Daycare toilets need privacy

I am becoming increasingly concerned that children are suffering more these days from not being offered privacy for doing their “ones and twos” at daycare facilities, kindergartens, and preschools. Typically, most toilets are designed with no doors and offer open cubicles for children who are learning how to use the toilet for the first time.

As a result I continue to see hundreds of children each year who become constipated, withhold both wees/poos for many hours, wet and/or soil themselves because they do not feel comfortable or safe in using them.

It a basic human instinct to seek privacy for doing “Ones and Twos”, which is not being offered at daycare facilities for young children in Australia.

As parents increase the time they spend at work (either by choice or necessity), the children have less time to be toilet trained in the calm environment and privacy of their home. So children are becoming increasingly stressed and anxious, and suffer the ultimate humiliation and indignity of soiling or wetting themselves constantly at home or at daycare. This in turn causes more stress for their parents and educators.

At this time of the year, there are thousands of children getting ready to start school next year. And so many of these children still lack the ability to stay dry and clean all day because they are not yet fully toilet trained.

Unfortunately this puts a financial strain on the families, and I am seeing an increasing number of children who require NDIS funding, or make claims with Medicare, to help fix this problem.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just put a few doors on toilet cubicles in all childcare facilities instead?