Teacher bars 6 yro from using bathroom, humiliation insues.

I am too angry to sleep.

I got a call from the school nurse today, that my young son was sick and wanted to come home. I was at work and unable to leave, so Grandpa went to get my little one and he slept until I picked him up. This was 1 1/2 hrs after the call from the nurse. We came home and he tells me that at recess, he really had to poop and told the teachers on duty, but they wouldn't let him back into the building until he had put away the balls. My son is very respectful of adults and aims to please. As a result of these control freaks, he could not hold it and shat himself. When they finally let him in, he cleaned up the best he could and went to the nurse because he was "sick".

How is it ok to demand respect from children, to the point that they soil themselves, for some personal power? This will be forever engrained in his mind. Imagine someone barring you from the restroom to THAT point where there is no more control. As adults, we have the buffer of past experience to shield us from the pain of the worst kinds of humiliation. We guard and protect ourselves a bit. Children are open and innocent and TRUSTING. How can these "adults" not also respect their most basic needs? You wouldn't treat a dog that way. Yet somehow, it is alright to do this to a child.

I e-mailed the principal and I am sure to get some blathering excuses for the "responsible adults'" behavior. It just makes me sick. why shame good children? Laziness? incompetence? Power? It is deplorable!

a reply to: frayedknot

Wow, I'm really sorry that your son was put through that. There really is no excuse for barring a human from having to use the restroom. This brings me back to 2nd grade; I had to go pee so bad during class, so I raised my hand only to have my teacher ignore me to the point of feeling I was going to explode so I got up and stood next to her so she wouldn't ignore me because, as a kid, I really didn't know what else to do. Well, she kept ignoring me in front of the whole class until I reached my biological limit and let it all out. It was so embarrassing that I still remember it vividly and I'm nearing 25.

a reply to: Voyaging

Ugh! My son is in second grade too. He skipped a grade and will be 7 next month. I think the teacher purposefully ignores him because he advanced. Poor guy was just crying and so ashamed. I let him know that I love him more than anyone in the world and will defend him. He was worried that I would talk to the teacher. If that is not a red flag, I don't know what is. Kids are so sensitive and these pains leave imprints. So many people are clueless to the imprints they leave.

Sorry about your bad one. At this age, I bet you wish you would have aimed at her face!

One of my younger brother's elementary school teachers was a royal bitch who generally never let anyone use the restroom until recess or lunch. Even then, it was limited to who really had to go bad enough. Over the course of that year, my brother developed an aversion to asking to go anywhere but at home. He had a bout with constipation through part of the following school year because he was too afraid to ask thanks to that witch of a woman

ETA: My mom did corner her and talked to her about the "permission" issue when needing to use it. She played it off as he was just shy & never approached her for the bathroom pass. No one believed her, but we couldn't really prove anything anyway. His word against hers

a reply to: frayedknot

Sadly something similar happened to me a loooong time ago . But they were different times and i vaguely remember it happened a lot to the kids in my class . This should never have happened but as you said below , the fact your kid does not want you confronting the teacher is the real red flag . Why is he so afraid . 6-7 year olds should not be afraid of their teacher . I am pretty sure i know how i would handle this but its probably best i don't write it here .

He was worried that I would talk to the teacher. If that is not a red flag, I don't know what is.

My son who is 10, once told me when he was younger that he had to go pee and the teacher wouldn't allow him. So I told him that if something like that ever happened again to just get up and tell the teacher where he was going and just go to the bathroom whether he had permission to or not and if they have a problem with it, call me. Luckily he didn't have an accident. Some teachers are just pure evil.

Poor little guy.

I freaking hate hearing about stuff like this. I remember being in school and thinking it was absurd that some teachers were very stingy with the bathroom pass. I get not letting kids who say they need to use the bathroom and take 1/2 an hour twice a day get away with it, but come on.

I would do more than email the principal. I would most likely flip out, demand a meeting with the teachers involved and the principal and jump down their throats.

a reply to: frayedknot

I'm so sorry this happened to your family.

When I was in kindergarten, the girl assigned to sit across from me at the table (think lunchroom tables but they were in a classroom) had to use the bathroom and the teacher told her no. She was supposed to have gone at break.

She peed on herself. Explosively, obviously uncontrolled, a HUGE amount of peed. It went on forever. She also splattered me (I never told anyone my socks were full of pee). OMG, the humiliation. That poor child.

It was a good decision on your child's part to clean himself, then go the nurse and claim sick, instead of being further humiliated by anyone else outside the family knowing.

I hope you go over with him about standing up for himself, so much as that is possible at that age.

a reply to: frayedknot

More bathroom issues are coming to me...

When I was in 4th grade we had two passes, one for girls and one for boys, hanging on the wall. You did not have to ask permission to go, you quietly walked and took the pass (seems unhygienic now) and went. So only one girl and one boy could be gone at a time.

One time, I took the pass. I would like to emphasize I never got in trouble, never abused the privilege of the pass, and had straight A's. I went to the bathroom where I had horrible stomach cramps and explosive, liquid diarrhea. I was scared because it hurt so bad and I didn't remember ever having a poop like that before. Finally I was done and went back to the class. I wanted to go home, mostly because I was scared it would happen again.

When I walked back in, in front of everyone, the teacher screamed at me that I was gone for 15 minutes and just what was I doing? I was so embarrassed I did not ask to go to the nurse. I did tell my mom when she picked me up (she did complain). I never understood why the teacher did that. The first thing to do would be determine if a child was gone so long because they were ill.

a reply to: frayedknot

Have him bring that pathetic teacher some quick colon brownies and lock every bathroom door at school.

a reply to: frayedknot

This is utterly unacceptable.

When I was in primary school the rules there were quite iron clad. You could only use the toilet during class if you were having a medical emergency. During breaks however, going to the toilet was... Inadvisable due to the higher than normal percentage chance of getting cornered, knocked half conscious and urinated on by other students (yes, even at the age of seven, my fellow students were...well they were scum, enough said I think).

As a result, I "learned" to hold it all in. I would only go to the toilet in the morning before school, and the moment I got home. So ingrained was this, that to this day I cannot even break wind, unless I am in a bathroom. It was only after I had been out of institutionalised education for two years, around age eighteen, that I learned to deal with public toilet facilities in the normal way. As I am sure you can imagine, this lead to me being cramped up for some years with constipation.

a reply to: TrueBrit

i feel your pain TrueBrit, Australian public school system was the same, i was jumped in the toilets, put in a choker hold till i passed out and robbed. great times

a reply to: frayedknot

Why in the hell don't they have bathrooms that are freely available to them when they are at Recess??? I don't think it's even legal to have such an environment in the first place. There is always a bathroom available somewhere. In fact that is what Recess is technically for. Breaks and Recess for kids is not really "Play Time". It is for reasons such as relieving yourself, we just give young kids a longer free time.

There shouldn't ever be a time when your kid must ask for permission or be denied access to use the toilet. I believe I even had a teacher tell me that when I was in school. That legally he couldn't stop a student from using the restroom even if they just jumped up in the middle of everything, said I'm going to the restroom and walked out. He has to let them go.

I had IBS and was taught one thing by my parents.

Using the bathroom is a human right.

Nothing supersedes Humans rights. Not school rules or teachers.

If you refused the bathroom you have the right to ignore them.

Get on twitter or some other social media. Parents have a voice now thankfully.

Side note: I have my own icky stories about this.

Just to play devil's advocate- maybe he didn't emphasize how badly he needed to go? I would like to hope that some elementary school teachers wouldn't purposely do something so awful to a child. I know it's hard, but try to put 'Mama bear' back in the cage until you hear their side of the exchange.

But regardless of any misunderstanding the end result is the same and you are totally within your rights to raise holy hell with the principal, and request a face to face meeting with the teachers involved to make damn sure it didn't happen again- to yours or any other child.

Good luck! I'm always in support of the school, but lord help them if I ever find myself in a situation like this!

a reply to: frayedknot

Sounds like the teacher was bullying the kid.

I'd bring that up to the principal.

I remember when a few power hungry teachers tried to pull that crap on me when I was in grade school.

Finally a few times I just got up and went to the bathroom and came back. Teachers never said anything to me.

Happened various times during my youth cause I have a small bladder. ~$heopleNation

My sister endured something similar at around the same age. I can tell you it isn't 'forever engrained in her mind'

I'm all about peace and love maybe but, in this case, I would gladly spoon out an eye of such staff.
These domineering pricks need to be taught a few lessons as they only operate this way where there is a lack of consequence.

My choice? Lose an eye and a follow up "rebirthing" in 500 pounds of soiled baby diapers, confined to a dumpster for 24 hours.