Forum Index
»
General Parenting Discussion
“They won’t go to kindergarten in diapers!”…well, actually, they are.
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
But if the parents hadn't allowed a steady diet of chicken nuggets and mac and cheese in the first place, it wouldn't have happened at all. Lazy parenting. |
Anonymous
| Without an extra aide — which regular kindergarten classrooms do not have — a teacher cannot leave the class alone to go change one child’s diaper, let alone several. When was the last time anyone here babysat for 25 5-year-olds at once? These are the practical realities. |
Anonymous
| It is pretty misleading (and I’m being generous here) for a teacher to paint a picture of parents being derelict in their parenting where the kids actually have medical problems. |
Anonymous
I completely agree we can’t change diapers but in LCPS and FCPS, K has an aide. But not for diaper changing. |
Anonymous
OP hasn’t said that they are being asked to change children. That is definitely not the general education teacher’s role. But the reality is that it is in everyone’s interest for these kids to get an education. Especially if the assumption that the issue is parenting is true, then getting them into a structured setting is critical for them and for the rest of society. The suggestion that school systems add self contained special education classes is far more expensive than looking at resources in the school and figuring out a plan, whether it’s using someone like a nurse, health tech, or para already in the building, or adding someone with this responsibility as part of their duties. |
Anonymous
No. Putting a diaper aid in every kindergarten classroom is much more expensive than running a dedicated special needs classroom, where the ratio is 4:1. I guarantee you if these parents were told they had to put their kids in a special Ed class they would magically figure out potty training in a week. |
Anonymous
No school with 3 incoming kindergarteners who each need help, at most, 3 or 4 times a day for a few minutes is going to address it by putting them in 3 classrooms and hiring 3 full time staff members. That’s ridiculous. At the very most, we are talking about one additional person, but more likely we are talking about a couple extra hours of staffing, by someone in the lowest pay category. In contrast, let’s imagine that this isn’t an outlier situation, and that schools have an average of 3 Kindergarteners, so we will pull kids from 3 elementary schools and make a class with a full time special educator and a full time para. We will also need to find a classroom, which might mean paying for a portable, and add at the minimum another bus route, which requires more staff members. That is a way more expensive model. |
Anonymous
I believe the saying is no one goes to college in diapers. |
Anonymous
| I would think that the situation would resolve itself after the first week. The kids aren’t going to want to be the kids in diapers. If they don’t transition themselves after the first week, then there probably is something real going on. |
Anonymous
| I have a child in prek and no one is in diapers. This seems really unusual. And my son has special needs. |
Anonymous
Does the school even have a nurse? My school has one you can call, but not one on site. |
Anonymous
Who changes them? I cannot imagine this is the regular teacher’s responsibility or within her licensed scope of practice. |
Anonymous
Most constipation is due to stress/anxiety. Except to see college kids in diapers very soon. |
Anonymous
You could prevent a lot of constipation by breaking the milk-drinker-picky-eater cycle. That takes engaged parenting, because a lot of little kids left to their own devices will drink way too much milk. 1. From 1-2 yrs old, it's recommended to get 16oz (2 measuring cups) of whole milk a day 2. From 2-5 yrs old, it's 16-24oz (2-3 cups) of 1% or skim milk 3. Milk is full of sugar, aka lactose. It has other good things, but it's really sweet, and it has a lot of calories. Even skim milk has just about the same calories -- ounce for ounce -- as regular Coke does. 4. Drink more calories, and you won't be hungry. You get picky about food. And then your parents give you extra milk, because it's supposed to be healthy, and at least it's something. 5. Picky usually means less fiber, which is more constipation. 6. The calcium and casein in the milk block the absorption of iron, which means the associated anemia gets treated with iron, and a big side effect of that is constipation. 7. Rinse and repeat. People are also giving a lot more juice (mostly sugar water), sports drinks like Gatorade or "Vitamin Water" (lots of sugar), or "healthy" premade and sweetened teas like Arizona Ginseng & Honey (doesn't matter, still mostly sugar water). These contribute to constipation because the kids fill up on other calories, get pickier and pickier, yadda yadda. I think the pandemic exacerbated this because parents are *so* burned out. They were and remain exhausted, and they don't have the bandwidth to have those hard little moments of "no," and enforcing boundaries, and making sure real healthy alternatives are prepared and available. Just about every day is getting through this day with a maybe tomorrow. Some parents just aren't handling their child being uncomfortable, upset , or disappointed. All these things take energy to help them manage, too! When you can kind of cross your eyes and say to yourself that "it's vitamins!" or "at least it's from fruit!" or "milk is good for you!" -- well, it helps you get through one more day and tell yourself you are still doing good parenting. It's not because parents don't love their kids or don't care about trying. It's the avalanche of the child making choices that snowball, and the parents hoping they found a way to get by, and all of us still suffering from a devastating event that has left everyone with more on their plates and less energy to tackle it. That's my take. |
Anonymous
As someone who grew up in an era of “got milk” and capri sun and koolaid everywhere, and who was regularly told by adults that water was less healthy than juice, I have trouble believing that this is both a new problem and caused by too much milk and juice. It might be one or the other, but not both. |