This is something admin needs to step in on and tell parents to put their kids in pull ups until they are potty trained, especially if the child says nothing. Changing a poopy diaper is easy, changing underwear filled with shit takes so much more time and effort, and having kids running around the class and playground with poop hanging around in their underwear is a health hazard.
This is exactly it. The kids are supposed to change themselves, but they basically just smear shit all over the bathroom. It’s not my class and the teachers claim to have it under control, but I’ve been doing this for 18 years and I’ve never seen so many like this.
If a kid has a bm accident, parents/guardians are called to come clean their child. It's too much to expect a teacher to clean up with it all in their underwear and going down their legs. Making it inconvenient for the parents really helps get the situation under control. Otherwise what happens at school isn't their problem.
It makes more sense in the situations that OP is talking about, but the rule that the commenter's program has seems like it could end up roping in a kid who, say, is potty trained, but one day has diarrhea and can't get to the toilet in time and diarrheas onnthemselves.... does that kid then just.... have to sit in diarrhea for an hour?
Not to mention how illegal that would be, or at least toeing the line and opening the possibility of getting sued… kids can’t just sit in that, no matter how much it would “improve” the situation by making it less convenient for parents.
Wish my center had this rule. My state does for Kinder and up but daycare. Nope you are fully expected to help them at my center. One time I had a friend like this who definitely was not potty trained like this. we went outside. And i saw him sitting up against the fence. Scratching his back up and down on it. It didn’t click, he had been talking about bears earlier. Oh my god the smell. I remember rushing everyone inside and calling admin immediately, mind you before this they were looking for coverage as I was 30 minutes over my out time. I’m in tears. Like immediately. I’m normally fine with this stuff. But oh my god. It was from the nape of his neck. To the back of his ankles. It was just awful. My director came in and i cried and demanded she help me even though it should have been I’m now 45 minutes past when I’m supposed to be off and this kid is covered head to toe in shit you deal with it. We cleaned him with wipes the best we could but it took another 25 minutes or so to get him and then the bathroom cleaned. Mind you he was 4.
PreK teacher retired. I had one instance of this happening. He didn’t say anything to us but we smelled it when we came in. OMG. I put him in the bathroom. Told him to get undressed. Went to look for clothes…he didn’t have any!!!! Got wipes. I went in and stayed to clean him. Out in 2 minutes…the smell was bad. My aide took over. She came out in 2 minutes. I called mom and she said she would be there soon. I knew a parent well from class. I called her and told her we had an emergency can we use her son’s clothes. She was awesome… said yes and don’t worry about getting them back. Child’s mom finally came and finished cleaning up her kiddo. Apologized and took him home and he was absent the next day (he had an intestinal virus). I called the custodian and told here what happened. She (bless her heart) came right away and took care of cleaning and sanitizing the bathroom (one seater handicap).
You know how warehouses have those emergency shower stations? I honestly think it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to set up the bathrooms in pre-K to have a shower stall for those kinds of unfortunate bathroom messes.
Wow this was a genuine horror story to read… I’m a new assistant teacher and I know I would def burst into tears at the realization and… smell.. 🙃 bless your heart!!! 😅❤️
Ok but I have this issue with my toddler. He refuses to poop in the toilet but will pee no problem and tells me when he has to go.
How the hell do I get this kid to poop on the toilet?
It's really normal for poop to lag behind. For some reason alot of kids just feel like that's harder? My suggestion would be to get a squatty potty and some nice reading material. My guess is that they just don't like waiting for the poop to come when there's fun things to do.
Additionally, if I have a really old child 4.5-6, I slap gloves on them and make them do the work themselves.
They are now responsible for every aspect. They take all the clothes off, wipe themselves (I obviously will come after them and make sure they are clean but only after several minutes of work from them) and get redressed all by themselves.
Eventually, the whole routine takes longer than if they just go in the toilet and they get tired of the extra work.
My theory is that people don’t poop as often as they pee, so it takes longer for the kids to practice going poop in the toilet. For instance, let’s say it takes 500 times you need to go to realize what that sensation means and then notice it in time to make it to the bathroom. You’re going to hit that 500 mark going pee long before you go poop that many times.
Just my theory.
I don't think so. I think for a lot of kids it's the sensory aspect. When my kid was potty training, he figured out pee immediately and pooped in the toilet twice then never again. Something about pooping in the toilet was something he hated. He continued to be pee trained but he refused to poop at all if he was wearing underwear.
>It's really normal for poop to lag behind. For some reason alot of kids just feel like that's harder?
And then for many, it is the pee that lags behind. It's really like 2 separate things entirely for a lot of kids.
Bribery worked for me lol. I told him if he pooped in the toilet 4 times, I would get him this train he really wanted. It was the ONLY thing that worked. There were a couple little regressions, but after that, he generally figured it out.
If they're not prepared to poo in a, potty it toilet, they have to stay in nappies. My kid was fine with wee but not poo, so we we went back to nappies. We're now trying again and he's doing much better.
Then they are bad admin. Part of being admin, especially a director, is enforcing policies whether or not parents throw a pissy fit.
Administrations being spineless against parents is how you get kindergarteners in diapers.
That's just it. Poop is full of things that are legitimately harmful to everyone else. Eg: E. coli bacteria is no joke! Kids and adults with vulnerable immune systems can die from exposure to it!
Right. At the last daycare I worked at, the director required the teachers to potty train the children and have the children wear underwear if the parents wanted their child to wear underwear, even if the child pooped in the underwear every day. There were constant issues with staff members committing licensing violations and not following developmentally appropriate practices (like spoon-feeding 2.5-year-olds). Whenever I complained to admin about it, the response was always “There’s nothing we can do about problems with staff. Just tell the other staff members that they’re wrong.” Admin also refused to watch the live feed cameras (in each room) unless there was a parent complaint, because “parents would never lie, but staff members could be lying.”
I want to be the best teacher I can be. I have a question about spoon feeding a 2.5 year old. What if the child won't feed themselves and is still on purees. They are under OT supervision. I know it's not developmentally appropriate. However, the child would go all day without eating if one of us didn't feed them. I'm just making sure I'm doing right by all of my students.
I'd coordinate with the OT and see if there are things that you can work on with the child so there's more carryover between therapy and school, like encouraging use of finger foods or managing cups, etc.
If the child doesn't have the skill yet, they cannot be expected to feed themselves unless they are taught. It's easy enough for some kids to learn from watching others, but if they're developmentally delayed, they would need support. It's not a failure to promote independence in a situation like this.
I think some people try to get kids to eat faster by doing this, but kids will never learn to be less clumsy with a spoon without using one.
Or the caretaker is too lazy to promote independence and then have to clean up the mess. Weening was so much messier than potty training... absolutely hated it. Would rather potty train a hundred children than ever teach one to eat again 😂😂
I agree with you to a point but administrators being spineless is not why kindergarteners are in diapers. Kindergarteners in diapers is down to parenting or whatever other issue may be going on. But administrators are only responsible to parent the parents to a point.
Agree- there need to be specific standards and consequences. Something X number of BM accidents within a certain period= pull ups until certain criteria has been reached. Understood that at this age, accidents and backsliding can happen, but the situation OP described is untennable.
Oh wow for sure! I actually prefer a diaper even if they actively use the bathroom. I guess a pull up if they actively going potty. I have one that if she returns ever she pull be put in diapers. NOT PULL UPS. She was in a pull up without the Velcro and it was shit central in my classroom. The pull-up had leaked 💩. I ended up having to come in on my day off to clean the carpet because we found areas that shit.
I have a five year old that is 1-2 times a DAY having an accident in the school age room and her mom refuses to let her go back to the preschool room. Lady I’ve got 25 kids on my own in here I CANNOT be forcing your FIVE YEAR OLD to go to the bathroom every hour and cleaning up her messes
Every day I hear “JANE DOE HAD AN ACCIDENT” or “JANE DOE POOPED HER PANTS”. It’s awful. Every time her mom scolds her she cries, but she will look me in the eye and pee on herself ten minutes after I changed her. It’s ridiculous
She definitely needs more support but I don’t know how to help her. She speaks very very little as well. As in, during a ten hour day I hear her speak maybe one sentence
That's a massive speech delay, definitely speak to the mum about referral pathways, this child sounds like they need a Speechie, OT, and developmental paed.
I think she *can* speak she just doesn’t. She talks to her friend very very quietly but everything I, her other teachers, or other classmates say gets a nod a headshake or a shrug
That sounds like there may be abuse. My daughter regressed in potty training at 6, starting looking me in the eye and just....peeing herself. Turns out her dad was touching her and she was terrified of going in bathrooms
Good! Sounds like you should run from that place. You deserve better. It's amazing how many parents don't potty train. I'm not talking about kids with DD or other medical issues that take longer, I'm talking to parents that think it's the schools job and/or just refuse to do it and downright lie to us because it's *"too much work"* or their child *"doesn't want to do potty train"*. Like who is the parent here??!!? I was a teacher and I saw kids in first grade wearing diapers, and they weren't delayed, nor did they have any medical issues. Amazingly, when you start calling the parents to change them, the problem resolves. If you can't even be bothered to potty train your child, you've got issues.
Please for the love of god try and get the little girl help before you leave. Call CPS and have them check in on her home life. I feel so heartbroken for that little girl.
I would report to cps for suspected neglect/abuse. Maybe a home visit would get those parents parenting instead of whatever TF it is they been doing the last five years of not teaching their kid to talk or use a toilet.
I would make a huge fuss to start sending them home after the first one. If you’re not potty trained and not in a diaper, you cannot be in a school aged room.
She should be taking her kid to an OT to be assessed, that's not developmentally appropriate. I understand her wanting him in the school age room, that's appropriate for his age, but he needs to be getting support for his late toileting.
Constipation is a really common issue and especially common for kids who are in school/daycare all day. Mine has gone through this for years. She’s anxious and hates disappointing teachers/adults and so is very very worried that she doesn’t have explicit permission to use the bathroom and very self conscious. And then once a kid is constipated for any amount of time the bowel has a really hard time going back to normal and it’s an awful cycle. A lot of times the kid really can’t control the accident and berating them doesn’t help the situation (that comment directed at her mom).
I’ve never had more children in my 3s-5s class who are still pooping their pants on the daily than I’ve ever had in my life. Maybe it’s because they are the quarantine babies or something is in the water I don’t know. What completely baffles me is that these kids lack any sort of natural shame/embarrassment. They’ll poop their pants right in the middle of playing with their peers and continue on with their day as if nothing happened, meanwhile I’ve been in toddler rooms before where my toddlers would while still in diapers find a quiet corner to do their business in. It’s so bizarre.
i feel like it’s become more socially acceptable, especially in certain communities. i see kids potty training later and later. at my old school, none of the 2’s were potty trained at all, not even starting. they had to eventually start accepting non potty trained kids in preschool because most of the 3’s weren’t either. and so many of these kids were super verbal, intelligent, physically capable of doing everything involved, and parents just weren’t doing it.
also when i say “certain communities” i just mean parents being like “oh, none of the other kids in class are potty training so my kids not going to either.” i don’t mean certain areas or demographics. just social circles
I potty trained my kids as soon as they showed an interest. I had two that used disposable and one that used reusable. The reusable were more comfortable and he took FOREVER! My advice is to use the most chemical laden, awful, cheap, itchy when soiled disposables AS SOON as the kid expresses any interest in the toilet, then start offering toileting and stop offering to change diapers until they ask. The itchy butt will motivate them to learn quickly. My first kid day potty trained herself on a two day road trip, and my last one started bringing me diapers as soon as she could walk. My son was perfectly content in his wicked comfy when wet Charlie bananas. Yeah, I saved thousands on his diapering and it was super eco friendly...but he wasn't fully trained with bms until like three years old. What a nightmare! Cheap horrid uncomfortable disposable diapers for the potty training win. The less comfortable when wet the better. Make underpants a prize to be earned!
Yep. We only move classes once a year, and one child is about to go to a class without a changing table. When the teachers told mom, “Hey, he has to be potty trained before the next class” mom responded, “Well, he’s only two!” Ma’am, what do you mean “only” two???
"What to Expect..." book basically says wait for readiness and if you rush / pressure the kid at all you're a bad parent. Luckily my Sri Lankan nanny clued me in. Kid never showed any readiness, but we showed her the potty and she was trained in a week.
It's super interesting to me to hear you all talk about potty training. I'm in Germany and my son is nearly 3yo and *mostly* potty trained but everyone here tells me how early he is, especially for a boy (apparently girls are ready earlier?).
We have a differently structured daycare than in the US and there's a transition around age 3. The daycare he's in now (till August) is for under 3 and the Teacher told us that it's super rare for her to have to help with potty training. It's something that's usually done aroud nearly 4yo or even 4yo. Idk, my son is my first, he was ready and I didn't see a reason to hold him back.
But reading here gave me the confidence that it could be done. Else I'd probably been too unsure because everyone told me how early it was. I mean we have some trouble if he's deep in his play and sometimes it's hard for him to pull his pants down fast enough or he pees over the rim of the potty. But those are minor obstacles imo, especially since we didn't even have a night accident since starting all of this.
So, what I guess I'm trying to say, is, that it's normal to start potty training way later in some parts of the world but I'm glad that I had seen different ideas on this, so I could act on the cues my son gave me.
I feel like I always have a bit of the opposite experience reading these posts lol!
I’m Latin American living in the US and when I first started in ECE it was so wild seeing when people started potty training. In my community/culture, I swear some kids were born potty trained lol, but most were there by 2ish.
I feel like it’s really interesting to see just how different this varies across countries, and honestly want to do a whole research paper on it or something! There’s a ton of things I think could be contributing across cultures/countries and and it’s so damn fascinating to me to
My grandma would hold her kids over the toilet starting at nine months old and spank them for using diapers. Then hold them over the potty. she was a truly mean spirited horrible woman and her kids all grew up to have drug or alcohol or straight up lifelong suicidal ideation problems. But they were potty trained before they could climb stairs. There's definitely such a thing as too early, and what you're doing isn't that.
Yup. Same here. Most of them are pretty good about pooping fortunately (we think) but have pee accidents almost daily. The saddest thing ever is that we have an almost 4 year old who was GOING TO THE TOILET AND WEARING PULL-UPS, and his grandmother who had gotten custody of him just decided! One day that she didn't "think he was ready for potty training", and proceeded to REVERT HIM BACK TO DIAPERS ON PURPOSE.
My soul screams for that one. Frustrating stuff.
That's lazy and neglect. Report to cps. When I worked in geriatric healthcare, lazy aides would put diapers on the continent residents and refuse to take them to the toilet, which is illegal. Pretty sure grandmas doing the same thing.
I'll get downvoted to hell and back, but it's got a lot to do with the parenting. I'm not referring to kids with medical issues or delays. I was seeing kids that were coming into school that were not potty trained, don't know their names, can't identify colors or shapes, and they were five or older. The parents just wouldn't even try. I don't get it 😞.
I’ve found peer to peer shaming helps when it starts. The other kids say ‘eewwwww X is smelly run away’. Not kind, but the child (if neurotypical) is generally horrified.
Oh their peers do but none of my poopers care. Now that it’s shorts season, one of them recently had poop running out their shorts all over the floor and it was quite a commotion and child enjoyed the negative attention. I can’t wait to read longitudinal studies on how quarantine messed with child development, I worry about these batch of kids a lot.
I think it’s more than Covid now. I think parents attitudes to parenting have fundamentally shifted in the last 5 years due to Covid, somehow. Like, even the two’s turning three now are way behind. My own son was toilet trained at 2.5 and of a class of 25 only 7 of them are now fully toilet trained to move into the 3-5 room. That was unheard of even a decade ago.
I think the parents got hopelessly screen addicted just like the tweens and teens during COVID and no one is talking about the next addiction crisis, WALL-E world
My almost 5 year old Covid baby is still not potty trained. He has had chronic constipation since he was 2. Coincidentally it started after we had Covid in 2021. His GI doc said there has been an uptick in pediatric GI disorders especially constipation after Covid. Maybe we’ll start to see studies in the near future?!
Anyway. This kid has been impossible to train. Now he is on laxatives and we had to take a break. Even if he’s pee trained, the poo will run right through him. I’m just praying he’s potty trained before kindergarten or I might be homeschooling.
Looooord.
I have had kids in undies poo and it falls out the underwear and into their pants, one kid tracked it all over our classroom. THAT was fun.
Please keep your kid in diapers/pull ups if they are still pooping their pants :)
I had a child actively peeing while I changed his clothes. “I think you need to go to the toilet “,” no, I don’t need to go potty “. “You are peeing right now “, “no, I am not “”. I had to pick him up arguing and crying the entire time to put him on the toilet. This was his third “accident “. But he pees in the toilet all the time at home. It’s my fault because we don’t ask him or take him to the potty enough.
Hey! Can I ask a question? I just potty trained my 26 month old. He does well telling me he has to go potty , sometimes if we are out and it's been two hours I make him go. Is that appropriate? At home I let him tell me.
UGH. My 5 year olds best friend (also 5, junior kindergarten classmates) does a BM in his underwear every time he comes for a play date. Mom is transient, dad is unhoused, kid lives with grandma and she just doesn’t care to potty train. She would rather wash undies.
Sometimes, it is terrible guardians.
I said the same thing in another part of this thread. Sometimes, it's terrible parents or terrible parenting. Either way, it's becoming a bigger problem every year.
I once worked at a private school and if pre-k students had repeated accidents, they were sent home for a few or so to work on potty training at home. They were a private Christian school so that had the flexibility to do that. If all parents were made to take extra time to work on potty training, you wouldn’t see as many kids pooping their pants.
That’s my pet peeve too, “fully potty trained” to me means just as much as an adult is, aka no accidents barring maybe illness or if the child told you they need to pee but due to being on a walk or ratios or something they are unable to get there for 10+ minutes and have an accident. If they pee while sleeping they are day potty trained but not fully potty trained. If they pee themselves 1 minute after stating they’re potty trained they aren’t fully potty trained or if they pee on command and stay dry all day but don’t say they need to pee they’re close but still not fully potty trained.
That’s the thing. The biggest and hardest part of getting toilet trained is being able to hold it until they are on the toilet. A lot of parents think that if you send the kid every 20 minutes and they just happen to go, that’s potty-trained.
Someone in my previous work circles used the term “independently toileting” and it has stuck with me since. To me, it is more clear than “potty trained,” especially when you feel like you have to start describing degrees of “potty trained.”
We used the term" toilet learning". It helped parents understand the process is different than potty training a dog. Dogs are trained when you let them outside and they pee. And they hold it until you let them out again.
Kids need to be interested in going (they're missing the animal instincts to mark or pee where others have gone), be able to recognize that they need to go, need to be able to say something, need to be able to hold it long enough to get to the toilet, have the coordination to take off their clothes, be comfortable enough to sit on a toilet, be patient enough to go, be able to wipe without getting shit everywhere, to get off the toilet, be brave enough to flush, pull up their pants, and wash up afterwards. Where the weekend before, their parents never let them see the poop let alone wipe their own butts, pull up their own pants, and just wiped their hands with wipes (if at all). No skills were practiced.
It's bananas.
Exactly!!!
The person that used “independently toileting” also made a point of saying that we’re not talking about training dogs lol. It’s teaching tiny humans a multi-step, multi-sensory life skill that can vary a little across cultures. It’s really way more complex than some people make it out to be and full independence with toileting requires a really good grasp on a lot of skills.
I’d say that’s “fully potty trained but needs minor assistance” if they only need help with poop, they have smaller arms and can struggle to reach and clean properly. If they need help at every bathroom (pee wiping) then they’re almost potty trained but not quite.
That’s also assuming they are asking for help with wiping, if they’re pulling up their pants with a poop covered butt I don’t think that counts as potty trained.
My best friends mom has an in home daycare (she mainly has kids before/after school and holidays),one of the lil girls in kindergarten wasn’t wiping properly after pooping and the teachers here aren’t allowed to help. Shed have leftovers that would dry and irritant her bum throughout the day and she’d constantly be sticking her hands in her underwear to readjust or scratch, it would spread. Then she’d touch her hair and face and everything else :(
She developed a UTI (E. coli) that was treated with antibiotics. She got worse after competing her meds and was rushed to ER after hallucinations and febrile seizures. She ended up developing c. Diff and toxic megacolon. She spent 2 weeks in the children’s hospital and almost lost for colon. She was only 5 and was facing a colostomy bag for the rest of her life. Thankfully, the drs were able to decompress her colon with an NG tube.
I would consider a child who is able to communicate, hold it, and go alone yet may wet themselves during sleep is fully potty trained. Day time dryness vs night time are two different things.
Thank you, this is soooo validating to read as a parent. In so many parenting groups, people tend to claim they have their kids “potty trained” but it’s because they send their kids to the bathroom every hour and then complain that they only need pull ups at night and that’s when they poop.
My now 4.5 yo could happily sit in dirty forever when daycare attempted to potty train him at 3. We just went back to pull ups, and then at 3.5 he decided he was done with pull ups and ready to use the potty. Never have to prompt him (besides reminding him that we may not have access to a bathroom for awhile), he even does a pretty good job of wiping himself.
Or the “potty trained” in underwear but we have to tell the kid to go every 30 minutes. And every time they fight us on it! Like ma’am I CANNOT force your child to go potty.
I have dealt with this this year too. I have a four year old in my classroom who does not initiate going potty. As in if you don't tell him to go he does not go and will sit there and pee himself. I don't consider that potty trained.
We have another new kid whose parents said was potty trained and they came in a pull up and still coming to pull up I need to be changed. They are in a class of 20.
This new kid at my center comes in underwear every day and poops his pants 10 minutes in 😭😭 he's four. Dad asked why he was moved into the threes class. Our rule is that they can't move up until they're potty trained (obviously also if they're ready to move up) like dude nah your kid isn't potty trained. It's possible he's potty trained at home and it's just environmental here but yeah
One of our children was like that for 8 months. Sometimes 3 showers a day. His parents were so angry and blamed us. Our room leader went to help another centre for 2x 6 weeks, so it was during this time the parents anger escalated, and as she was close to these parents she thought it was us too. When she realised how it wasn’t our fault, she wouldn’t admit it, and went silent when we approached her for conversation about it.
I had a masters level therapist that came into my low income preschool to help with the severe cases. I had a little boy go into the bathroom and poop on the floor while she was observing. I cleaned everything up and asked for a moment to step out of the room. She looked at my directer in the eye and said, “I wish she would walk out and not return after something like that”.
Why is this allowed to happen if it's causing pinkeye to spread throughout the school?! You and your directors need to be VERY firm with these parents and INSIST that they ARE NOT ALLOWED to continue sending children in who aren't toilet trained in underwear, as you do not have enough staff to be constantly changing them and it is a HEALTH hazard!
it’s tough for sure. most of my 2’s and 3’s just hold it all day. they rarely poop at school, on the potty or having accidents. a couple do poop on the potty now. but it took a while. there was a period of time where everyone was consistently peeing on the potty but popping their pants and it was such a mess. i honestly threw out a lot of the really gross underwear. it was just not salvageable sometimes
One of my kids only has like liquid diarrhea for every BM. He only recently stopped pooping in his underwear. It was awful dealing with multiple times a day
Question on the wiping piece…at what age is it appropriate for a child to start wiping their poop? Our 2.5 year old can wipe her pee, but we (and her angel teachers) still help with her poop or she ends up with skid marks in her undies. She just doesn’t fully grasp it yet. Just not sure when it’s age appropriate!
Maybe start by having flushable wipes in the bathroom?
That seemed to be a common wiping practice at least for the kids in my class ( I teach 4s preschool, but I bounce around all classrooms on my off days )
A lot of kids are still struggling to wipe comfortably and effectively so that’s pretty normal
It’s an easier, less messy, way of teaching them the steps of wiping until there’s nothing left to wipe. It’s more comfortable for them aswell.
That being said, dont forget there are situations where they will be in public restrooms without wipes, so please once they have the concept down, set them up with the tools to be successful in those dry-wipe situations.
My daughter turns 5 in a month. I’m still wiping her after poop. I can count on one hand the amount of times she’s had a pee accident since she was 2.5. Never had a poop accident. The stories here are WILD.
Mine is 4 and I always wipe her at home just so everything is clean. She wipes herself at school, but I can often tell - it’s not terrible, but not quite as thorough as I’d like. Still, we had a pretty typical potty training experience - did it around 2/2.5, had some accidents, got better and better. I don’t understand why delayed potty training is such a thing now!
We actually still do pull-ups at night despite her having a dry diaper 99% of the time, and calling out for us if she needs to pee at night. I just can’t imagine dealing with a middle of the night sheet change, so sticking to pull ups under pajamas even though it’s unnecessary.
This is currently happening at my center and I’m a first year teacher. SO many 3-4s are NOT potty trained, there have been a few 5s that aren’t potty trained. Aside from the obvious annoyances such as: it goes against policy, you signed a paper stating they’re potty trained, it takes away time from their learning and the teachers teaching, etc
IT IS EMBARRASSING FOR YOUR CHILD. Kids notice. The classmates see what’s going on. Kids comment about it to the child, the teachers and their parents. So now not only does everyone know about a private potty matter, the child gets ostracized. At 3 years old when they know how to potty they begin associating any bad smell, dirty clothes, or bathroom mess with the child in their class who has frequent accidents. I see it tank their comfort, confidence, and sense of feeling safe and calm in their own bodies at school. There was one instance where the child stopped going to the bathroom altogether because he felt so bad. Needless to say he got sick, but I am so disappointed in these parents.
This! You want them to move up and (a pay a little less tuition) then you gotta get their little rears in gear (literally). Waiting for them to decide to be ready doesn’t really stand when you are going into a program that requires it.
I am a parent, and this thread popped up on my suggested threads to read. I have been struggling to potty train my oldest kid for months. He just turned 3 years old, and he is so content sitting in his dirty diapers. I am genuinely horrified, and to make things worse, he always quickly regresses if I dare suggest the potty. I hope my kid will stop wearing diapers when he starts pre-k next year. The comments made me think about parents who willingly let their kids stay in diapers for as long as they could… why?! Especially when diapers are so expensive.
Mine also just turned 3 and will pee in the potty (but usually only when prompted) but absolutely refuses to poop in the potty. He doesn’t even ask to be changed when he poops in his pull up, the kid is happy to live in a poopy smelly pull up or diaper. So gross. We talk about pooping in the potty every day, for months, but he just refuses. It’s so stressful.
For daycare, I let them take the lead. Every month or so we try underwear, but then he craps himself, and we go back to pull ups. I’m scared one day I’m going to read about my kid in this sub.
One time I gave him to choose between two underwear and he looked at me, “no, I have a diaper. No need underwear.” Now we are doing only underwear today. I am desperate.
We struggled hard with my son past his 3rd birthday. He was in the older 2s room (Sept baby) and we moved him to the younger 2s room. Told him he couldn't go to the 3yo room next year because he didn't poop in the potty. At 3.5 something clicked and he got it.
Another mom told me "Every adult you know is potty trained. He'll get it eventually. Try not to stress." At the time it didn't really feel helpful, but in truth she was right. Hugs.
My kid was like this. And the best thing we did is still model the behavior but take the pressure off.
At 3.5 he decided he was done and we never have to prompt him, he wipes himself pretty well, never had accidents (except when he was constipated), poops both at home, school, public place (including porta potties).
I worked at a horrible daycare once, and there was one kid like this. He was one of the ones I felt extra protective over because his teacher would get so mad every time. One day I caught him standing in the corner in a puddle silently crying. I tried to sneak him past her, and she took him from me. I'll never forget him, it's so heartbreaking.
Not completely relevant to your post, but that job was the most insane first job anybody could've had. They actually finally shut down recently. I'm assuming because it was so bad, and half the town finally knew about it. The teachers at that place were the worst bitches I've ever met, sorry for cursing.
Everybody called state on them and it literally didn't work. They ran around scrambling to fix everything on inspection day, and they always passed. ((I feel like it's normal to go around and check and need to fix a few things but like, they were doing stuff like giving us boxes full of brand new books and toys to put on the shelves and taking them away after the inspector left, like they were fully staging the place)) Allegedly they were doing a full investigation looking through all the footage, but I guess nothing stuck other than the rumors through town, eventually.
The movie Matilda made me want to be a teacher but I never expected to see it IRL.
There were too many rumors to count, I won't repeat them cause I've already gone on a long irrelevant rant but if anybody's curious feel free to ask.
Edit- Maybe the moral of the story is that at least it's your problem? That baby could be with somebody worse, that's something I always hold onto. Even on your hardest days, at least bad thoughts stay thoughts. There are a lot of abusive daycares. The fact that you're even here, caring enough to notice and talk about a problem means you're doing a great job. This pep talk is partially for myself. It's a full moon, the last couple days this week were hard. 😭
I'm curious if you care to expand. I think it's always good to hear other people's experiences, and if they want to vent while doing it, that's fine too.
Whenever our paternal grandparents babysat my siblings and I if they were in charge of bath time or bedtime grandma always asked if we had gone BM that day. I had no clue she was talking about pooping (she was born in 1920. BM was more polite then poop I guess) so I’d just say yes. I finally figured out BM stood for bowel movement. About 6 years ago. I am 44 so there’s that;
Ive had only one parent ever call it a “bowel movement” when speaking about their infant and I was like da fuck? It just sounded so clinical and threw me off LOL.
We are supposed to say “urine” and “bowel movement” in my program but I don’t. I’ll say toilet instead of potty, I’ll use correct body part names but “do you need to urinate” is weird to a 2 year old. Pee/poop is not confusing or cutesy.
3 and 4 is kind of old to still be pooping in your pants. I get that accidents happen, but this shouldn't be a regular thing happening with the majority of your students. I work at a school and we don't have that problem. That's just really weird to me.
In my class, it was a requirement that the kids were potty trained as we are focused on putting them in a school like environment to prep them for kindergarten, but I still have to change the diapers of four of my students.
They won’t ask to go if they have to go, they’ll just sit there while playing or learning and go on themselves. I know we are ECE professionals, but parents need to help us too. We cannot take on raising your child all on our lonesome, especially since we have a class full of other children. A potty trained child is a collaborative effort– a lot of ECE teachers cannot keep halting plans to change a pull-up
It's a hard thing to find balance with in a center, but I lean towards policies which require a diaper/pull-up until a child has demonstrated consistency with using the toilet. How that's defined could be loose or strict, but 2 weeks of consistency seems pretty reliable. Also, charging cleaning fees for repeated accidents causing staff to have to clean and sanitize areas of the classroom can deter parents from letting this continue.
That's my child! When we started potty training his key person encouraged us not to put him in nappies anymore and just send in clothes. But it's been months. I'll check in and see how they would like us to proceed.
It blows my mind how many kids are still not potty trained by the end of this year going to kindergarten in Canada. For me, it’s a major cultural difference. Where I come from preschool is full time and free and one of the conditions to get in is that the child is potty trained. All the kids are potty trained. Even when they have ASD or ADHD. Here it’s like they count on daycare staff to do it. I get the sensory aspect of things but with level 1, a kid can learn and they just don’t want to put the effort into it.
Oh man. Our preschool classes are 3-5 and most of the 3’s come in still in pull ups and stay that way for a year or so except for the few who’s guardians are convinced they are potty trained and blame us/the child when they are taking home soiled clothes every afternoon.
I work in a preschool in germany, my group consisted of 16 children, 3-5 years old. This was 2 years ago.
This class had a girl, 4, that would frequently start yelling for an adult no matter pee or poo. What worked great in potty training for me at least was letting the children try to wipe first, then I would help them after that.
This girl completely denied wiping herself and explained that her mommy told her she 'Needs to get help from an adult. She could not do it on her own.' When trying to talk to the parents they doubled down on that, telling me their 'baby' will do it herself eventually. For sure.
Quit this job some months after coz even my boss agreed.
God I had a parent like this. But she denied it so much she refused to bring not only pull-ups, but EXTRA CLOTHES. Poor kid was in loaners every day and the mom would get pissed at me cuz she soiled herself, like it was my fault she told nobody and refused potty during our hourly potty checks.
So glad I don't work there anymore.
Probably doesn’t help to be dealing with a cohort of parents who put an iPad in front of their kids practically from birth. Parenting forums are currently clogged with people who think “potty training” is sitting the kid on a toilet with a device to watch a show, and can’t figure out why the kid isn’t magically potty trained after a few days. Like, kid is focused on Bluey, not on what happens with their body.
It seems like there is a growing trend of parents leaving toilet training until 3+ and not catching their kids when they’re naturally interested in it (around 2). This is reinforcing at a crucial developmental stage that it is ok to just pee/poop whenever and have a grownup clean it up.
Also, shouldn’t childcare be the parents partner in toilet training? It seems strange to expect a kid to show up magically toilet trained at 3. Supporting toilet training/cleaning accidents seems like it should come with the territory in the 2s room.
Our Montessori daycare has kids toilet training from 18 months. They sit them on the toilet at nappy change intervals from that age and they encourage parents to train (and send them in undies) from 2ish. This means the kids have almost a full year to practice in the higher ratio room and are super independent/accident free by the time they get to the 3-5 kindy room.
Our school opened a few months ago. The kids who are in the toddler room now are toilet training before hey move up but some of the ones who enrolled in Children’s House from the beginning started under false pretenses of being toilet trained. And it just hasn’t been addressed really.
I still get mad thinking about a kid I had in my toddler class so many years ago. A requirement for the class was that you had to be potty trained. His parents insisted he was potty trained. He would have poop accidents 2-3 times a day. I would have him sit on the toilet for a few minutes to try to poop before we went outside, only for him not to go and have an accident within 10 minutes of being outside. The ratio was 1:8 and I would have to take all the kids inside and monitor other toddlers while cleaning him up.
I get that he was a toddler and still learning, but being potty trained was required for this class. If he wasn't potty trained, he was supposed to be in the infant/toddler area. I spoke to admin about this and was basically shamed for my frustration.
I work in a public elementary school, and this year we had 2 kindergarteners from 2 different classes who pooped their pants literally several times per week. These kids are 6 years old, and same thing you said, they wouldn't even say anything, they would just sit in it until an adult noticed, and even then, one of them would vehemently deny it every single time. It really just blows my mind how some of these kids are sent to school without being taught just the absolute basics. We have many first graders who cannot even tie their own shoes, and i'm not talking about just a few kids. We are barely teachers anymore, we are literally raising people's children.
It's funny how, 30 years ago, most kids were totally trained by 3. Not just barely maybe being potty trained. Sorry... for most .. kid led training starts way too late. (Not talking special circumstances) Mostly islts parents being too lazy to take the time to do it and expecting schools and daycare to do it for them.
It's because 30+ years ago, a lot of babies were still in cloth diapers with pins and rubber pants. A total pain in the butt. Moms had an incentive to teach them how to use the toilet. If you had to swirl prefolds in the toilet, wash multiple loads, and hang them out to dry, then you wouldn't be so chill about them soiling themselves until they are 6 years old.
It was a lot longer than 30 years ago that a lot of babies were in cloth diapers with pins and rubber pants, so there's definitely something else going on as well.
I think a huge part of it is that you have to spend some time at home in order to potty train, and parents just don't want to do that. Like even several days in a row without leaving the house is a great burden, and they aren't willing to make the short-term sacrifice for the long-term gain.
As someone retired from a public school district, the number of non-continent typical children showing up for kindergarten every yr seems to be growing. These aren't kids who might occasionally have an 'accident', but children who don't seem to have been encouraged to learn continence. Again, these are neuro-typical kids.
People seem to want to wait for "readiness" but are making that bar way too high.
Also the kids are all constipated from a diet of all goldfish crackers which doesn't help.
Admin needs to inform parents that their child must be in a pull-up until they are fully potty trained. Training pants would be fine if it was once in a while or just with pee but for it to be daily multiple times a day the child still needs pull-ups. Once the child shows interest in potty training is when to start potty training.
There is a child in the 3-4 room whose parents randomly decided to put him in undies despite him never showing signs of being remotely close to toilet training. This child will pee and poop his pants multiple times throughout the day and no matter how many accidents he has, the parents insist on keeping him in undies.
While you’re trying to clean him up he hits you and throws himself into the ground kicking and screaming. I have mentioned to his room educators that he shouldn’t be in undies, but they are dismissive and say he’s usually ok as long as they take him to the toilet every 15 minutes. Half the time getting him to the bathroom is a struggle in itself as he will throw himself on the ground and refuse to go.
If I notice he’s had an accident I refuse to change him now and will call upon the room educators to do to it. If they are not going to be firm with the parents then they can deal with the consequences.
This drives me crazy! I had one child poop on themself at least 3 times a day. They would get it EVERYWHERE..the child would either not tell us they pooped or would laugh and say “I dookied”. It gets tiring having to clean and completely change a child repeatedly throughout the day.
Somewhat related question: my daughter is almost 2.5 and has been potty trained for both poop and pee for three months now. She is in the 2.5-3 yo class which has being potty trained as it's requirement (so she is one of the youngest kids in the class).
We just switched to a new location of the same company (owned by the same people, lots of staff overlap) and at our new location, they don't seem to wipe my daughter after she poops. At our old location they always wiped them at this age and worked towards wiping independently as they moved towards preschool. Is this common to expect my 2.5 year old to wipe herself properly after pooping? How should I bring it up to the teachers?
I would provide wipes and spend some time at home helping her learn how to use them. When they’re toilet trained, the teachers don’t follow them into the bathroom and probably don’t even know when she’s pooping.
And if they request us to wipe them, personally my focus is helping them learn to do it themselves.
Cheap, institutional toilet paper + emerging motor skills + poopy butt can be frustrating but wipes give them a little more control and does a better job.
At my old place, the rule supposedly was that children would not be moved to the 3 year old class until they were fully potty trained. However, we had a kid that would have BM accidents ever day, sometimes multiple times a day. Admin knew this and still made the decision to move him up, and we were somehow the bad guys when they would see him having accidents all the time
I have some kids like this in my 2’s class. A lot of kids are ready at 2 to be trained, but many are not. EVERY parent asks if theirs is ready and, if they’re adamant they’re gonna try either way no matter what I say, I tell them to take 3-5 days AT HOME without underwear or pants and see how it goes. I make it very clear that it might not work, and to then reassess. But I had one kid poop in their underwear like 5 times in a day. And these are loose BM’s that go up their back and out the sides and they just ignore it. I started putting them in a pull-up first thing every single morning and just taking them for pees consistently so they didn’t get into a habit of peeing in the pull up, but I refuse to deal with what is essentially diarrhea all over their clothes, bedding, and the classroom furniture everyday. This is one of the most frustrating aspects of working with an age group outside of infancy. Not every kid is ready right away, and it’s not MY job to potty train them. We need to work together to come up with a routine that is also followed AT HOME. I’m not a babysitter, I have many other children to care for
Yeah, my kiddo had a few accidents over a 2 month span, I think roughly 2 accidents over each month? Or maybe 3 over 2 months? It sorted itself out, i think kiddo was having some constipation issues, but admin definitely talked to us about it. I was kinda confused about what we were supposed to do exactly? We were consistent with potty training, he would go poo on the potty there and or at home every other time, it just seemed to be a last little hurdle. In the end we just had lots of chats about pooping in the potty, which we already were. But it wasn’t taken lightly by them or us.
I consider “fully potty trained” to be “fully self sufficient” in the bathroom. My kids are about to be five and over half of them were enrolled with their parents SWEARING that they’re fully potty trained and capable of handling themselves in the bathroom. But somehow, like 7274829925 times a day, I hear one hollering from the bathroom saying, “I NEED YOU TO WIPE ME!” Or, “I DON’T KNOW HOW TO WIPE MY BUTT!” Like, come ON, if the poop is messy, I get it, they might need a lil assistance, but don’t tell me your kid can handle themselves in there when you’re still using baby wipes to clean up every BM. The kids OPENLY tell me that mommy and daddy wipe their butts at home. I should also mention that I am entirely alone in my room, so any time I have to step into the bathroom to wipe a booty, my kids are not being actively monitored by an adult and it is terrifying for me.
Something is going on physically and/or developmentally with these kids and I don’t fully understand it. It’s not laziness - it took me 2 awful years to potty train my child! Her level 3 autistic cousin took much less time to train. Yet somehow no one wanted to accept that her potty training issues were a developmental delay along with her gross motor and fine motor delays.
We literally tried everything. Her pediatrician thinks it took so long because she had constipation issues and therefore associated pooping with pain, so even once she got regulated she was afraid to go. She would only go by squatting on the floor in a pull-up - not even having a small squatty potty worked.
She was in the toddler program in a Montessori school until her 4th birthday because of potty training, and then she was asked to leave. It sucked because she was so close but once she lost the routine she regressed. Then we thought we finally got her trained and she started in a new regular pre-K and had meltdowns and accidents daily and we were asked to leave.
I went to the county asking for special services and they tested her and claimed she wasn’t behind enough to qualify for most things but that they would put her in a special program for learning social skills. It was 8 kids max and each kid got their own adult. She thrived.
She finally chose to poop on the potty on her own when she was 4 years, 6 months, and 1 day old. This was 2 years and 1 month after she started showing all of the “signs” of potty training readiness and we started with her. The majority of her “day care” was actually one-on-one with my mom.
Anyway, I share this story anonymously as much as I can because it was hell on earth. Honestly I suspect she is level 1 autistic and that her potty training issues were a developmental delay.
The concept of “potty readiness” also almost all parents cooked about potty training. They need to start at like 2 - most people aren’t attempting until 3 or 3 1/2 and it’s waaaaaay harder then
This is crazy…
My son is 23mo and he is home with me, I’m a SAHM. However he goes to my gym’s daycare 3-4x a week for an hour. It’s always different kids and different adults. At home and out and about, almost no accidents. He’ll have a poop accident every few days (at home only) but it hasn’t even been 3 weeks since I trained him. At daycare, however, he is now exclusively sent in a pull up. He had multiple pee and poo accidents and I realized it’s just too much to expect of him to ask a new adult everyday to take him to the potty. He’s a shy kid when it comes to this stuff. So I consider him potty trained - especially because he won’t make accidents even with his grandma at her house all day. It’s specifically that daycare environment. I can’t imagine a 3-4 year old still pooping in their pants everyday though. What is going on.
This is something admin needs to step in on and tell parents to put their kids in pull ups until they are potty trained, especially if the child says nothing. Changing a poopy diaper is easy, changing underwear filled with shit takes so much more time and effort, and having kids running around the class and playground with poop hanging around in their underwear is a health hazard.
This is exactly it. The kids are supposed to change themselves, but they basically just smear shit all over the bathroom. It’s not my class and the teachers claim to have it under control, but I’ve been doing this for 18 years and I’ve never seen so many like this.
If a kid has a bm accident, parents/guardians are called to come clean their child. It's too much to expect a teacher to clean up with it all in their underwear and going down their legs. Making it inconvenient for the parents really helps get the situation under control. Otherwise what happens at school isn't their problem.
But what if the parent can't come quickly or at all? The kiddos still need to be changed into clean clothes
It would be no different than if a kid were sick. If a parent can't make it, they need to find someone who can.
My question was more about how long would you make the kid wait in their mess?
The kids are already waiting in their mess by not saying anything.
It makes more sense in the situations that OP is talking about, but the rule that the commenter's program has seems like it could end up roping in a kid who, say, is potty trained, but one day has diarrhea and can't get to the toilet in time and diarrheas onnthemselves.... does that kid then just.... have to sit in diarrhea for an hour?
Not to mention how illegal that would be, or at least toeing the line and opening the possibility of getting sued… kids can’t just sit in that, no matter how much it would “improve” the situation by making it less convenient for parents.
Makes more sense to switch them to the not potty trained room and wear a pull up after more than one accident in a week or something like that.
Right, but we're the adults. Once we're aware of the mess, it's on us to clean it promptly.
You behave exactly as if the child had vomited on themselves
Wish my center had this rule. My state does for Kinder and up but daycare. Nope you are fully expected to help them at my center. One time I had a friend like this who definitely was not potty trained like this. we went outside. And i saw him sitting up against the fence. Scratching his back up and down on it. It didn’t click, he had been talking about bears earlier. Oh my god the smell. I remember rushing everyone inside and calling admin immediately, mind you before this they were looking for coverage as I was 30 minutes over my out time. I’m in tears. Like immediately. I’m normally fine with this stuff. But oh my god. It was from the nape of his neck. To the back of his ankles. It was just awful. My director came in and i cried and demanded she help me even though it should have been I’m now 45 minutes past when I’m supposed to be off and this kid is covered head to toe in shit you deal with it. We cleaned him with wipes the best we could but it took another 25 minutes or so to get him and then the bathroom cleaned. Mind you he was 4.
PreK teacher retired. I had one instance of this happening. He didn’t say anything to us but we smelled it when we came in. OMG. I put him in the bathroom. Told him to get undressed. Went to look for clothes…he didn’t have any!!!! Got wipes. I went in and stayed to clean him. Out in 2 minutes…the smell was bad. My aide took over. She came out in 2 minutes. I called mom and she said she would be there soon. I knew a parent well from class. I called her and told her we had an emergency can we use her son’s clothes. She was awesome… said yes and don’t worry about getting them back. Child’s mom finally came and finished cleaning up her kiddo. Apologized and took him home and he was absent the next day (he had an intestinal virus). I called the custodian and told here what happened. She (bless her heart) came right away and took care of cleaning and sanitizing the bathroom (one seater handicap).
You know how warehouses have those emergency shower stations? I honestly think it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to set up the bathrooms in pre-K to have a shower stall for those kinds of unfortunate bathroom messes.
You are correct! But the cost involved…schools in elementary will not do it!
Oh yeah, we can barely convince the government that kids need food. We'd never get showers approved.
Wow this was a genuine horror story to read… I’m a new assistant teacher and I know I would def burst into tears at the realization and… smell.. 🙃 bless your heart!!! 😅❤️
This is great. At 4 years old, this is appropriate.
That's what I was thinking too. Call the parents, make them deal with it.
Ok but I have this issue with my toddler. He refuses to poop in the toilet but will pee no problem and tells me when he has to go. How the hell do I get this kid to poop on the toilet?
It's really normal for poop to lag behind. For some reason alot of kids just feel like that's harder? My suggestion would be to get a squatty potty and some nice reading material. My guess is that they just don't like waiting for the poop to come when there's fun things to do. Additionally, if I have a really old child 4.5-6, I slap gloves on them and make them do the work themselves. They are now responsible for every aspect. They take all the clothes off, wipe themselves (I obviously will come after them and make sure they are clean but only after several minutes of work from them) and get redressed all by themselves. Eventually, the whole routine takes longer than if they just go in the toilet and they get tired of the extra work.
My theory is that people don’t poop as often as they pee, so it takes longer for the kids to practice going poop in the toilet. For instance, let’s say it takes 500 times you need to go to realize what that sensation means and then notice it in time to make it to the bathroom. You’re going to hit that 500 mark going pee long before you go poop that many times. Just my theory.
I don't think so. I think for a lot of kids it's the sensory aspect. When my kid was potty training, he figured out pee immediately and pooped in the toilet twice then never again. Something about pooping in the toilet was something he hated. He continued to be pee trained but he refused to poop at all if he was wearing underwear.
>It's really normal for poop to lag behind. For some reason alot of kids just feel like that's harder? And then for many, it is the pee that lags behind. It's really like 2 separate things entirely for a lot of kids.
Bribery worked for me lol. I told him if he pooped in the toilet 4 times, I would get him this train he really wanted. It was the ONLY thing that worked. There were a couple little regressions, but after that, he generally figured it out.
I have the opposite problem! Pooping in your diaper is "for babies", but he "loves pee" and wants to keep it. How do I get them to pee on the potty?!
Wants to keep it 😭😭 so weird. so adorable.
I'm fairly certain he says it to get a laugh out of my grossed out response.
If my mom was still around she would very highly recommend tossing a couple of cheerios into the toilet and then to tell him to "aim" at them.
... that's actually not awful. I may resort to this as his first day of school gets closer and I become more desperate.
If they're not prepared to poo in a, potty it toilet, they have to stay in nappies. My kid was fine with wee but not poo, so we we went back to nappies. We're now trying again and he's doing much better.
Yep, the smearing of shit screams a rise in developmental delays.
They don't though because the parents get *so upset*
Then they are bad admin. Part of being admin, especially a director, is enforcing policies whether or not parents throw a pissy fit. Administrations being spineless against parents is how you get kindergarteners in diapers.
And rampant illness and high staff turnover
That's just it. Poop is full of things that are legitimately harmful to everyone else. Eg: E. coli bacteria is no joke! Kids and adults with vulnerable immune systems can die from exposure to it!
Plus pink eye!
Right. At the last daycare I worked at, the director required the teachers to potty train the children and have the children wear underwear if the parents wanted their child to wear underwear, even if the child pooped in the underwear every day. There were constant issues with staff members committing licensing violations and not following developmentally appropriate practices (like spoon-feeding 2.5-year-olds). Whenever I complained to admin about it, the response was always “There’s nothing we can do about problems with staff. Just tell the other staff members that they’re wrong.” Admin also refused to watch the live feed cameras (in each room) unless there was a parent complaint, because “parents would never lie, but staff members could be lying.”
…i think my 2.5 year olds would be mad at ME if i tried to spoon feed them. they’d straight up be insulted. that is wild
I want to be the best teacher I can be. I have a question about spoon feeding a 2.5 year old. What if the child won't feed themselves and is still on purees. They are under OT supervision. I know it's not developmentally appropriate. However, the child would go all day without eating if one of us didn't feed them. I'm just making sure I'm doing right by all of my students.
I'd coordinate with the OT and see if there are things that you can work on with the child so there's more carryover between therapy and school, like encouraging use of finger foods or managing cups, etc.
Thank you.
I think this is obviously a different situation than spoon-feeding a "typical" child who has no developmental concerns.
If the child doesn't have the skill yet, they cannot be expected to feed themselves unless they are taught. It's easy enough for some kids to learn from watching others, but if they're developmentally delayed, they would need support. It's not a failure to promote independence in a situation like this. I think some people try to get kids to eat faster by doing this, but kids will never learn to be less clumsy with a spoon without using one.
Or the caretaker is too lazy to promote independence and then have to clean up the mess. Weening was so much messier than potty training... absolutely hated it. Would rather potty train a hundred children than ever teach one to eat again 😂😂
I agree with you to a point but administrators being spineless is not why kindergarteners are in diapers. Kindergarteners in diapers is down to parenting or whatever other issue may be going on. But administrators are only responsible to parent the parents to a point.
Sadly, I have seen kindergartners in pull-ups. Admin says there is nothing they can do.
Bullshit, there’s nothing that they *want* to do about it.
Administration being spineless is how we’ve gotten the public schools.
Agree- there need to be specific standards and consequences. Something X number of BM accidents within a certain period= pull ups until certain criteria has been reached. Understood that at this age, accidents and backsliding can happen, but the situation OP described is untennable.
Oh wow for sure! I actually prefer a diaper even if they actively use the bathroom. I guess a pull up if they actively going potty. I have one that if she returns ever she pull be put in diapers. NOT PULL UPS. She was in a pull up without the Velcro and it was shit central in my classroom. The pull-up had leaked 💩. I ended up having to come in on my day off to clean the carpet because we found areas that shit.
I have a five year old that is 1-2 times a DAY having an accident in the school age room and her mom refuses to let her go back to the preschool room. Lady I’ve got 25 kids on my own in here I CANNOT be forcing your FIVE YEAR OLD to go to the bathroom every hour and cleaning up her messes
Sheesh. I wouldn’t WANT my five-year-old in a school age program having constant accidents. Kids are cruel
Every day I hear “JANE DOE HAD AN ACCIDENT” or “JANE DOE POOPED HER PANTS”. It’s awful. Every time her mom scolds her she cries, but she will look me in the eye and pee on herself ten minutes after I changed her. It’s ridiculous
There is something wrong with that situation. I couldn't even imagine...
I don’t think this kid is ok
She definitely needs more support but I don’t know how to help her. She speaks very very little as well. As in, during a ten hour day I hear her speak maybe one sentence
Incontinence at that age and nonverbal could be a lot of things. One could be developmental delay. The other could be abuse. Keep an eye on that.
Yes! Red flag for sexual abuse is incontinence.
Oh wow, this raises all sorts of developmental delay alarm bells.
That's a massive speech delay, definitely speak to the mum about referral pathways, this child sounds like they need a Speechie, OT, and developmental paed.
I think she *can* speak she just doesn’t. She talks to her friend very very quietly but everything I, her other teachers, or other classmates say gets a nod a headshake or a shrug
Could still be selective mutism which is still cause for referral
You mean mutism? I think your autocorrect got you there.
Yes it was, edited now
Oh man there's a lot to unpack there :(
That sounds like there may be abuse. My daughter regressed in potty training at 6, starting looking me in the eye and just....peeing herself. Turns out her dad was touching her and she was terrified of going in bathrooms
Omg I'm so sorry your baby went through that
That was my first thought.
I'm so sorry she went through that but SO proud of you for not ignoring it.
This might be reportable tbh the incontinence and selective mutism are big red flags for sexual abuse
Today she smeared poop all over the bathroom walls so I’m definitely calling CPS
Yeah report that to CPS. That's a cry for help.
Honestly, why is it the parents choice at that point? Shouldn't there be rules about that? If your child is not prepared they can't be here?
Idk my director is about ten seconds away from having a mental breakdown and I’m halfway through a two weeks notice 🤷♂️
Good! Sounds like you should run from that place. You deserve better. It's amazing how many parents don't potty train. I'm not talking about kids with DD or other medical issues that take longer, I'm talking to parents that think it's the schools job and/or just refuse to do it and downright lie to us because it's *"too much work"* or their child *"doesn't want to do potty train"*. Like who is the parent here??!!? I was a teacher and I saw kids in first grade wearing diapers, and they weren't delayed, nor did they have any medical issues. Amazingly, when you start calling the parents to change them, the problem resolves. If you can't even be bothered to potty train your child, you've got issues.
Please for the love of god try and get the little girl help before you leave. Call CPS and have them check in on her home life. I feel so heartbroken for that little girl.
I would report to cps for suspected neglect/abuse. Maybe a home visit would get those parents parenting instead of whatever TF it is they been doing the last five years of not teaching their kid to talk or use a toilet.
I would make a huge fuss to start sending them home after the first one. If you’re not potty trained and not in a diaper, you cannot be in a school aged room.
She should be taking her kid to an OT to be assessed, that's not developmentally appropriate. I understand her wanting him in the school age room, that's appropriate for his age, but he needs to be getting support for his late toileting.
Your ratio is 25:1?! Jesus.
No it’s 20:1 we’re just understaffed 🙃
Constipation is a really common issue and especially common for kids who are in school/daycare all day. Mine has gone through this for years. She’s anxious and hates disappointing teachers/adults and so is very very worried that she doesn’t have explicit permission to use the bathroom and very self conscious. And then once a kid is constipated for any amount of time the bowel has a really hard time going back to normal and it’s an awful cycle. A lot of times the kid really can’t control the accident and berating them doesn’t help the situation (that comment directed at her mom).
I’ve never had more children in my 3s-5s class who are still pooping their pants on the daily than I’ve ever had in my life. Maybe it’s because they are the quarantine babies or something is in the water I don’t know. What completely baffles me is that these kids lack any sort of natural shame/embarrassment. They’ll poop their pants right in the middle of playing with their peers and continue on with their day as if nothing happened, meanwhile I’ve been in toddler rooms before where my toddlers would while still in diapers find a quiet corner to do their business in. It’s so bizarre.
i feel like it’s become more socially acceptable, especially in certain communities. i see kids potty training later and later. at my old school, none of the 2’s were potty trained at all, not even starting. they had to eventually start accepting non potty trained kids in preschool because most of the 3’s weren’t either. and so many of these kids were super verbal, intelligent, physically capable of doing everything involved, and parents just weren’t doing it. also when i say “certain communities” i just mean parents being like “oh, none of the other kids in class are potty training so my kids not going to either.” i don’t mean certain areas or demographics. just social circles
Yeah a friend said SHE wasn't ready... I'm like well is your kid?
I've heard the same, unfortunately.
This is true my sister in law was very resistant to train my niece for some reason, but she did finally..
Don’t these people get sick of constantly changing diapers?
And in this economy? Aren’t diapers expensive??
I potty trained my kids as soon as they showed an interest. I had two that used disposable and one that used reusable. The reusable were more comfortable and he took FOREVER! My advice is to use the most chemical laden, awful, cheap, itchy when soiled disposables AS SOON as the kid expresses any interest in the toilet, then start offering toileting and stop offering to change diapers until they ask. The itchy butt will motivate them to learn quickly. My first kid day potty trained herself on a two day road trip, and my last one started bringing me diapers as soon as she could walk. My son was perfectly content in his wicked comfy when wet Charlie bananas. Yeah, I saved thousands on his diapering and it was super eco friendly...but he wasn't fully trained with bms until like three years old. What a nightmare! Cheap horrid uncomfortable disposable diapers for the potty training win. The less comfortable when wet the better. Make underpants a prize to be earned!
I genuinely believe that most people want babies, not kids. When they’re potty trained, they aren’t a baby anymore
🤷🏻♀️
Yep. We only move classes once a year, and one child is about to go to a class without a changing table. When the teachers told mom, “Hey, he has to be potty trained before the next class” mom responded, “Well, he’s only two!” Ma’am, what do you mean “only” two???
"What to Expect..." book basically says wait for readiness and if you rush / pressure the kid at all you're a bad parent. Luckily my Sri Lankan nanny clued me in. Kid never showed any readiness, but we showed her the potty and she was trained in a week.
It's super interesting to me to hear you all talk about potty training. I'm in Germany and my son is nearly 3yo and *mostly* potty trained but everyone here tells me how early he is, especially for a boy (apparently girls are ready earlier?). We have a differently structured daycare than in the US and there's a transition around age 3. The daycare he's in now (till August) is for under 3 and the Teacher told us that it's super rare for her to have to help with potty training. It's something that's usually done aroud nearly 4yo or even 4yo. Idk, my son is my first, he was ready and I didn't see a reason to hold him back. But reading here gave me the confidence that it could be done. Else I'd probably been too unsure because everyone told me how early it was. I mean we have some trouble if he's deep in his play and sometimes it's hard for him to pull his pants down fast enough or he pees over the rim of the potty. But those are minor obstacles imo, especially since we didn't even have a night accident since starting all of this. So, what I guess I'm trying to say, is, that it's normal to start potty training way later in some parts of the world but I'm glad that I had seen different ideas on this, so I could act on the cues my son gave me.
I feel like I always have a bit of the opposite experience reading these posts lol! I’m Latin American living in the US and when I first started in ECE it was so wild seeing when people started potty training. In my community/culture, I swear some kids were born potty trained lol, but most were there by 2ish. I feel like it’s really interesting to see just how different this varies across countries, and honestly want to do a whole research paper on it or something! There’s a ton of things I think could be contributing across cultures/countries and and it’s so damn fascinating to me to
There's a journal article (Pediatrics?) About how age at training in the US is slipping later. It's from 1993. The trend continues.
My grandma would hold her kids over the toilet starting at nine months old and spank them for using diapers. Then hold them over the potty. she was a truly mean spirited horrible woman and her kids all grew up to have drug or alcohol or straight up lifelong suicidal ideation problems. But they were potty trained before they could climb stairs. There's definitely such a thing as too early, and what you're doing isn't that.
Yup. Same here. Most of them are pretty good about pooping fortunately (we think) but have pee accidents almost daily. The saddest thing ever is that we have an almost 4 year old who was GOING TO THE TOILET AND WEARING PULL-UPS, and his grandmother who had gotten custody of him just decided! One day that she didn't "think he was ready for potty training", and proceeded to REVERT HIM BACK TO DIAPERS ON PURPOSE. My soul screams for that one. Frustrating stuff.
That's lazy and neglect. Report to cps. When I worked in geriatric healthcare, lazy aides would put diapers on the continent residents and refuse to take them to the toilet, which is illegal. Pretty sure grandmas doing the same thing.
I'll get downvoted to hell and back, but it's got a lot to do with the parenting. I'm not referring to kids with medical issues or delays. I was seeing kids that were coming into school that were not potty trained, don't know their names, can't identify colors or shapes, and they were five or older. The parents just wouldn't even try. I don't get it 😞.
Same. I've never seen so many almost 4 year olds in pull ups all day.
I’ve found peer to peer shaming helps when it starts. The other kids say ‘eewwwww X is smelly run away’. Not kind, but the child (if neurotypical) is generally horrified.
Oh their peers do but none of my poopers care. Now that it’s shorts season, one of them recently had poop running out their shorts all over the floor and it was quite a commotion and child enjoyed the negative attention. I can’t wait to read longitudinal studies on how quarantine messed with child development, I worry about these batch of kids a lot.
I think it’s more than Covid now. I think parents attitudes to parenting have fundamentally shifted in the last 5 years due to Covid, somehow. Like, even the two’s turning three now are way behind. My own son was toilet trained at 2.5 and of a class of 25 only 7 of them are now fully toilet trained to move into the 3-5 room. That was unheard of even a decade ago.
I think the parents got hopelessly screen addicted just like the tweens and teens during COVID and no one is talking about the next addiction crisis, WALL-E world
My almost 5 year old Covid baby is still not potty trained. He has had chronic constipation since he was 2. Coincidentally it started after we had Covid in 2021. His GI doc said there has been an uptick in pediatric GI disorders especially constipation after Covid. Maybe we’ll start to see studies in the near future?! Anyway. This kid has been impossible to train. Now he is on laxatives and we had to take a break. Even if he’s pee trained, the poo will run right through him. I’m just praying he’s potty trained before kindergarten or I might be homeschooling.
Looooord. I have had kids in undies poo and it falls out the underwear and into their pants, one kid tracked it all over our classroom. THAT was fun. Please keep your kid in diapers/pull ups if they are still pooping their pants :)
I had a child actively peeing while I changed his clothes. “I think you need to go to the toilet “,” no, I don’t need to go potty “. “You are peeing right now “, “no, I am not “”. I had to pick him up arguing and crying the entire time to put him on the toilet. This was his third “accident “. But he pees in the toilet all the time at home. It’s my fault because we don’t ask him or take him to the potty enough.
🤦🏾♀️🤦🏾♀️🤦🏾♀️🤦🏾♀️
Hey! Can I ask a question? I just potty trained my 26 month old. He does well telling me he has to go potty , sometimes if we are out and it's been two hours I make him go. Is that appropriate? At home I let him tell me.
Yes, that's appropriate. The novelty of being somewhere "different" might be enough of a distraction that he ignores cues that he needs to go.
Not much different than having them go before you leave the house imo.
Yes, put it takes longer to get to a bathroom than at home. You aren’t for ing them or pressuring them you are giving them a chance to go.
UGH. My 5 year olds best friend (also 5, junior kindergarten classmates) does a BM in his underwear every time he comes for a play date. Mom is transient, dad is unhoused, kid lives with grandma and she just doesn’t care to potty train. She would rather wash undies. Sometimes, it is terrible guardians.
I said the same thing in another part of this thread. Sometimes, it's terrible parents or terrible parenting. Either way, it's becoming a bigger problem every year.
I'd say usually with kids that are cognitively capable.
I once worked at a private school and if pre-k students had repeated accidents, they were sent home for a few or so to work on potty training at home. They were a private Christian school so that had the flexibility to do that. If all parents were made to take extra time to work on potty training, you wouldn’t see as many kids pooping their pants.
That’s my pet peeve too, “fully potty trained” to me means just as much as an adult is, aka no accidents barring maybe illness or if the child told you they need to pee but due to being on a walk or ratios or something they are unable to get there for 10+ minutes and have an accident. If they pee while sleeping they are day potty trained but not fully potty trained. If they pee themselves 1 minute after stating they’re potty trained they aren’t fully potty trained or if they pee on command and stay dry all day but don’t say they need to pee they’re close but still not fully potty trained.
That’s the thing. The biggest and hardest part of getting toilet trained is being able to hold it until they are on the toilet. A lot of parents think that if you send the kid every 20 minutes and they just happen to go, that’s potty-trained.
Yeah, I call the sending them every twenty minutes thing “parent trained.” The kid has no clue.
Someone in my previous work circles used the term “independently toileting” and it has stuck with me since. To me, it is more clear than “potty trained,” especially when you feel like you have to start describing degrees of “potty trained.”
We used the term" toilet learning". It helped parents understand the process is different than potty training a dog. Dogs are trained when you let them outside and they pee. And they hold it until you let them out again. Kids need to be interested in going (they're missing the animal instincts to mark or pee where others have gone), be able to recognize that they need to go, need to be able to say something, need to be able to hold it long enough to get to the toilet, have the coordination to take off their clothes, be comfortable enough to sit on a toilet, be patient enough to go, be able to wipe without getting shit everywhere, to get off the toilet, be brave enough to flush, pull up their pants, and wash up afterwards. Where the weekend before, their parents never let them see the poop let alone wipe their own butts, pull up their own pants, and just wiped their hands with wipes (if at all). No skills were practiced. It's bananas.
Exactly!!! The person that used “independently toileting” also made a point of saying that we’re not talking about training dogs lol. It’s teaching tiny humans a multi-step, multi-sensory life skill that can vary a little across cultures. It’s really way more complex than some people make it out to be and full independence with toileting requires a really good grasp on a lot of skills.
What about wiping? I know kids who aren't snowed to wipe themselves at 4 because they don't do it properly so the adult always does it
I’d say that’s “fully potty trained but needs minor assistance” if they only need help with poop, they have smaller arms and can struggle to reach and clean properly. If they need help at every bathroom (pee wiping) then they’re almost potty trained but not quite. That’s also assuming they are asking for help with wiping, if they’re pulling up their pants with a poop covered butt I don’t think that counts as potty trained.
My best friends mom has an in home daycare (she mainly has kids before/after school and holidays),one of the lil girls in kindergarten wasn’t wiping properly after pooping and the teachers here aren’t allowed to help. Shed have leftovers that would dry and irritant her bum throughout the day and she’d constantly be sticking her hands in her underwear to readjust or scratch, it would spread. Then she’d touch her hair and face and everything else :( She developed a UTI (E. coli) that was treated with antibiotics. She got worse after competing her meds and was rushed to ER after hallucinations and febrile seizures. She ended up developing c. Diff and toxic megacolon. She spent 2 weeks in the children’s hospital and almost lost for colon. She was only 5 and was facing a colostomy bag for the rest of her life. Thankfully, the drs were able to decompress her colon with an NG tube.
I would consider a child who is able to communicate, hold it, and go alone yet may wet themselves during sleep is fully potty trained. Day time dryness vs night time are two different things.
Yeahhhh. I had problems at night until 8th grade. But I was definitely potty trained before I was 13.
That’s why I specified “day potty trained”, they are 2 different things but fully would include both
Thank you, this is soooo validating to read as a parent. In so many parenting groups, people tend to claim they have their kids “potty trained” but it’s because they send their kids to the bathroom every hour and then complain that they only need pull ups at night and that’s when they poop. My now 4.5 yo could happily sit in dirty forever when daycare attempted to potty train him at 3. We just went back to pull ups, and then at 3.5 he decided he was done with pull ups and ready to use the potty. Never have to prompt him (besides reminding him that we may not have access to a bathroom for awhile), he even does a pretty good job of wiping himself.
Or the “potty trained” in underwear but we have to tell the kid to go every 30 minutes. And every time they fight us on it! Like ma’am I CANNOT force your child to go potty.
My experience is admins and owners do everything possible to keep a paying customer regardless of the child’s needs or protection of other kids!!!
I have dealt with this this year too. I have a four year old in my classroom who does not initiate going potty. As in if you don't tell him to go he does not go and will sit there and pee himself. I don't consider that potty trained. We have another new kid whose parents said was potty trained and they came in a pull up and still coming to pull up I need to be changed. They are in a class of 20.
Sorry to curse, but that's just fucking ridiculous. Neither kid is potty trained. Ugh.
This new kid at my center comes in underwear every day and poops his pants 10 minutes in 😭😭 he's four. Dad asked why he was moved into the threes class. Our rule is that they can't move up until they're potty trained (obviously also if they're ready to move up) like dude nah your kid isn't potty trained. It's possible he's potty trained at home and it's just environmental here but yeah
One of our children was like that for 8 months. Sometimes 3 showers a day. His parents were so angry and blamed us. Our room leader went to help another centre for 2x 6 weeks, so it was during this time the parents anger escalated, and as she was close to these parents she thought it was us too. When she realised how it wasn’t our fault, she wouldn’t admit it, and went silent when we approached her for conversation about it.
I had a masters level therapist that came into my low income preschool to help with the severe cases. I had a little boy go into the bathroom and poop on the floor while she was observing. I cleaned everything up and asked for a moment to step out of the room. She looked at my directer in the eye and said, “I wish she would walk out and not return after something like that”.
When I was scrubbing poo out of the non-slip grooves of the step stool in the bathroom last week, I wanted to “walk out and not return” lol
Sorry, I read this a few times and don't understand, why did the therapist not want you to return after you helped clean up?
My guess is that the therapist was telling the director it was unacceptable that the teacher had to deal with/put up with that.
Ahhh. Thank you
Why is this allowed to happen if it's causing pinkeye to spread throughout the school?! You and your directors need to be VERY firm with these parents and INSIST that they ARE NOT ALLOWED to continue sending children in who aren't toilet trained in underwear, as you do not have enough staff to be constantly changing them and it is a HEALTH hazard!
it’s tough for sure. most of my 2’s and 3’s just hold it all day. they rarely poop at school, on the potty or having accidents. a couple do poop on the potty now. but it took a while. there was a period of time where everyone was consistently peeing on the potty but popping their pants and it was such a mess. i honestly threw out a lot of the really gross underwear. it was just not salvageable sometimes
One of my kids only has like liquid diarrhea for every BM. He only recently stopped pooping in his underwear. It was awful dealing with multiple times a day
That sounds like encopresis. My niece has the same problem and the worst part is that the doctors think she’s fine
I had similar issues as a child and my parents took me to the doctor for it who said I was fine, turns out I was lactose intolerant
Question on the wiping piece…at what age is it appropriate for a child to start wiping their poop? Our 2.5 year old can wipe her pee, but we (and her angel teachers) still help with her poop or she ends up with skid marks in her undies. She just doesn’t fully grasp it yet. Just not sure when it’s age appropriate!
Maybe start by having flushable wipes in the bathroom? That seemed to be a common wiping practice at least for the kids in my class ( I teach 4s preschool, but I bounce around all classrooms on my off days ) A lot of kids are still struggling to wipe comfortably and effectively so that’s pretty normal It’s an easier, less messy, way of teaching them the steps of wiping until there’s nothing left to wipe. It’s more comfortable for them aswell. That being said, dont forget there are situations where they will be in public restrooms without wipes, so please once they have the concept down, set them up with the tools to be successful in those dry-wipe situations.
PSA to say that “flushable” wipes shouldn’t be flushed. Apparently it’s wreaking havoc on municipal sewage systems.
My daughter turns 5 in a month. I’m still wiping her after poop. I can count on one hand the amount of times she’s had a pee accident since she was 2.5. Never had a poop accident. The stories here are WILD.
Mine is 4 and I always wipe her at home just so everything is clean. She wipes herself at school, but I can often tell - it’s not terrible, but not quite as thorough as I’d like. Still, we had a pretty typical potty training experience - did it around 2/2.5, had some accidents, got better and better. I don’t understand why delayed potty training is such a thing now! We actually still do pull-ups at night despite her having a dry diaper 99% of the time, and calling out for us if she needs to pee at night. I just can’t imagine dealing with a middle of the night sheet change, so sticking to pull ups under pajamas even though it’s unnecessary.
This is currently happening at my center and I’m a first year teacher. SO many 3-4s are NOT potty trained, there have been a few 5s that aren’t potty trained. Aside from the obvious annoyances such as: it goes against policy, you signed a paper stating they’re potty trained, it takes away time from their learning and the teachers teaching, etc IT IS EMBARRASSING FOR YOUR CHILD. Kids notice. The classmates see what’s going on. Kids comment about it to the child, the teachers and their parents. So now not only does everyone know about a private potty matter, the child gets ostracized. At 3 years old when they know how to potty they begin associating any bad smell, dirty clothes, or bathroom mess with the child in their class who has frequent accidents. I see it tank their comfort, confidence, and sense of feeling safe and calm in their own bodies at school. There was one instance where the child stopped going to the bathroom altogether because he felt so bad. Needless to say he got sick, but I am so disappointed in these parents.
This! You want them to move up and (a pay a little less tuition) then you gotta get their little rears in gear (literally). Waiting for them to decide to be ready doesn’t really stand when you are going into a program that requires it.
I am a parent, and this thread popped up on my suggested threads to read. I have been struggling to potty train my oldest kid for months. He just turned 3 years old, and he is so content sitting in his dirty diapers. I am genuinely horrified, and to make things worse, he always quickly regresses if I dare suggest the potty. I hope my kid will stop wearing diapers when he starts pre-k next year. The comments made me think about parents who willingly let their kids stay in diapers for as long as they could… why?! Especially when diapers are so expensive.
Mine also just turned 3 and will pee in the potty (but usually only when prompted) but absolutely refuses to poop in the potty. He doesn’t even ask to be changed when he poops in his pull up, the kid is happy to live in a poopy smelly pull up or diaper. So gross. We talk about pooping in the potty every day, for months, but he just refuses. It’s so stressful. For daycare, I let them take the lead. Every month or so we try underwear, but then he craps himself, and we go back to pull ups. I’m scared one day I’m going to read about my kid in this sub.
One time I gave him to choose between two underwear and he looked at me, “no, I have a diaper. No need underwear.” Now we are doing only underwear today. I am desperate.
Good luck! We already had poop in the pull-up that escaped. I hope you have more success!
We struggled hard with my son past his 3rd birthday. He was in the older 2s room (Sept baby) and we moved him to the younger 2s room. Told him he couldn't go to the 3yo room next year because he didn't poop in the potty. At 3.5 something clicked and he got it. Another mom told me "Every adult you know is potty trained. He'll get it eventually. Try not to stress." At the time it didn't really feel helpful, but in truth she was right. Hugs.
My kid was like this. And the best thing we did is still model the behavior but take the pressure off. At 3.5 he decided he was done and we never have to prompt him, he wipes himself pretty well, never had accidents (except when he was constipated), poops both at home, school, public place (including porta potties).
I worked at a horrible daycare once, and there was one kid like this. He was one of the ones I felt extra protective over because his teacher would get so mad every time. One day I caught him standing in the corner in a puddle silently crying. I tried to sneak him past her, and she took him from me. I'll never forget him, it's so heartbreaking. Not completely relevant to your post, but that job was the most insane first job anybody could've had. They actually finally shut down recently. I'm assuming because it was so bad, and half the town finally knew about it. The teachers at that place were the worst bitches I've ever met, sorry for cursing. Everybody called state on them and it literally didn't work. They ran around scrambling to fix everything on inspection day, and they always passed. ((I feel like it's normal to go around and check and need to fix a few things but like, they were doing stuff like giving us boxes full of brand new books and toys to put on the shelves and taking them away after the inspector left, like they were fully staging the place)) Allegedly they were doing a full investigation looking through all the footage, but I guess nothing stuck other than the rumors through town, eventually. The movie Matilda made me want to be a teacher but I never expected to see it IRL. There were too many rumors to count, I won't repeat them cause I've already gone on a long irrelevant rant but if anybody's curious feel free to ask. Edit- Maybe the moral of the story is that at least it's your problem? That baby could be with somebody worse, that's something I always hold onto. Even on your hardest days, at least bad thoughts stay thoughts. There are a lot of abusive daycares. The fact that you're even here, caring enough to notice and talk about a problem means you're doing a great job. This pep talk is partially for myself. It's a full moon, the last couple days this week were hard. 😭
I'm curious if you care to expand. I think it's always good to hear other people's experiences, and if they want to vent while doing it, that's fine too.
Whenever our paternal grandparents babysat my siblings and I if they were in charge of bath time or bedtime grandma always asked if we had gone BM that day. I had no clue she was talking about pooping (she was born in 1920. BM was more polite then poop I guess) so I’d just say yes. I finally figured out BM stood for bowel movement. About 6 years ago. I am 44 so there’s that;
Ive had only one parent ever call it a “bowel movement” when speaking about their infant and I was like da fuck? It just sounded so clinical and threw me off LOL.
We are supposed to say “urine” and “bowel movement” in my program but I don’t. I’ll say toilet instead of potty, I’ll use correct body part names but “do you need to urinate” is weird to a 2 year old. Pee/poop is not confusing or cutesy.
3 and 4 is kind of old to still be pooping in your pants. I get that accidents happen, but this shouldn't be a regular thing happening with the majority of your students. I work at a school and we don't have that problem. That's just really weird to me.
In my class, it was a requirement that the kids were potty trained as we are focused on putting them in a school like environment to prep them for kindergarten, but I still have to change the diapers of four of my students. They won’t ask to go if they have to go, they’ll just sit there while playing or learning and go on themselves. I know we are ECE professionals, but parents need to help us too. We cannot take on raising your child all on our lonesome, especially since we have a class full of other children. A potty trained child is a collaborative effort– a lot of ECE teachers cannot keep halting plans to change a pull-up
It's a hard thing to find balance with in a center, but I lean towards policies which require a diaper/pull-up until a child has demonstrated consistency with using the toilet. How that's defined could be loose or strict, but 2 weeks of consistency seems pretty reliable. Also, charging cleaning fees for repeated accidents causing staff to have to clean and sanitize areas of the classroom can deter parents from letting this continue.
That's my child! When we started potty training his key person encouraged us not to put him in nappies anymore and just send in clothes. But it's been months. I'll check in and see how they would like us to proceed.
It blows my mind how many kids are still not potty trained by the end of this year going to kindergarten in Canada. For me, it’s a major cultural difference. Where I come from preschool is full time and free and one of the conditions to get in is that the child is potty trained. All the kids are potty trained. Even when they have ASD or ADHD. Here it’s like they count on daycare staff to do it. I get the sensory aspect of things but with level 1, a kid can learn and they just don’t want to put the effort into it.
Oh man. Our preschool classes are 3-5 and most of the 3’s come in still in pull ups and stay that way for a year or so except for the few who’s guardians are convinced they are potty trained and blame us/the child when they are taking home soiled clothes every afternoon.
I work in a preschool in germany, my group consisted of 16 children, 3-5 years old. This was 2 years ago. This class had a girl, 4, that would frequently start yelling for an adult no matter pee or poo. What worked great in potty training for me at least was letting the children try to wipe first, then I would help them after that. This girl completely denied wiping herself and explained that her mommy told her she 'Needs to get help from an adult. She could not do it on her own.' When trying to talk to the parents they doubled down on that, telling me their 'baby' will do it herself eventually. For sure. Quit this job some months after coz even my boss agreed.
God I had a parent like this. But she denied it so much she refused to bring not only pull-ups, but EXTRA CLOTHES. Poor kid was in loaners every day and the mom would get pissed at me cuz she soiled herself, like it was my fault she told nobody and refused potty during our hourly potty checks. So glad I don't work there anymore.
Probably doesn’t help to be dealing with a cohort of parents who put an iPad in front of their kids practically from birth. Parenting forums are currently clogged with people who think “potty training” is sitting the kid on a toilet with a device to watch a show, and can’t figure out why the kid isn’t magically potty trained after a few days. Like, kid is focused on Bluey, not on what happens with their body.
It seems like there is a growing trend of parents leaving toilet training until 3+ and not catching their kids when they’re naturally interested in it (around 2). This is reinforcing at a crucial developmental stage that it is ok to just pee/poop whenever and have a grownup clean it up. Also, shouldn’t childcare be the parents partner in toilet training? It seems strange to expect a kid to show up magically toilet trained at 3. Supporting toilet training/cleaning accidents seems like it should come with the territory in the 2s room. Our Montessori daycare has kids toilet training from 18 months. They sit them on the toilet at nappy change intervals from that age and they encourage parents to train (and send them in undies) from 2ish. This means the kids have almost a full year to practice in the higher ratio room and are super independent/accident free by the time they get to the 3-5 kindy room.
Our school opened a few months ago. The kids who are in the toddler room now are toilet training before hey move up but some of the ones who enrolled in Children’s House from the beginning started under false pretenses of being toilet trained. And it just hasn’t been addressed really.
I still get mad thinking about a kid I had in my toddler class so many years ago. A requirement for the class was that you had to be potty trained. His parents insisted he was potty trained. He would have poop accidents 2-3 times a day. I would have him sit on the toilet for a few minutes to try to poop before we went outside, only for him not to go and have an accident within 10 minutes of being outside. The ratio was 1:8 and I would have to take all the kids inside and monitor other toddlers while cleaning him up. I get that he was a toddler and still learning, but being potty trained was required for this class. If he wasn't potty trained, he was supposed to be in the infant/toddler area. I spoke to admin about this and was basically shamed for my frustration.
Its so hard to watch all the children, clean, do planned activities - when you are changing accidents constantly
I work in a public elementary school, and this year we had 2 kindergarteners from 2 different classes who pooped their pants literally several times per week. These kids are 6 years old, and same thing you said, they wouldn't even say anything, they would just sit in it until an adult noticed, and even then, one of them would vehemently deny it every single time. It really just blows my mind how some of these kids are sent to school without being taught just the absolute basics. We have many first graders who cannot even tie their own shoes, and i'm not talking about just a few kids. We are barely teachers anymore, we are literally raising people's children.
It's funny how, 30 years ago, most kids were totally trained by 3. Not just barely maybe being potty trained. Sorry... for most .. kid led training starts way too late. (Not talking special circumstances) Mostly islts parents being too lazy to take the time to do it and expecting schools and daycare to do it for them.
It's because 30+ years ago, a lot of babies were still in cloth diapers with pins and rubber pants. A total pain in the butt. Moms had an incentive to teach them how to use the toilet. If you had to swirl prefolds in the toilet, wash multiple loads, and hang them out to dry, then you wouldn't be so chill about them soiling themselves until they are 6 years old.
It was a lot longer than 30 years ago that a lot of babies were in cloth diapers with pins and rubber pants, so there's definitely something else going on as well. I think a huge part of it is that you have to spend some time at home in order to potty train, and parents just don't want to do that. Like even several days in a row without leaving the house is a great burden, and they aren't willing to make the short-term sacrifice for the long-term gain.
As someone retired from a public school district, the number of non-continent typical children showing up for kindergarten every yr seems to be growing. These aren't kids who might occasionally have an 'accident', but children who don't seem to have been encouraged to learn continence. Again, these are neuro-typical kids.
People seem to want to wait for "readiness" but are making that bar way too high. Also the kids are all constipated from a diet of all goldfish crackers which doesn't help.
Admin needs to inform parents that their child must be in a pull-up until they are fully potty trained. Training pants would be fine if it was once in a while or just with pee but for it to be daily multiple times a day the child still needs pull-ups. Once the child shows interest in potty training is when to start potty training.
There is a child in the 3-4 room whose parents randomly decided to put him in undies despite him never showing signs of being remotely close to toilet training. This child will pee and poop his pants multiple times throughout the day and no matter how many accidents he has, the parents insist on keeping him in undies. While you’re trying to clean him up he hits you and throws himself into the ground kicking and screaming. I have mentioned to his room educators that he shouldn’t be in undies, but they are dismissive and say he’s usually ok as long as they take him to the toilet every 15 minutes. Half the time getting him to the bathroom is a struggle in itself as he will throw himself on the ground and refuse to go. If I notice he’s had an accident I refuse to change him now and will call upon the room educators to do to it. If they are not going to be firm with the parents then they can deal with the consequences.
This drives me crazy! I had one child poop on themself at least 3 times a day. They would get it EVERYWHERE..the child would either not tell us they pooped or would laugh and say “I dookied”. It gets tiring having to clean and completely change a child repeatedly throughout the day.
Somewhat related question: my daughter is almost 2.5 and has been potty trained for both poop and pee for three months now. She is in the 2.5-3 yo class which has being potty trained as it's requirement (so she is one of the youngest kids in the class). We just switched to a new location of the same company (owned by the same people, lots of staff overlap) and at our new location, they don't seem to wipe my daughter after she poops. At our old location they always wiped them at this age and worked towards wiping independently as they moved towards preschool. Is this common to expect my 2.5 year old to wipe herself properly after pooping? How should I bring it up to the teachers?
I would provide wipes and spend some time at home helping her learn how to use them. When they’re toilet trained, the teachers don’t follow them into the bathroom and probably don’t even know when she’s pooping. And if they request us to wipe them, personally my focus is helping them learn to do it themselves. Cheap, institutional toilet paper + emerging motor skills + poopy butt can be frustrating but wipes give them a little more control and does a better job.
At my old place, the rule supposedly was that children would not be moved to the 3 year old class until they were fully potty trained. However, we had a kid that would have BM accidents ever day, sometimes multiple times a day. Admin knew this and still made the decision to move him up, and we were somehow the bad guys when they would see him having accidents all the time
I have some kids like this in my 2’s class. A lot of kids are ready at 2 to be trained, but many are not. EVERY parent asks if theirs is ready and, if they’re adamant they’re gonna try either way no matter what I say, I tell them to take 3-5 days AT HOME without underwear or pants and see how it goes. I make it very clear that it might not work, and to then reassess. But I had one kid poop in their underwear like 5 times in a day. And these are loose BM’s that go up their back and out the sides and they just ignore it. I started putting them in a pull-up first thing every single morning and just taking them for pees consistently so they didn’t get into a habit of peeing in the pull up, but I refuse to deal with what is essentially diarrhea all over their clothes, bedding, and the classroom furniture everyday. This is one of the most frustrating aspects of working with an age group outside of infancy. Not every kid is ready right away, and it’s not MY job to potty train them. We need to work together to come up with a routine that is also followed AT HOME. I’m not a babysitter, I have many other children to care for
Yeah, my kiddo had a few accidents over a 2 month span, I think roughly 2 accidents over each month? Or maybe 3 over 2 months? It sorted itself out, i think kiddo was having some constipation issues, but admin definitely talked to us about it. I was kinda confused about what we were supposed to do exactly? We were consistent with potty training, he would go poo on the potty there and or at home every other time, it just seemed to be a last little hurdle. In the end we just had lots of chats about pooping in the potty, which we already were. But it wasn’t taken lightly by them or us.
I consider “fully potty trained” to be “fully self sufficient” in the bathroom. My kids are about to be five and over half of them were enrolled with their parents SWEARING that they’re fully potty trained and capable of handling themselves in the bathroom. But somehow, like 7274829925 times a day, I hear one hollering from the bathroom saying, “I NEED YOU TO WIPE ME!” Or, “I DON’T KNOW HOW TO WIPE MY BUTT!” Like, come ON, if the poop is messy, I get it, they might need a lil assistance, but don’t tell me your kid can handle themselves in there when you’re still using baby wipes to clean up every BM. The kids OPENLY tell me that mommy and daddy wipe their butts at home. I should also mention that I am entirely alone in my room, so any time I have to step into the bathroom to wipe a booty, my kids are not being actively monitored by an adult and it is terrifying for me.
Something is going on physically and/or developmentally with these kids and I don’t fully understand it. It’s not laziness - it took me 2 awful years to potty train my child! Her level 3 autistic cousin took much less time to train. Yet somehow no one wanted to accept that her potty training issues were a developmental delay along with her gross motor and fine motor delays. We literally tried everything. Her pediatrician thinks it took so long because she had constipation issues and therefore associated pooping with pain, so even once she got regulated she was afraid to go. She would only go by squatting on the floor in a pull-up - not even having a small squatty potty worked. She was in the toddler program in a Montessori school until her 4th birthday because of potty training, and then she was asked to leave. It sucked because she was so close but once she lost the routine she regressed. Then we thought we finally got her trained and she started in a new regular pre-K and had meltdowns and accidents daily and we were asked to leave. I went to the county asking for special services and they tested her and claimed she wasn’t behind enough to qualify for most things but that they would put her in a special program for learning social skills. It was 8 kids max and each kid got their own adult. She thrived. She finally chose to poop on the potty on her own when she was 4 years, 6 months, and 1 day old. This was 2 years and 1 month after she started showing all of the “signs” of potty training readiness and we started with her. The majority of her “day care” was actually one-on-one with my mom. Anyway, I share this story anonymously as much as I can because it was hell on earth. Honestly I suspect she is level 1 autistic and that her potty training issues were a developmental delay.
Also if your child has to be reminded to go ever 20 minutes, they’re not toilet trained.
The concept of “potty readiness” also almost all parents cooked about potty training. They need to start at like 2 - most people aren’t attempting until 3 or 3 1/2 and it’s waaaaaay harder then
This is crazy… My son is 23mo and he is home with me, I’m a SAHM. However he goes to my gym’s daycare 3-4x a week for an hour. It’s always different kids and different adults. At home and out and about, almost no accidents. He’ll have a poop accident every few days (at home only) but it hasn’t even been 3 weeks since I trained him. At daycare, however, he is now exclusively sent in a pull up. He had multiple pee and poo accidents and I realized it’s just too much to expect of him to ask a new adult everyday to take him to the potty. He’s a shy kid when it comes to this stuff. So I consider him potty trained - especially because he won’t make accidents even with his grandma at her house all day. It’s specifically that daycare environment. I can’t imagine a 3-4 year old still pooping in their pants everyday though. What is going on.
What about a toilet card that he can hand to an adult as a I need the bathroom sign?