Supernanny star, Jo Frost, has help for parents who are sending their children to school without toilet training.
Teachers say parents are sending their children to school without potty training basics.
“It is not a teacher’s job to potty train your kid, it’s not,” Frost told Mamamia.
“However, there is the grey area for those families that are dealing with medical conditions,” she added.
The parenting expert, who is heading to Australia for a tour in June, said there is no reason why children with good language skills shouldn’t be potty trained and ready for school.
This family have 7 TV sets!? @Jo_Frost meets this technology obsessed family at 9pm #NannyOnTour ???? pic.twitter.com/FYkUyf9HQM
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“When you are looking at children who are five and six and are ticking off all the boxes confidently, I can see why teachers would be questioning why children are not being potty trained,” she said.
“It is a parent’s responsibility.”
Former kindergarten teacher, Chloe*, said time was wasted on toilet training instead of learning in her class.
Around half of the 20 children in her Western Sydney kindy class weren't toilet trained.
"For the first term of school we'd have to take toilet breaks at different intervals throughout the day to cater for the children who hadn't been toilet trained," she said.
"This involved us leaving the classroom, going to the boy's toilet and allowing them all to go, then the same for the girl's toilet. This would take around 20 minutes at various times during the day as many couldn't hold on for recess or lunch.
"If we didn't do this, it would lead to accidents," said Chloe.
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Kids born in the first half of the year start kindergarten at three. Three years old. I'm talking about kindy at primary school, not a paid daycare. It's not unreasonable for a child of that age to need reminding to go to the bathroom regularly. They're then four turning five going into their first compulsory year, preprimary.
At my son's (public) school they are taken to the bathroom in groups at set times. They're also supervised during morning tea and lunch to make sure they eat their food before they play. To me, that's all part of the same thing, a three or four year old needs supervision and an adult making sure they're taking care of their body's needs before they play or get engrossed in another activity, or some of them will just play until their bladders are overfull and they're cranky as anything because they're hungry.
If it's unreasonable to need to take children to the bathroom (by which I mean, lead them there at set intervals) then it's unreasonable to insist they start at school when they are three or four years old. They lowered the age for starting school by a year for some children, maybe a little understanding of the developmental differences between a three year old and a five year old would be helpful for the teacher interviewed for this article. Jo Frost was talking about five and six year olds, the kindy teacher is talking about three to five year olds, very different ball game.
This just blows my mind. Kindy kids who arent potty trained??? Is this some sort of lazy entitled parenting crap? I dont want to do it so ill have the school do it?? Unbelievable. Seriously NOT the teachers job. AT ALL. If its a medical problem then thats different but just because you cant be bothered??? There is a kindy where i live and they wont take kids unless they are fully potty trained. And by fully i mean fully. None of this pull up crap. When i trained my kids it was underwear. No pull ups ever. Such a waste of money. Yes they had accidents but thats how they learn. They dont want to be wet and uncomfortable. So you have to take a change of clothes, So what? Its called parenting. Geez