Pre-school unhappy with mum's unconventional toilet training method
By Kate Rafferty|
Toilet training is tricky - and there are times when parents do whatever they need to do to get through the stage as mess-free as possible. But one mum's approach with her son is not appreciated by teachers at his pre-school who have asked her to stop it.
Writing on Mumsnet, the mother explained her son had recently been toilet trained, but while they are out she encourages him to "wee in the bushes" if toilets are not close by.
"I picked him up from [preschool] a couple of days ago, and the person who did handover said 'Just to let you know mum, we were in the garden today and he pulled his trousers and pants down and weed in the bush'," the mum wrote.
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"The obvious subtext was 'This is not allowed'. I do understand that they would prefer to avoid this, but I was privately pleased that he'd done that rather than wet himself."
Afterwards, the mother and her husband had a chat with their son about no longer using the bushes as a toilet while he's at his preschool.
All seemed to be well until a few days ago when the mother and son went to the park again, and he needed to use the bathroom. The mother says she tried to encourage him to use the bushes again, but her son wouldn't.
"[He] kept running back down the path, looking for somewhere else to go," the mother wrote. "I tried to stop him and get him to go in the bush but he wouldn't, and got more and more distressed until he stopped and weed in his pants.
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"I just worry that he's got mixed messages now and I'm not sure whether to raise it with [the preschool] along the lines of 'What was said to him when he did this?/I'm not sure it was particularly helpful to treat this as a wrongdoing in the context of ongoing toilet training/Can we agree on a consistent message for him going forwards?', or whether this is entirely on 'us' as parents.
"Isn't it fairly normal for little boys to have a wee in a bush?"
If the mum was looking for support, she would have been disappointed - fellow Mumsnet readers were quick to take the pre-school's side when it comes to toilet training.
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"Stop encouraging him to urinate in public and the problem goes away. The male entitlement here is just ridiculous. You need to plan your outings better," one person wrote. "I can't believe you would seriously consider reproaching the [preschool] about this. You can't have children weeing in the garden, it's very unhygienic."
"They're a [preschool], they can't just have kids [weeing] in the garden," wrote a third person. "If he's toilet trained he should be able to move from garden to toilet. Presumably, it isn't miles away."
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