Half of parents, says research by the charity Kindred², now think that toilet training their children is not exclusively their responsibility. “Fair enough,” you might think, “particularly if they’re married to the other half.” Although the story is bleaker. About 20 per cent of parents do not seem to believe their children should be toilet trained even before starting school.
Almost all reception teachers now have to deal with children who are not. Barring exceptional circumstances, these are children who have learnt that the default place to go to the toilet is wherever they are, because it is somebody else’s problem. They presumably think this because their parents regard it as somebody else’s problem, too.
Last October, the Conservative MP Miriam Cates blamed working mothers for this growing problem. There is no particular reason why childcare providers should be any worse at imparting the wisdom of the toilet than mothers, or indeed fathers, and may be rather more experienced, but in a broader context the problem cannot be understood as one of anything other than neglect. Lockdowns will have worsened the problem, as has the spread of screens. The same survey reveals that only 16 per cent of parents feel it should be entirely up to them to explain that a book cannot be swiped, like a smartphone. Teachers who must behave like babysitters will struggle to teach.
These are deep and worrying social failures, to which the understandable default response is incredulity. As the charity puts it, “children who are behind when they begin Reception are more likely to struggle throughout life”. The buck stops with parents. By four years old, the majority of children can talk in sentences and understand advanced concepts. Being aware of where to urinate or defecate is not an advanced concept. Most dogs can manage it by six months.
