cover. It’s a nightmare.

blue25

Don’t be judgemental. They may have unidentified SEN. Anxiety or physical problems can also be an issue.

Can you remember any child when you started school, who was still in nappies? Can you remember any child, when your children started school, still in nappies? Can you remember any child, when your grand-children started school, who were still in nappies?

I don't- not a single one.

MamaCaz

I think it must be because both parents are usually working full time these days, so even when the nursery is on board too, it is a much more difficult process than it was when a child was being looked after on a one-to-one basis (usually with the mother).

Lock down helped with my youngest dgc in that respect. Because of it, she wasn't in nursery as she approached two, so we and her parents managed to get her out of nappies. She didn't find it easy, and I am pretty certain that we would have had to abort our efforts if she had still been going to nursery for part of the week.

I worked full time during late 80’s and 90’s and had no trouble toilet training before nursery.

Unfortunately there have been children in school, in Early Years in particular, but sometimes in KS1, who are not toilet trained for a number of years. It is certainly a more recent phenomenon, because when I started teaching in the seventies there were no such children, and almost no accidents, even with the youngest children. By the time I left some nine years ago, it was no longer uncommon for children to start school untrained. I think disposable nappies has caused the change, with parents no longer needing to wash and dry nappies daily, the pressure to toilet train was diminished.

Yes, nothing new.
It can easily be corrected once the children enter school (Reception) but only if you have enough staff to do so. Teachers can't be expected to sort it

A child aged 5-7 does not want to soil themselves. There will be other reasons. The reason they are in mainstream is because we no longer hide away or banish children with special needs or medical conditions.

The absolute lack of support or funding that the schools receive from the Gov is a crisis and needs to be addressed soon before even more teachers burn out.

As a teacher, I encountered one child of six still wearing nappies. He was responding well to staff attempts to toilet train him but mother demanded we stop. She claimed he had a disability! The mother appeared to be the problem.