Potty training is an exhausting experience for everyone involved. It's a messy process that isn't always linear or easy. In most places around the country, parents must have their children potty trained before they will be eligible to attend school. This even includes children who are 3 years old, leading to even more stress for parents to get their kids out of diapers quickly and efficiently.
A teacher on TikTok, took to the platform to express her dismay that there are kids going into kindergarten who haven't been potty trained and are showing up to elementary school in diapers. And yeah, a lot of people are shocked.
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The Arkansas teacher was genuinely surprised by this information.
TikTok user Ms3rdGrade, shared the video last week, though it has since been deleted from the platform. In the video, the teacher, who is based in Arkansas, looked absolutely shocked as she discussed this surprising trend.
"Diapers in kindergarten — this has been something that's been a conversation with fellow teachers for the past several weeks now," she said, as reported by the Daily Mail Online.
The teacher claimed that this was an alarming conversation that kept coming up.
In the video, Ms3rdGrade made it clear that she wasn't talking about children who had special needs, but children who seemingly had no reason to not be potty trained.
"I had no idea. The more I talk to some kindergarten friends, and they tell me how many they have," she said. "Why do we have so many 5-and 6-year-olds still in diapers?" she asked.
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The idea of having a classroom with children who aren't potty trained is hard for her to wrap her mind around.
"I am in the state of Arkansas, and I learned last night that in the state of Arkansas it's not required," the teacher, who is also a mom to two adult children of her own said. "Why?" she wondered.
"You kindergarten teachers that are dealing with this, bless your heart, because I don't think I could," she admitted. "I was complaining about the breath yesterday…if you have two or three kids in diapers, woooh," she added.
She then had to wonder, "Am I alone on this? Do you have a lot of diapers in your school right now?"
Many people are questioning what could lead to such a problem.
Despite the video no longer being available, a lot of people have seen it, and are sharing their own reaction videos, placing the blame of kindergarteners in diapers squarely on the parents.
Many of the reaction videos calling parents out as "lazy," with people wondering why and how parents could fail their children and place such a burden on teachers.
Naturally, there are thousands of comments across TikTok trying to make sense of it all.
"WHAT?" one person wrote. "Kindergarten? I'm sorry, but absolutely no reason besides neglect ."
"A Gen Ed teacher can not and will not potty train any students," another person commented. "Parents need to think how they think that will even happen? The class would spend their day in a bathroom."
Another person commented: "It's because tablets are raising these kids now! But it's also so much more."
"And they get mad when you tell them they need to work on it at home and say 'theyre not ready' yikes!" someone else wrote. "Its the worst."
