I taught my son how to safely use a public loo without me with a simple trick

"There are many nuances, such as are you with complete strangers or classmates at school? Or how many urinals are there?"

A mum has taught her son how to use public restrooms alone - and safely - using a simple trick. 

Sharing to Instagram, Lindsey BenGera filmed her son, who looks to be around four, playing a game she made for him that replicated a public toilet set up.

In the game, he has to select the appropriate urinals to use in different scenarios by sticking ticks or crosses on them. 

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Image: Instagram

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The public bathroom lesson

For example, Lindsey places a purple man on the far urinal to symbolise it's occupied, then her son puts crosses on the three spaces next to the stranger and a tick on the furthest away one.

The mum explained in the caption: "My son has been asking a lot of questions about how to be respectful in a public restroom (how sweet is that?), and so we talked about all of the ‘unspoken rules’. Lots of urinal questions came up, and because I can’t teach this to him in an actual bathroom, I pulled together a simple activity to help him better understand. I love focusing on practical life skills because they are just so important!"

Lindsey explained that she purposefully left out tricky examples (like when all the urinals are full, but one) as "the answer is a personal choice."

She says if there's only one urinal left he can take it, but to be sure of others' personal spaces and to look straight ahead and don't stare. She also encouraged him to use a stall if that was more comfortable for him. 

She added: "Also, there are many different nuances you can discuss with your learner, such as are you in a bathroom with complete strangers or classmates at school? Or how many urinals are there?"

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"I thought men did this automatically?"

In the comments, people praised the mum for the tip, with one saying: "This is amazing!" and one man saying, "Yesss, teach him when he's young. I didn't know when I was young. I used to go right next to somebody else and then accuse them of watching me."

However, others argued that this was common sense. 

"I thought men did this automatically?" someone asked.

Another said: "No one needs to learn this. You just know you don't go next to someone else."

But a commenter replied: "People don’t realise that this is a LEARNED behaviour. You may not have been taught like this, but you learned it, either from wanting personal space, a male figure in your life or someone yelling at you in the bathroom but you didn’t walk into a crowded public bathroom at x age and be like yup I know what I'm going to do."

And someone else agreed, adding: "And even if one dude here did figure it out through common sense, they should realise that social cues and stuff like that don’t come as easily to others, autistic kids, for example, need to be directly taught a lot of social behaviour other kids can pick up on by themselves."

Originally published as I taught my son how to safely use a public loo without me with a simple trick