March 26, 2008

WFMW: What I have learned about potty training

I will stop myself short of saying that these are potty training tips, because quite frankly, I think that me trying to pretend that I can give awesome potty training tips is like a vampire giving suntaning tips.

But…after potty training three children, including two or three that were difficult to potty train, I do feel like I have learned a few things.

Tip #1 for successful potty training: Don’t force it. Yes, I know — there can be a lot of pressure.

“Oh, so Susie is already three and not potty trained? That’s funny, Janie was about 3 months old and said, ‘Mother, I need to have a bowel movement now’ and I would just plop her on the toliet and she would go.”

Still, do what is best for your own child. I have seen a few kindergartners (back when I taught) who still had some serious bathroom issues. One Mom fessed up to me that her son had those issues because she thought her husband was too hard on him when he was potty training.

Just remember — unless there are some serious issues, your child will eventually use the toliet. It may not be on your schedule, but it will happen. So, stop worrying and just commend Janie’s mom on her genius baby.

Tip #2: Bribery can work. Bribery is not wrong, as long as you don’t take it to an extreme. Think of it this way — would you (or whoever works in your household) keep going to work if you didn’t get a paycheck? So, think of the bribery as their paycheck.

But, here’s the important thing, you need to find a time to back off of whatever you were doing.

For instance, with my children, we used a chart for earning stars. They got a star every time they successfully, and when they filled up their chart, they earned a prize/reward/treat/etc. At first, the chart (just drawn on regular computer paper) might have four empty boxes on it, if they are having a really difficult time learning to potty on the toliet. As they become more successful, add more boxes. We had a point where we had as many as 35 squares on a paper!

Here’s the beauty of it though, it has been my experience that by the time you get to that point, they stop forgetting that they want a star each time. And, at that point, you need to stop giving them a star unless they mention it. The bribes start to get faded out, and it will even probably come to a time when you can just quietly stop doing the chart all together.

If they complain, hopefully they will be at a point where going on the toliet is so natural that you won’t have back peddling when you stop charting. (Either that, or they need to start losing stars for having accidents.)

Tip #4: Although I did mention taking away stars, I would only do that in an extreme situation. Personally, we never did that. So, that’s this tip — praise accomplishments, but don’t punish accidents. Just clean them up (or have them help/do it themselves), and give them encouraging words. I often told my kids, “That’s okay. Accidents happen sometimes, but I know that you will do a fabulous job next time!”

Tip #5: I have this tip thanks to the most difficult of my potty training kids — Jack. Granted, Noah and Jack potty trained at the exact same age, but Jack was more difficult because he was able to use the toilet, but just never seemed to be able to get around to doing it. (Whereas Noah just wasn’t able, but I’ll get to that.)

We tried tons of methods of positive reinforcement with Jack for potty training. Nothing worked. We even talked to a psychologist (we were there for a different reason), and he suggested having a toy that Jack was only able to play with while he sat on the potty. This, I thought, was a great idea, so feel free to work with that one. But, it still didn’t work for us. It just didn’t motivate him. Nothing motivated him.

And then, one day, it hit me. Juice. Jack loves juice. Juice will motivate Jack. And, so I came up with a plan for my then 4 years and 10 month old son (remember — he has some special needs, of course, though he has grown out of a lot of those that were holding him back at that time) that I was afraid was mean. Every time he would want juice, we would require him to go to the bathroom first. If he didn’t go, no juice until he did.

I thought I was a horrible mother for this plan.

Two days later, Jack was potty trained with zero complaints from him. As a matter of fact, he even would often say, “Can I have some juice?” and then would run to the bathroom to potty, knowing he had to do that first.

(I will add in here — Jack always went A LOT. So, I was not afraid that I would be withholding liquids from him.)

My tip in all this?

Find what motivates YOUR child. You won’t find this answer in a book on how to potty train. You need to put serious thought into this, and then you’ll know.

Tip #6: Okay — one last thing I have learned about potty training. Be patient, and watch to see if your child is actually ready. Just because you want them to be potty trained doesn’t mean it is really time. Perhaps that means that you need to stop and introduce it again in a week, a month, or several months.

When we potty trained Noah (with high functioning Autism — Asperger’s Syndrome), he really wanted to try to do it, but he was scared. He would cry when we would try to put him on the toilet, so we would stop and try again another time. We tried to bribe him, and he would cry because he just couldn’t do it. That, my friends, is a sign to stop.

And, then one Wednesday afternoon, after never successfully using the toliet, he announced he had to go to the bathroom — on the potty. From that moment forward, he was potty trained — day and night.

It was his time, and he was ready. Our schedule was not his. And I am still so thankful that we finally backed off and just let him wait for that moment when he was ready. What a gift that was!