Have a New Kid by Friday - Dr Kevin Leman [82]
Going potty is one of the most natural things in the world. We’re the ones who make it into something big and complex. It doesn’t deserve to be. If your child doesn’t respond topotty training within a few days, don’t make a big thing of it. Just put away the potty for a short time and then bring it out again. Sometimes 1 to 2 weeks is enough time for the child to decide now is the time.
When your child goes #2 in the potty, you can say, “Oh, look at what you did; that’s Most children are prepared to potty train at age 2 or 2%½. great!” But as excited as you are for such an accomplishment, don’t make too big a deal of it. One mom I know “saved” the poop to show her husband when he got home from work. That night she, her husband, and the two other siblings gathered around the porcelain throne to worship the doo-doo. They thought it would encourage the little nipper to go more frequently. Instead, all they did was show the hedonistic little guy, Hey, this is a big deal. Mom really likes it when I go poop. Hmm . . . I wonder what she’ll do if I refuse to go. What will she give me? So that mom’s good intentions actually backfired on her. All of a sudden, that child couldn’t create a 4-inch Picasso without her or someone else sitting in the bathroom with him.
Most children are prepared to potty train at age 2 or 2 ½. If a child is developing normally (and isn’t developmentally delayed), there’s no reason for a child not to be toilet trained by age 3. If your child isn’t toilet trained by 3 ½, you’ve made far too big a deal of the job with rewards and punishments. That kid’s got your number, and he’s in charge of you.
Keep in mind that even when a child is 4 years old, he can wet his pants. “But, Doc, he’s been potty trained for 2 years. What’s the deal?” you ask.
What will that kid tell you? “I forgot.”
The child didn’t forget. He has the same feeling in his bladder that you and I have when we have to go potty. He simply got so involved in playing that he got lazy and wet his pants.
The law in the Leman house has always been that there is a certain number of underwear you can wear in a given day. If you took a poll of people in your community, you would find that the mean, median, and mode are one pair of panties a day. That means if a child forgets to come in to go potty and wets his pants outside, he comes into the house, and his day outside has come to an end. It’s a simple cause and effect that makes a child responsible for his own bladder. If that child’s day with friends ends because he wet his pants, do you think he’ll remember next time to come in and go?
Power Games/Domination/Power Struggles
The key question is, who’s the parent in the relationship—you or your child?
I was standing in the store the other day, and a teenage girl was definitely calling the shots. In no uncertain terms, she was telling her frazzled-looking mother exactly what to buy and what they were going to do when they left the store. And you know what? That mother was falling for it!
This is a mountain, one that you need to climb as early as possible in your child’s life. Does that mean you dominate your child? You act as an authoritarian figure that orders your child around? Someone who projects the view “I’m better than you are”? Certainly not. We’re not better than our child; we simply have different responsibilities. And one of those is to be a parent. We are the ones who need to decide what’s best for the child—and the family.
Instead, what happens? A child becomes the deciding factor just because she whines, complains, cries, and screams. Or she may also dominate by being shy and quiet and not saying anything, thus putting the parent in the role of always prodding. Let’s say a parent is concerned about her 3-year-old’s language development. If a powerful child gets wind of that, she’ll just shut up and not say anything. Before long she’s only using motions to get