About Toilet Training - Whose Poop is it Anyway?

Yes it is a scatological title... but I need to get your attention and if you've read this far I succeeded. In my years of being a professor, therapist and/or friend - I have been asked so many times about toilet training that I almost scream. It would have been better to ask each person for a dollar, then I'd be extremely wealthy. Yes - I did answer them all but I never wrote down what I said.

So here am I years later, still getting questions about toilet training and still thinking about a good answer. It finally came to me: you have to decide whose poop it is and whose pee it is! Then you will be able to choose what comes next: your toilet training or your child's.

I know many will take offense at this as lots of "experts" tell you to get your child on a schedule by putting them on a potty at the same time every day. I have to ask the obvious - but who made that schedule and who has to be there for it to work? To me this seems to be for those who consider the poop to be that of the adult.

It is also suggested that you run water to inspire peeing and sit there with the child until "something' happens and then "reward " the child with a toy or hug or whatever.

So not only does the parent make the schedule, the parent has to sit there with the child or be nearby listening to make sure "something" happens and then go and make a big to-do about what "happened." To me it seems the person being "trained' is the parent who learns to read the child's signals and gets said child to a potty "in time."

Sorry - but my attitude was and still is that children around the world all learn to go to the bathroom as the elders in their tribe go to the bathroom and one need not get so intensely involved with a child's output.

Most children want to act like the adults in the culture and will do what the adults do - and when they see adults using a toilet in a bathroom - they too will use it - when they are physically ready. Why make an issue over something like toilet training? Believe me there are more issues to come that you will want or need to get into a fight about. So parents - choose your fights wisely.

And now I invite you to stop by Parenting 201 where you can find out lots more about children and parenting and more about my e-book You Can Totally Screw Up As A Mom And Still Raise Great Kids

From Lynn Dorman. Ph.D. - The Advice and Information Guru - and Scanner at Gray Wolf Productions

[Parenting 201 is a division of Gray Wolf Productions]