This Morning prompted a flurry of furious responses on Tuesday as one guest was accused of “making excuses for lazy parents” during a debate about whether children should be potty-trained before starting school.

ITV hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard introduced the topic, explaining that six in 10 parents don’t believe their child needs to be toilet-trained before starting school at the age of four.

Ms Deeley admitted: “I’m not quite sure how teachers would be able to cope with that.”

Broadcaster and guest Nick Ferrari responded: “It’s outrageous, isn’t it? It also shows 70 per cent of parents say children go to school, and they don’t know how to use a knife and fork.

“Now, let’s just put our minds in the position of those teachers – they’ve not trained for years so that they can toilet train your child or teach your child how to use a knife and fork. But there are, of course, children who have issues where they have problems in later life – we park that to one side.

“A child who does not have those issues – it’s surely beholden on mum or dad, whatever the relationship is, to teach your child. Because it is not fair to the teacher and a lot of teaching time will be lost. Your child is there to learn how to spell and how to add up, not to be taught how to go to the toilet. I think it’s a terrible failure of parenting.”

Mr Shephard asked guest Ashley James: “So your eldest is in reception?”

“Yeah, he’s just started reception,” the This Morning regular confirmed.

“So you’ve been through this, that worry, ‘Is he prepared? Is he ready?’ And there’s going to be accidents, we know there will be accidents,” Mr Shephard noted.

“Of course. I’ll be honest, so I’ve got a son and a daughter, and he took much longer before he was ready to be potty-trained,” Ms James responded. “He is potty-trained, more or less. It’s very nerve-wracking because also, we do send our kids to school much younger than lots of other countries.

“But I’m not excusing this, the fact that six in 10, so 64 per cent of parents, think that they don’t have to be hitting certain developmental goals before they go to school is concerning.

“I always try to come from a compassionate place. By the way, I echo what you’re saying on teachers because it is not their job, and we know already that we’ve lost a lot of teaching assistants, teachers are already over-stretched.”

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

Sue and Noel Radford fined as 22 Kids and Counting stars pull kids out of school for lavish holidayGeorge Gilbert reveals remarks that led to ITV Big Brother axe after ‘unacceptable’ warningsRod Stewart’s wife Penny Lancaster shares husband’s mortality plan amid 80-year-old’s health woes

However, she soon veered off from her co-star’s way of thinking: “I try to come from a very compassionate place because often, especially when you come from inequality, families might be in much different circumstances to us where they’re having to work two jobs, they’re not home as much as they’d like or they’re on their own raising multiple children, potentially through no fault of their own.

“I try to think, you know, we were in the Covid era, my son was born in lockdown, there was very poor access to early health visitors. My son never saw a health visitor. I think a lot of early years development was disrupted because they weren’t socialising with other children.

“I’m not trying to make excuses, but I just always try to come from a place of compassion and looking at why there are these failings. I also think, echoing what you’re saying, that there’s not just one way to be ready, as we all know as parents, our children are all so individual and unique, and some people do just take a little bit longer, and that might be because of things like ADHD, sensory processing difficulties, autism.

“So I think we have to be very careful not just to parent-shame, but obviously this needs addressing, and I think there needs to be more support in the early years, developing, ensuring that parents do get the right support, but also-“

“What support do you need?” Mr Ferrari cut in, to which the guest responded: “I don’t know what upbringings people are coming from, but ultimately -“

“There are medical needs, of course,” Mr Ferrari interjected. “This speaks to infantilising parents, ‘Don’t worry if you can’t brush your child’s teeth, we’ll get someone in school for it, don’t worry if your child can’t go to the toilet, we’ll get someone in school.’ There comes a point – unless you have a child with developmental issues – where a parent has to parent.”

Ms James fired back: “The fact of the matter is, if parents are having to work multiple jobs and they’re not as home as much as they’re like or they’re on their own raising multiple children, they might not have that time before they need to start work, before they get their kids to school. I don’t know, I just think, this is happening and so we need to create a system-“

“No!” the LBC host argued, hammering home his initial argument by stating: “We need parents to be parents, Ashley!”

Many viewers who tuned in seemed to be on Mr Ferrari’s side of thinking, with many agreeing with him on social media and slamming Ms James for excusing “lazy parenting”.

“#ThisMorning Ashley you are making excuses for f***ing lazy parents!!” one wrote on X while another echoed: “#Thismorning making excuses for laziness again Ashley.”

“God she doesn’t half talk rubbish #ThisMorning,” another complained, with someone else writing: “Ashley definitely lives in the woke era #thismorning.”

Someone else fumed: “#ThisMorning, Ashley is just white noise to me now. She does like her airtime. It’s a parent’s job to teach/train their kids, not the schools. I had special needs when I was a child but my mum still taught me to do the basics. No excuses.”

“On and on she drones with her nonsensical bulls*** #ThisMorning,” another raged.

“@thismorning People like Ashley are the issue where they come up with excuses on why parents can’t do things,” someone else remarked, adding: “Parents back in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s had jobs with multiple kids they managed okay. Nowadays, there’s too many excuses on why people can’t do thing. #Thismorning.”

One more added: “Ashley non-stop verbal diarrhea. She is so rude. She never stops talking to even take a breath. She talks non-stop over other people preventing a fair over-view of other opinions. I like to hear all opinions not just hers. #thismorning.” (sic)