(PS) Kids Asked to Pay to Potty

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/education/092011-mom:-kids-asked-to-pay-to-potty

The only thing worse than the story is the comments griping about how horrible the mom is and how she's spoiling her kid.

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I would never take such a horrible tone as that one commenter, but I don't think 'restricting' bathroom breaks to 7* in a day is unreasonable.

I don't know. I can't wrap my head around how I feel about this. I think the school is being reasonable. I guess it would depend on how easy it is to earn the bucks. If you could realistically have 20 by the end of the week, spending one or two on an extra bathroom break (the rare times 7 isn't enough!) is not going to make a dent in what you can buy.

*Yes, I know they didn't start with 7, but even the original 6 is perfectly reasonable. They only added 1 more in the afternoon. BTW, it should be noted that the school did change the policy based on parental concern. That's a plus in my book.

 

A couple problems with this.

1) Sometimes you have to go at an inconvenient time. That's just the way things work, especially if you are becoming sick or recovering from being sick, not to mention a greasy lunch.

2) Some kids (my dd included when she was younger) had frequent urination and recurrent infections. There are special circumstances that I would hope the school has allotted for.

3) What is with all the stupid blanket policies. The teacher probably knows who is abusing their potty break privilege. Why not make an appointment with the child's parents to discuss poop and pee. I bet that would do more than instituting a pay-as-you-go system.

 

Um... I'd be very concerned about any child who needs to go to the bathroom seven times over the course of a school day (about 7 hours, usually). That kid may need to get checked out medically.

I think the school probably instituted this policy to cut down on frivolous bathroom visits. It almost sounds like something I'd do if my children were habitually blowing off chores or school work and hanging out in the bathroom instead. ("What's it worth to you, kid?")

My daughter used to disappear in there with a book and not emerge for hours, typically just when I'd asked her to do something! :lol: Fortunately, for us, the solution was simply banning books from the bathroom for a couple years and watching to ensure she didn't sneak one in with her. Public school bathrooms, on the other hand, can become group hangouts and you can't tailor the consequence for loitering to the child.

If this were MY son (and assuming he wasn't suffering uncontrolled diabetes, or UTIs), I wouldn't have gone to the papers, I'd be asking what he did with the seven FREE bathroom breaks he had. And then I'd advise him to save one for the afternoon, just in case. Don't squander them all avoiding math class in the morning.

 

I'm with Amie, I don't think that 7 potty breaks is unreasonable. If we go based on my school experiences that's basically one break every hour! The children simply need to learn to use the bathroom when it's offered instead of waiting until they *need* to go. I see it as no different than a mother saying go potty before we leave because it's going to be a while before we are near a bathroom again.

 

Actually, I can't tell from the article if they had six and are now up to seven or if they had seven and are now up to eight. In any case, I agree with you. It's lots.

And kids do need to learn to go when the opportunity is there. My mother trained me when I was little to never set foot out the door without going to the bathroom first. And when my kids were in kindergarten (before we pulled them out to home school) the teacher used to march all the children into the bathroom before recess. Every child was expected to try to go, even if they thought they couldn't. She said this practice was good training for future life, and - more importantly - it also almost completely eliminated wet pants.

 

This is the most stupid non-issue there is!!! Seven bathroom breaks a day? That's MORE than generous imo!!! Three times in the morning, once during lunch, three times in the afternoon. I agree that any kid going even that much needs to see the doctor. I've no doubt that if a parent were to talk with the teacher and tell her that there is a medical problem, the teacher would be willing to work with the parent. But personally, I think the "paying" to go more often is a good solution. It makes the kid decide if they REALLY have to go or not. Mom needs to SUPPORT the school, not go crying every time her kid doesn't get his way!

Carl's middle school has a new policy for hall passes. Each kid is allowed so many per grade period per class. So if a kid asks to go to the bathroom in his class, he is given a hall pass, which is recorded. But after seven or eight, they are simply told no, they've used up their allotment. Carl says it's really cut down on the number of kids asking to go, as well as kids roaming the halls.

I instituted a policy last year about mechanical pencils, which were being left all over the house. Each kid was given a package of five (six?), which I got really cheap on sale. Any mechanical pencil I found lying around, I picked up and put in the box. When yours were gone, you had a choice of buying one from me for a quarter, or using a regular pencil. This was an issue with Phillip. "I need a mechanical pencil!" "That will cost you 25 cents." "But I don't have 25 cents!" "Then you can use a regular pencil." "I don't LIKE regular pencils!" "Then you can buy a mechanical one from me." "But I don't HAVE 25 cents, because I'm saving my money to buy LEGOS!" "Then you need to use a regular pencil." "But I don't LIKE regular pencils!" Sigh.... He eventually paid me my quarter, lol!

 

We actually ran into this problem when ds was in 7th grade at public school. His body would...uh...process lunch inevitably 20 minutes into science which started right after lunch. He could not control it, but his absence from class for a couple of minutes was followed by having to sit in the science room for lunch the next day. I put a stop to the consequence immediately. You can't tell me that any of those teachers would mess themselves rather than excuse themselves from class for a couple minutes.

I think it is interesting how we know that one-size-fits-all education is silly. How is it we expect people to always be able to poop and pee on command?

 

I think as long as the kids are allowed to go throughout the day and not just at a set time, then there should be no way they'd need to go more than 7 times in 7 hours. That's a LOT.
Now, if they are saying that they can't go if it's not at their set time, that is what I'd have a problem with, esp when it comes to the poop factor. You never know when that is going to come up, so you can't exactly go when you don't need to.

 

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I don't see anything in this article that implies that. It sounds to me like the principal is being more than reasonable about it (even adding another break when the concern was raised) and is likely the type to take medical issues into account.

 

I'm with Amie. Anyone who has allowed for SEVEN bathroom breaks a day has been MUCH MORE TOLERANT than I would be! I'm sorry. Getting out of class seven times to go to the bathroom? If your kid did that while homeschooling, wouldn't you be concerned, or would you think that "normal"?

 

It is my understanding there are now 7 scheduled breaks, not on demand.

 

Yeah, my understanding, too. So every hour, the whole class lines up and goes to the bathroom? That should take between ten to fifteen minutes each time. Even with a conservative ten minutes each time, that's more than an hour of the school day spent in the bathroom.

 

Here's the deal. If every child could go on command, then you would only need maybe 3 breaks a day. But they can't. So, instead of allowing a child to use the toilet when they need to like the rest of mankind, the school has everyone get up and march in line to the bathroom. Yes. It is a huge waste of time.

 

Because the majority of children DON'T uses the bathroom. They use it as an excuse to get out of class and to play around. When I was a kid, we not only got three trips to the bathroom, we only were able to get a drink of water during those times, too. Now children are encouraged to keep a water bottle at their desks. Let's see...drinking more water, going to the bathroom more.... Hmmm.... Maybe there's a connection....

 

I know! The school could install live video feed to the bathroom stalls so the teacher could know for sure who is abusing their bathroom privileges. Problem solved.

All cheekiness aside, three regular bathroom stops and additional breaks as needed. Talk to the parents if something seems excessive. How hard is that, people?

 

OK, twenty kids in a classroom. And that's a small class. Thirty wasn't unusual in the regular ed classes when I was teaching. So if every kid decided just once they needed one of those "additional breaks as needed", that's twenty (thirty) interruptions taking place during reading groups, or in the middle of a math lesson, or in while explaining the science experiment. Is it no wonder no teaching takes place? MOST kids are capable of holding it. Exceptions can be made for the child who can't on an individual basis.

 

Yes, 7 breaks should be enough... but like when we vacation... we stop to potty, only one person has to go, and we are pulling over 20 minutes later! LOL! That's when we instituted the "everyone has to TRY policy". I also wonder if potty breaks are given during lunch or recess times, so if you go during potty break opportunities 3 and 4 you are eating into your free time?

 

Maybe. We also instituted the "everyone has to try" policy, especially when we drove the 17 hour trip to/from college!

We were driving one time, Phillip was three and Faythe five. Faythe announced she had to "go". I was trying to decide if this was an immediate, right-this-very-second "go", where we'd have to get off and stop at a gas station, or could it wait ten miles up the road where I knew there'd be a rest stop. So my 3yo boy decides to give his sister some advice: "Just hold your penis. That will help!" I about lost it! Carl, bless him!, turned around best he could while driving and said, "Phillip, she doesn't have one. She's a girl." Phillip gave his dad a puzzled look and then says, "OH!!! I KNEW THAT!" LOL!!! (Hey, at least I learned he knew the proper term for his body parts, lol!)