Kids’ toilet woes stress schools
New-entrants teachers changing nappies as parents struggle to toilet-train kids. By Janine Rankin and Kirsty Lawrence.
New Zealand youngsters are starting school in nappies, and growing numbers of anxious parents are looking for help to get their children toilet-trained in time.
Plunket says it is normal for one in ten 5-year-olds to be still wetting themselves, at least at night, and Continence NZ says up to one in three still had daytime accidents up to the age of 11.
But parents such as Aucklander Sam, 38, have tried everything in their power to ensure their child is toilet-trained in time and failed.
‘‘It’s not something you talk about with other people, it’s embarrassing,’’ she said.
It was ‘‘frustrating’’, and some family and friends were ‘‘horrible’’ about it.
Sam started toilet training her son at two and kept on trying. But it just didn’t come easily.
‘‘He would go to the toilet, and half an hour later he would be wet again.’’
Sam said they had been to see their doctor twice but was told there was nothing wrong with him medically and to bring him back when he was seven.
When he started school, he wore underwear, but Sam said he still had wetting issues.
‘‘He has to sit on a different carpet and has his own special chair, and I didn’t want to do that anymore, so we had him back in pull-ups,’’ she said.
Primary school teachers, who asked not to be named, have confirmed that children are starting school wearing pull-ups, and others are only just out of nappies.
For one of them, all of the issues had been in low-decile schools, and in the last three of nine years’ teaching.
While some cases were related to other learning and behavioural issues, some were just about toilet training.
A teacher at a South Auckland school had a couple of ‘‘serial wetters’’ who had to be reminded hourly to go to the toilet.
In a Neighbourly poll, more than 95 per cent of the 841 people who took part claimed their children were toilet-trained before 5, nearly two-thirds before 3.
Only 1.8 per cent admitted it had not happened by the time they reached school.
Lorna Carter from Papatoetoe blamed disposable nappies for affecting the motivation to toilettrain.
New Zealand Principals Federation president Whetu Cormick said unequal development in new entrants was to be expected.
Cormick said teachers knew how to respond to toilet accidents and most schools had clean pants for children to change into.
Children who had ongoing problems, which were often part of a cluster of special needs, were entitled to support from teacher aides with their toileting needs, he said.
New entrants arrived at school at various stages of readiness, and some were less able than others to get to the toilet, change their clothes and hold a book or a pencil.
Massey University senior lecturer in clinical psychology Dr Kirsty Ross said anxiety was on the increase in children, which could sometimes play a role with health issues.
‘‘Toilet stuff is something parents are loath to discuss past a certain age,’’ Ross said.
‘‘There’s this fear ‘my child is the only one doing this’, which isn’t the case at all.’’
‘‘There’s this fear ‘my child is the only one doing this’, which isn’t the case at all.’’ Clinical psychologist Dr Kirsty Ross