What is the age at which a child should leave diapers? Many people respond that it is two years. But what if he is three years old and still peeing on himself, day after day? Is he a child with problems or is he normal? What if he is four years old? Can you wear a diaper at night? And during the day? Unthinkable for a four-year-old to wear a diaper by day, right? But why? Why can you take it at night but not during the day? Why don't they leave them at school or why shouldn't they take them?
Yes, there are many questions followed and they all come up with a case that I met in the nursing office a few days ago and I want to comment: a 4-year-old girl who was not able to control sphincters night or day, that escaped and that every day had to be changed more than once, with the consequent disgust of the mother and, of course, the girl. Disgust that no one would have if he could continue using diapers at school if they let him wear them. That is why I am asking: Should children be able to wear diapers at school?
The girl who urinated too much
Obviously I asked the mother a few questions, to try to know if there was a possible organic problem or to know if it was simply a girl with a slower maturation. He told me (he told the pediatrician and me) that at school they began to complain that urinated too much, which was not a matter of quantity, but of times asking to go to the sink.
Apparently every half hour, or every hour, he raised his hand to go to the toilet to pee, and that for the teacher was a problem because throughout the day he could get to ask him to go to the sink up to ten times. All this so that in some of those the girl did not remember, she did it on top and had to change it.
Explained in this way one might think that the girl has some physical problem, something organic that prevents her from holding urine inside the bladder. However, he immediately gave us a piece of information that ruled out this possibility: In summer, quiet at home, it does not happen.
Come on, that at home, without anyone telling her anything to pee, without her being ashamed that she will escape, without anyone changing her clothes for the umpteenth time in the week, the girl endures well and goes to the Sink when you need it. Sometimes he misses some, but it's not the norm at all.
If at school they let him wear a diaper ...
Then we told the mother that your daughter has no physical problem, since the same thing doesn't happen in summer, and the problem I had was that I couldn't wear a diaper in class. Not all children go well to school. Not everyone is happy. Not everyone lives well spend a few hours separated from their parents, in the company of other more or less friendly children, and not everyone expresses their discomfort in the same way.
Some let him know with attitudes of rebellion in the same school, others keep the guy in the school and the rebellion then appears at home, as in a kind of revenge "for having left me in a place where I do not want to be," others stop eating, others start to have bellyache and others, because others pee on.
In the school environment the girl is not able to withstand the pee, who knows if her nerves make her take her glass of water and drink and drink, as she did with mom's chest when she was nervous, as she did with the bottle or as she did when he grabbed the pacifier and swallowed until he calmed down.
Who knows if it's not that, that he drinks too much, or that he simply can't stand the pee because he thinks about other things, because he plays, because he's having a bad time and because his nerves make him feel like he wants to pee. It escapes, they change it and it is already dry again.
But this, day after day, or several times in one day, makes she doesn't want to happen again. He does not want to escape, he does not want others to see that he is wearing new clothes, he does not want to be ashamed of it, and that is why he wants to prevent him from escaping. At the minimum, to which he notes that the bladder has a bit of pee, she, just in case, asks to go to the sink. I could surely endure a good while longer, because there is little he has, but he knows that if he advances to the moment when he will inevitably escape, he may avoid it. That's why you spend half the morning in the sink.
Therefore, if he was allowed to wear a diaper at school, he would forget about it, she would probably go to the sink quietly when she felt the need to do it and, if anyone escaped, she could take off her diaper, throw it away and ask for another diaper, from the panties, to put it on herself.
But she does not want to
When discussing it with the mother, and I did not do it so that she asked for it to the school (or yes), but to reassure her and to see that the problem was not of the girl, but of the school that they do not leave, she told me that "already, but she doesn't want to wear a diaper ". Normal, he is embarrassed because children learn that those who wear diapers are babies, and that if you wear it when you are older, you are small and nobody should be with you. Or normal because if they are not children, they are adults, I'm sure that more than one you will have heard about "how I'm going to put a diaper, if you're not a baby" or "the pee you have to do in the toilet, you're older."
If society changed a little in this regard, if we did not hurry children to control the sphincters, they alone would take off the diaper when they were really prepared for it and there would not be so much child going out every day changed with the pissed clothes in a plastic bag.
Let's not forget that it was we, the parents, who taught them in their day to do everything in the diaper. There are cultures that do not use diapers and that immediately teaches children to pee with a minimum schedule. There are cultures that take children with open pants so they can do it anywhere and anywhere. Ours, on the other hand, teaches them to do it on a diaper, and then, overnight, we want them to do it great in a potty with loud music or directly in the toilet, with the fear that some have To that big hole
But all this will not change until schools, which claim to be so respectful of children and that claim to address the diversity of each child, help to be autonomous without forcing. Especially since we talk about something that is maturing, and not always something to teach. Surely with four years this girl has been taught to do well millions of times, but look, for whatever reason, she needs to grow a little more as a little person to be able to control it in any situation.
If I could wear a diaper, as I said, it would be a much happier girl at school, or at least I would have a big problem less. But of course, "in school we are not to change diapers," a preschool teacher once told me.
