Potty Philosophy
May 2007
2 CommentsWhen this post was written: First child (D) was 3 yrs, 10 mo. Second child (B) was 2 yrs, 4 mo. Third child (L) was 0 yrs, 6 mo.
After three accidents in quick succession on Monday, I decided to wait until today to start again. And… to be honest, I haven’t started yet (that means Bethel is still in her jammies midmorning).
Earlier, I decided to do potty training in the morning, and pullups in the afternoon. That’s because it’s all I can handle, not because I think it’s the best way to deal with the challenge. But now I think I’ll do it Friday and Saturday. That way Lee can help take care of David and Laurel. Better yet, maybe he can do the potty training while I watch the other two. I think the experience might be helpful for his practice. 
When you read about potty training, there’s a subtle but unmistakable fear of pushing the child. If you do, “they” say, you’ll make it a control issue, and you don’t want that. It goes along with the self discovery, self guided learning, they’ll learn when they want to philosophy. However, I have come to the conclusion that potty training isn’t intrinsically fun. And if the child doesn’t fall for the stickers and candy, you’re left with a child who has to get through the uncomfortable process of learning something.
At some point, you have to say, “I know you don’t like it, but you have to do it. And when you learn, you’ll be glad you did.” I guess we could apply this to instrument practice, multiplication tables, and any number of intrinsically boring tasks. I’m all for making learning fun, but not all learning is fun. So as I work on this challenge with Bethel, I think it will be helpful to be prepared mentally when she says “I don’t want to wear big girl underwear.” That’s okay, kid. That’s a part of growing up.
I am certain this post was biblical, but I haven’t thought of how. sigh…
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So, what exactly are you doing when you’re “working on it?” I’m still battling this with Leah. As long as I remind her often to try, she does ok. But life gets so busy and I forget to remind her. I even forget to set the timer to remind myself to remind her…Sigh. She has little motivation to take herself to the potty and to stay dry. Occasionally she surprises me and goes in by herself. But it’s usually one step forward, one step back.
1 Addy said this (May 10, 2007 at 5:46 am)
Well, Bethel’s not at the point yet where I’m confident she even knows how to go in the toilet. So “working on it” means I want to have some successes so she can understand what “going” feels like. Saturday I’m going to fill her up on koolade and play outside with the timer. Then every twenty or thirty minutes we’ll go sit on the potty and read books together for five minutes or so. If she goes, great, if not, we’ll try again later. We’ll see how it goes.
I don’t know what to do about your little one, since she gets all that. I wonder what would happen if you told her that she was a big girl now, and you would not be reminding her any more. And you gave her the timer if she wanted to use it to help her remember? She might be forgetting because she’s depending on you to remind her. Seems I remember David doing that. I dunno. Praying God gives you insight!
2 Michelle said this (May 10, 2007 at 2:22 pm)