Emergency clothes -Pack them !

For Kindergarten and TK kids, I suggest parents  put a change of clothes in a gallon zip lock bag, label it with your child’s name and put it in the bottom of your child’s backpack. Tell your child that the clothes are  there and tell them to leave them  there. Explain why they are there and when to use them .

Kids have accidents . You may be confident that your child will never have an accident but please think further than ‘peeing ” their pants. Of course that is the most common since kids wait until the last minute to go , forget to go or they are scarred to go, or there is a crowd in the bathroom…. See the post on toilets. As neighborhood populations have increased , schools have added classrooms ,not necessarily bathrooms . If a child is dancing but gets to the   bathroom at a busy  time, there will be a wait. Can’t wait !!!  There are other reasons clothes can get wet, these include; going down a wet( dew) slide, making it to the toilet but having the urine ‘jet stream’ project through the open part of the toilet seat and  wet  your clothes , not pulling pants down far enough , kids goofing in bathroom and playing with water, trouble reaching and using water fountains, or sitting beside the kids who knocks over his beverage , or explodes his yogurt at the snack table. If an accident never happens, great but if it does, it is SO much easier for the teacher to discretely ( if necessary with an embarrassing incident ) direct a child to their back pack and have them go to the nurses office .I suggest the nurses office as it is more private . Children can change into their own clothes in a private room and the nurse is there is they have a problem. The plastic bag can be used for the wet clothes and sealed up so not to smell. This can be done quickly and with little disruption to their day. Sometimes the nurse or the teacher will give parents a heads up so the wet clothes bag gets taken out at the end of the day. (but you are checking backpacks daily anyway, right ?) 

This life jacket photo ? , well, I have seen kids come back with loaner clothes from the nurses office that fit as well as this life jacket. If giant ill fitting clothes don’t scream ” I had an accident!” , I don’t know what does.  Pack pants and underwear  for sure and change them with the seasons. NO child wants to change form long pants into shorts in the middle of winter. It is  not a bad idea to put a pair of sock in the bag too since if liquids run don the leg, they pool in the shoes. 

If there are no clothes in the backpack, many schools have drawers of loaners  in the office but it has been my experience that little sizes are rarely in stock. Some PTAs buy a stash of new underwear but again sizes may not be available. If there are no clothes in the borrow pile , you are going to get a phone call and your child is going to sit in the nurses office until a change of clothes arrives. It is not a private place to sit as nurses offices are always hopping. 

So please consider having a bag of your child’s own clothes in their back pack. THEY WILL THANK YOU !!!