“They won’t go to kindergarten in diapers!”…well, actually, they are.

[Anonymous]

Shame on the Op for gossiping about students. It’s a lot of work to get a 504 plan in place. It’s not something one does because it’s so much easier to get a 504 than to toilet train a child.

Furthermore if the 504 was provided due to a documented medical condition (in this case severe constipation) that’s not something to mock kids over. My oldest friend’s kids had severe constipation that kept them in diapers til they were almost 5 and she’s a stellar parent-sometimes kids have medical issues they have nothing to do with how kids were raised

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No teacher or teacher's aide should have to change a disport on a 4 year old + child. This is just disgusting.

They don't have to and actually are not allowed to but thanks for not bothering to read the thread and deciding to post anyway, you've really contributed to the discourse here.

I try and thanks for noticing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who will change them? Nurse?

No. The Nurse or Health Aide will take care of the children coming in for illness and/medications.

Former health aide in VA: changing diapers is not allowed and requires special licensing. We are unable to assist with potty accidents and are no longer allowed to store extra clothes in the health offices.

NP here. Who changes the diaper then? I do not believe this should be a job that falls to teachers. But also, I have sympathy for these kids/families because no one, just no one, wants to keep paying for huge pull ups and chasing around a 5 y/o with a dirty diaper. And they must be consulting with a doctor for the 504 plan (I doubt anyone is calling up a telehealth doc for this).

So assuming the teacher doesn’t have to change the diaper, I don’t really see how a child having a diaper under their clothes in case of an accident disrupts anything (in fact a diaper seems better than sending a kid to school to have an accident).

Hopefully the kid can manage to wipe themself and put on a new one by that age. If not, the nurse could call the parents to pick them up or change them same as any health issue like spiking a fever. OP didn’t mention she has been instructed to change the child’s diaper (unless I missed that in an earlier post).

This thread is filled with a lot of nastiness toward children who are likely struggling.

Cleaning up a child with a poopy diaper is a difficult job even for an experienced parent with a cooperative child. It’s not a couple quick wipes and you’re done. That’s only what happens if the kid actually uses the toilet.

Teachers, aides and school nurses did not sign up for this and may not even be parents who have had any experience with it. Adding it to their list of duties is completely unreasonable and will just drive more of them out of our schools.

Teachers, aides, and school nurses are not expected to, and in fact are not allowed to, change a child's diaper. There is no indication that the OP or any teacher is being asked to change diapers. This is a made up narrative designed to whip off conflict between teachers and parents of kids with special needs. Those of you playing into it are either trolls or very gullible.

No one is asking teachers to change poopy diapers. No one. The 504 in these cases exists not just to permit the child to wear a diaper to school but to create a procedure for the school to follow if the child needs assistance with a diaper (which they may not, the kids may simply be wearing the diaper as a failsafe just in case they have a poop accident due to underlying medical issues, specifically to avoid the possibility of an unsanitary event in the classroom).

If a kid was simply wearing an diaper under their pants then they would not have notified the school and nobody would know. They are notifying the school BECAUSE they are expecting the school employees to do something about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I get it…you shouldn’t have to deal with that (literal) crap. And if it is just that the parents were too lazy to potty train, then that’s unacceptable.

However, I am also the parent of a child with an intellectual disability who has gastrointestinal issues, and it is possible that he won’t be potty trained by the time he starts kindergarten. I hope his teachers will be accommodating. The kids involved may well have special needs that have not yet been diagnosed. I’d reserve judgement until you meet the families.

Or, your child is not eligible to be mainstreamed if they are in a diaper. We aren't on the special needs board here.

"eligible to be mainstreamed" for a GI disorder? Are you posting from the 50s?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I get it…you shouldn’t have to deal with that (literal) crap. And if it is just that the parents were too lazy to potty train, then that’s unacceptable.

However, I am also the parent of a child with an intellectual disability who has gastrointestinal issues, and it is possible that he won’t be potty trained by the time he starts kindergarten. I hope his teachers will be accommodating. The kids involved may well have special needs that have not yet been diagnosed. I’d reserve judgement until you meet the families.

Yes, but this exactly is a failure of public education. These children should not be in the general population with the other children. They should be in a dedicated classroom with the other children who have significant delays and problems integrating. We need to stop dragging down the children who will be able to excel by accommodating the ones that very clearly, need extra help .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I get it…you shouldn’t have to deal with that (literal) crap. And if it is just that the parents were too lazy to potty train, then that’s unacceptable.

However, I am also the parent of a child with an intellectual disability who has gastrointestinal issues, and it is possible that he won’t be potty trained by the time he starts kindergarten. I hope his teachers will be accommodating. The kids involved may well have special needs that have not yet been diagnosed. I’d reserve judgement until you meet the families.

Or, your child is not eligible to be mainstreamed if they are in a diaper. We aren't on the special needs board here.

"eligible to be mainstreamed" for a GI disorder? Are you posting from the 50s?

This is FACTS. These children should not be in the mainstream classroom! Do you have people in your office or place of work taking dumps in diapers and other adults need to change them? No you don’t. Those people are not mainstreamed and have to stay home and that is ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My siblings and I were raised in traditional cloth diapers before the advent of disposable ones. All potty-trained before age 2, according to my mom.

WTF is the issue here?

In my experience as a special Ed teacher, constipation issues seem to be common in kids with autism. There are also other factors that may make toilet training hard for kids with ASD (loud flushing, reluctance to use public bathrooms). Many more students with autism are mainstreamed now because they have average to above average intelligence and can be successful in the mainstream classroom. The schools need more staff to make this all doable.

No they don’t. Autism is not actually a reason not to work to potty train by five.

No one said kids with autism shouldn't potty train before 5. They (a special ed teacher, so someone who would know) said that toilet training can be harder for ASD kids. Meaning it could take longer. An ASD kid might start kindergarten in diapers despite working on toile training for years prior.

My kid trained at 4 after years of working on it. And among the obstacles were a seeming inability to know when peeing was urgent, a rigid refusal to interrupt an activity to use the toilet, and intense fear of using a regular toilet (as well as fear of flushing, fear of wiping, and definitely fear of using any toilet outside our house). Also severely picky eating that can cause digestive issues.

Guess what diagnosis my kid got at 6?

And you made an effort and trained your kid at 4.

And my kid has a milder form of autism and the sensory issues were easier for me to overcome than some of the traits of more complex ASD cases when it came to toilet training. Most people don't realize my kid has ASD when they meet her and our K teacher was skeptical about the diagnosis because she has no academic challenges and she uses advanced verbal skills to mask social challenges and negative behaviors. The belief that all kids with ASD who aren't toilet trained by four had parents who just failed to "power through" is BS.

The point is that when we were struggling with toilet training, no one gave us any grace or considered our child light have been tougher to train. I blamed myself a lot and bought into the idea that it was my fault. It was only after diagnosis, the summer between K and 1st, that I realized that the phobic behaviors and rigidity we had encountered were more than just a "threenager" or normal toddler resistance.

and yet you DID potty train before K.

Yes but the a child with a less mild presentation of autism might be harder to potty train and therefore it might take longer. That's the point. Not every child is the same. My child trained at 4 and plenty of people thought this was evidence of "laziness" or other failure on my part even though I was working very hard to potty train my child. Turns out she has a neurological issue that made it harder, even though her presentation is very mild and at the time we though she was just "strong willed" or that we had done Oh Crap wrong.

I know many kids with ASD who have more severe presentations and could easily see them getting to kindergarten without being fully potty trained. Also one thing that can happen with ASD kids is that transitions are extra hard and you are more likely to see a regression in something like potty training due to the stress of starting a new school or a new classroom environment. My own kid had a lot of pee accidents in K despite having been toilet trained for a year because the stress of the higher behavioral and academic expectations in the K classroom triggered some of her ASD behaviors including becoming non-communicative or refusing to interrupt an activity to use the bathroom. So I would also assume this would be more likely in a child with a more severe ASD presentation, and you might choose to start K in diapers to ease that transition if they'd only recently trained.

Some of you are just convinced that the only reason a child would not be toilet trained by K is lazy parenting and are ready to ignore all evidence that SN parents tend to be among the least lazy parents because they cannot afford to be.

“More severe” presentations of ASD have IEPs. Usually toilet training is part of that IEP at this age. And frankly, children with forms of “more severe” autism are rarely in a gen Ed classroom to begin with. If autism is *disabling enough* to require diapers (which is more than an occasional accident), the gen Ed classroom is probably not the best fit.

[Anonymous]

MCPS PEP (preschool education program) paraedicator, and we change diapers on 3 and 4 year olds all day long. We also have most of them potty trained by the end of the year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who will change them? Nurse?

No. The Nurse or Health Aide will take care of the children coming in for illness and/medications.

Former health aide in VA: changing diapers is not allowed and requires special licensing. We are unable to assist with potty accidents and are no longer allowed to store extra clothes in the health offices.

NP here. Who changes the diaper then? I do not believe this should be a job that falls to teachers. But also, I have sympathy for these kids/families because no one, just no one, wants to keep paying for huge pull ups and chasing around a 5 y/o with a dirty diaper. And they must be consulting with a doctor for the 504 plan (I doubt anyone is calling up a telehealth doc for this).

So assuming the teacher doesn’t have to change the diaper, I don’t really see how a child having a diaper under their clothes in case of an accident disrupts anything (in fact a diaper seems better than sending a kid to school to have an accident).

Hopefully the kid can manage to wipe themself and put on a new one by that age. If not, the nurse could call the parents to pick them up or change them same as any health issue like spiking a fever. OP didn’t mention she has been instructed to change the child’s diaper (unless I missed that in an earlier post).

This thread is filled with a lot of nastiness toward children who are likely struggling.

Cleaning up a child with a poopy diaper is a difficult job even for an experienced parent with a cooperative child. It’s not a couple quick wipes and you’re done. That’s only what happens if the kid actually uses the toilet.

Teachers, aides and school nurses did not sign up for this and may not even be parents who have had any experience with it. Adding it to their list of duties is completely unreasonable and will just drive more of them out of our schools.

Teachers, aides, and school nurses are not expected to, and in fact are not allowed to, change a child's diaper. There is no indication that the OP or any teacher is being asked to change diapers. This is a made up narrative designed to whip off conflict between teachers and parents of kids with special needs. Those of you playing into it are either trolls or very gullible.

No one is asking teachers to change poopy diapers. No one. The 504 in these cases exists not just to permit the child to wear a diaper to school but to create a procedure for the school to follow if the child needs assistance with a diaper (which they may not, the kids may simply be wearing the diaper as a failsafe just in case they have a poop accident due to underlying medical issues, specifically to avoid the possibility of an unsanitary event in the classroom).

If a kid was simply wearing an diaper under their pants then they would not have notified the school and nobody would know. They are notifying the school BECAUSE they are expecting the school employees to do something about it.

They are notifying the school because their children have medical issues necessitating a 504 and it's important for any institution that will be taking on the care of the child to be aware of this issue. That doesn't mean they are asking the school to change diapers, it likely means they just want a plan in place so their child will have access to diapers during toileting and so the parents will be notified promptly if there is a medical event like leaking bowels or diarrhea that obviously need to be addressed immediately.

Would you prefer these parents just drop their kid off on day 1 in a diaper with a note that says "oh hey my kid has a diagnosed constipation issue, good luck." Like, what are they supposed to do if they have a school age child with this kind of medical issue?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS PEP (preschool education program) paraedicator, and we change diapers on 3 and 4 year olds all day long. We also have most of them potty trained by the end of the year

But not all of them. So apparently even with diligent training from a professional, some kids still don't toilet training by K. Interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My siblings and I were raised in traditional cloth diapers before the advent of disposable ones. All potty-trained before age 2, according to my mom.

WTF is the issue here?

In my experience as a special Ed teacher, constipation issues seem to be common in kids with autism. There are also other factors that may make toilet training hard for kids with ASD (loud flushing, reluctance to use public bathrooms). Many more students with autism are mainstreamed now because they have average to above average intelligence and can be successful in the mainstream classroom. The schools need more staff to make this all doable.

No they don’t. Autism is not actually a reason not to work to potty train by five.

No one said kids with autism shouldn't potty train before 5. They (a special ed teacher, so someone who would know) said that toilet training can be harder for ASD kids. Meaning it could take longer. An ASD kid might start kindergarten in diapers despite working on toile training for years prior.

My kid trained at 4 after years of working on it. And among the obstacles were a seeming inability to know when peeing was urgent, a rigid refusal to interrupt an activity to use the toilet, and intense fear of using a regular toilet (as well as fear of flushing, fear of wiping, and definitely fear of using any toilet outside our house). Also severely picky eating that can cause digestive issues.

Guess what diagnosis my kid got at 6?

And you made an effort and trained your kid at 4.

And my kid has a milder form of autism and the sensory issues were easier for me to overcome than some of the traits of more complex ASD cases when it came to toilet training. Most people don't realize my kid has ASD when they meet her and our K teacher was skeptical about the diagnosis because she has no academic challenges and she uses advanced verbal skills to mask social challenges and negative behaviors. The belief that all kids with ASD who aren't toilet trained by four had parents who just failed to "power through" is BS.

The point is that when we were struggling with toilet training, no one gave us any grace or considered our child light have been tougher to train. I blamed myself a lot and bought into the idea that it was my fault. It was only after diagnosis, the summer between K and 1st, that I realized that the phobic behaviors and rigidity we had encountered were more than just a "threenager" or normal toddler resistance.

and yet you DID potty train before K.

Yes but the a child with a less mild presentation of autism might be harder to potty train and therefore it might take longer. That's the point. Not every child is the same. My child trained at 4 and plenty of people thought this was evidence of "laziness" or other failure on my part even though I was working very hard to potty train my child. Turns out she has a neurological issue that made it harder, even though her presentation is very mild and at the time we though she was just "strong willed" or that we had done Oh Crap wrong.

I know many kids with ASD who have more severe presentations and could easily see them getting to kindergarten without being fully potty trained. Also one thing that can happen with ASD kids is that transitions are extra hard and you are more likely to see a regression in something like potty training due to the stress of starting a new school or a new classroom environment. My own kid had a lot of pee accidents in K despite having been toilet trained for a year because the stress of the higher behavioral and academic expectations in the K classroom triggered some of her ASD behaviors including becoming non-communicative or refusing to interrupt an activity to use the bathroom. So I would also assume this would be more likely in a child with a more severe ASD presentation, and you might choose to start K in diapers to ease that transition if they'd only recently trained.

Some of you are just convinced that the only reason a child would not be toilet trained by K is lazy parenting and are ready to ignore all evidence that SN parents tend to be among the least lazy parents because they cannot afford to be.

“More severe” presentations of ASD have IEPs. Usually toilet training is part of that IEP at this age. And frankly, children with forms of “more severe” autism are rarely in a gen Ed classroom to begin with. If autism is *disabling enough* to require diapers (which is more than an occasional accident), the gen Ed classroom is probably not the best fit.

Oh cool, someone who has no idea what they are talking about.

As a number of SN parents have explained on this thread, you don't just magically get an IEP if your child has a diagnosis. You need to be able to show that their disability impacts their ability to learn. That's what IEPs are for. So no, not all kids with even more severe presentations of ASD have IEPs.

Also, IEPs are often narrowly drawn. Toilet training will only be included if it's a problem that inhibits the child's ability to access education. So a child who is incapable of using the toile independently will have it in an IEP, but a child who simply wipes inadequately probably won't. Schools will push against anything necessitating a full-time classroom aide if they can, and toileting support usually requires this.

Also, in K and 1st, toileting issues are common for SN kids no, would not be enough to have the child removed from the gen Ed classroom. Especially in K, since many/most K classrooms have their own bathroom, making toileting support easier to provide. Also many, many non-SN kids have toileting issues in K, whether it's just occasional pee accidents or having trouble with basic toileting skills like flushing, washing hands, using the right amount of toilet paper, etc. So an ASD kid in a diaper is really not this huge outlier in a K classroom. An older kid would be a different issue and if the child still was in the diaper by 2nd or 3rd grade, and was not able to independently change themselves, then you have an argument for them to be in a SpEd classroom. The legal default is to mainstream kids unless it's not possible.

[Anonymous]

Constipation is extremely common in kids and more so in ASD kids. It's not indicative of intellectual disability or a severe presentation of autism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS PEP (preschool education program) paraedicator, and we change diapers on 3 and 4 year olds all day long. We also have most of them potty trained by the end of the year

But not all of them. So apparently even with diligent training from a professional, some kids still don't toilet training by K. Interesting.

But very few children who meet the criteria for free sped preschool are then put into Gen Ed kindergarten. I work in a large public ES and the only people in the entire building trained/allowed to change diapers are the sped preschool staff. And their class is full.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for my daily reminder to be grateful I decided against a midlife career change to teaching, which seems very much to be a nightmare in these times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I get it…you shouldn’t have to deal with that (literal) crap. And if it is just that the parents were too lazy to potty train, then that’s unacceptable.

However, I am also the parent of a child with an intellectual disability who has gastrointestinal issues, and it is possible that he won’t be potty trained by the time he starts kindergarten. I hope his teachers will be accommodating. The kids involved may well have special needs that have not yet been diagnosed. I’d reserve judgement until you meet the families.

Yes, but this exactly is a failure of public education. These children should not be in the general population with the other children. They should be in a dedicated classroom with the other children who have significant delays and problems integrating. We need to stop dragging down the children who will be able to excel by accommodating the ones that very clearly, need extra help .

AMEN!