An Arkansas teacher criticized parents who send their children to kindergarten still in diapers and denounced the decline of potty training in a video posted on TikTok.
In the clip, which was posted Thursday, Ms3rdGrade said: “Diapers in kindergarten – this is something we’ve been talking about with other teachers for the last few weeks.”
“I had no idea how many children wear diapers in kindergarten. The more I talk to some of my friends from kindergarten, the more they tell me how many they have,” the educator continued, before falling silent.
“I know I can’t be alone,” the TikToker said, her shock evident. “I remember when my kids were in school… your child had to be potty trained before you could send them to kindergarten.”
An Arkansas teacher criticized parents who send their children to kindergarten still in diapers and denounced the decline of potty training in a video posted on TikTok
“I had no idea how many children wear diapers in kindergarten. The more I talk to some of my kindergarten friends, the more they tell me how many they have,” the educator continued, before falling silent.
She shared that her daughter will turn 24 in November and her son will turn 22 next month.
“I don’t feel like I imagined it,” the teacher continued, behind whom a classroom blackboard could be seen.
‘I’m in the state of Arkansas and I found out last night that in the state of Arkansas it’s not mandatory.’
“Why?” she asked, not knowing why. “Did that change?”
The bewildered teacher went on to reflect on the large number of kindergarten children who wear diapers.
The bewildered teacher went on to reflect on the large number of kindergarten children who wear diapers.
“Why do we have so many five- and six-year-olds still in diapers?” Ms3rdGrade said in the video, which has been viewed nearly 628,000 times.
“Why do we have so many five- and six-year-olds still in diapers?” asks Ms3rdGrade in the video, which has been viewed nearly 628,000 times.
At another point in the video, the educator wagged her finger and said, “I’m not talking about kids with special needs.”
“You kindergarten teachers out there dealing with this, bless you, because I don’t think I could do it,” she said, shaking her head.
“Yesterday I was complaining about my breath… if you have two or three kids in diapers, woooh,” the TikToker said, her eyes wide.
The educator then returned to her main message: to find out if other people had experienced something similar.
Am I the only one who thinks this? Are there a lot of diapers in school these days?
In March, Utah passed a law that made potty training a mandatory “condition” of kindergarten enrollment.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Douglas Welton, said it was a response to the growing number of children starting kindergarten without being fully toilet trained.
In contrast, in New York and New Jersey, there are laws prohibiting schools from excluding children from a class because they are not toilet trained.
According to the Hechinger Report, in the 1940s, toilet training traditionally began before a child was 18 months old.
About 60 years later, in the mid-2000s, a child typically began toilet training when he or she was between 21 and 36 months old.