A NURSERY has been blasted by fuming parents for telling them they should ask their toddlers for consent before changing their nappy.
A post on the Only About Children’s website, an Australian early education provider, offers advice on how to perform “respectful nappy changes” with mums and dad branding it “mad.”
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The childcare chain, which as 70 centres across the country, says that nappy changes can be “important opportunities for learning and relationship building,” News.com.au reports.
It’s also important that they have a “respectful start” and this means “waiting for a gap in their playing before starting the nappy changing process.”
Commenting on the viral post online, one parent fumed: “Has the world gone completely mad.”
And another simply wrote: “I am lost for words.”
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“I honestly thought that when a baby is crying and screaming and they smell that is consent enough to change them,” a third commented.
While many dubbed the suggestion “stupid” and “pathetic”.
The full post on the website went on to say: “You may wish to give your toddler some autonomy and ask, ‘Would you like to walk to the change table or should I carry you?’”
And for babies, you should think “If you were a baby, how would you like to have your nappy changed?” according the the nursery’s website.
Has the world gone completely mad?
Angry parent
It also advises parents to do nappy changes with babies “slowly” and with “gentle hands”, “full attention” and with a “warm, nurturing back and forth.”
This is so you can “discover how good it feels to relate to one another”.
What’s more, parents should also “encourage their independence, you may ask him to take off his own nappy or wipe himself.”
While this is the preferred approach, Only About Children’s national education manager Angela Ngavaine reportedly told the Herald Sun nappy changes were still performed at centres even if babies or toddlers didn’t appear to show consent.
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She said the centres used a similar approach, which are based on the Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE) method, when it came to asking a child before if they can be hugged or wiping their faces.
The RIE method involves “treating even the youngest infant as a unique human being, not as an object” and by encouraging “even the tiniest infant to become an active participant rather than a passive recipient of the activities”.
This story originally appeared on News.com.au and was shared here with permission.
Fabulous has contacted Only About Children for comment.
It’s not the first time this has happened though as a mum previously provoked debate by teaching her toddler CONSENT before changing his nappy.
And this expert claims parents should ask babies for PERMISSION before changing their nappies.
Plus this mum agrees, sparking outrage on This Morning after insisting parents should ask their children’s PERMISSION.
