I’m still ‘splainin’ Part Two
So, in the last post, I asked for your advice about how to handle the potty training. And, I’m not looking for more tactics. I’m looking for something deeper, something more in depth. So…
Would you resort to the plan of spending the day in the bathroom with him until he sits on the potty, blocking his way out and locking up the pull-ups. Here’s a suggestion from a reader.
Take a day and DO NOT LEAVE THE HOUSE
get a HUGE pile of books from the library
camp out in the bathroom – DO NOT LEAVE THE BATHROOM FOR ANY REASON
Do not bring anything but books into the bathroom – no toys
bring something for you to read
Tell him that if he sits on his potty sans clothes, you’ll read out loud to him, but otherwise you’ll read to yourself.
Sit with your back to the door, so he can’t run out
stay there
repeat for a few days
and another one who suggested…
aside of a ped/ psych eval….my best suggestion….assuming nothing medically is wrong…
1. put the pullups under lock and key…literally….there will be no sneaking! 1 pullup a night for sleep..although mine was dry at night before i even tried to train. (Nothing to drink 2 hrs b4 bed)
2. take a day….and go cold turkey….it’s underwear/training and plastic pants. plan on several days w/o leaving the house.
3. He doesn’t wear the above…..he gets nothing…and mean it…no tv, no toys, no nothing – not even food. To get anything…he has to wear the above. This is not up for negotiation!
4. once an hour..he sits on the potty…1st in clothes, than naked but…see above.
5. He sits, he gets a rewards…once sitting is established, he pees/poops he gets reward. Reading on the pot is good to give him something positive,
6. He has an accident…he cleans it up. (to the best of his ability.)
7. If you must leave the house (to take other child to school?) He’s in plastic pants, sits on the potty b4 and after trip, and keep trip as short as possible.
Good luck, it seems you have quite a willful child there…but you can make it so he has no choice…it’s training pants for you buster!
What would you do? Would you try the above strategies? Would it matter to you that I feel like there is a deeper issue and that I am going to cause him stress for the long term if I try these methods? I don’t know what I think could be wrong with him but he really has been a difficult child in his 4 years.
This post has 4 comments
January 14th, 2009
We did the “only underwear, no pull ups, diapers, etc” for a weekend. We did that for about 3 months straight. She never got it. Finally one day she just got it and got it on her own. I would definitely try it again though and definitely watch how much he drinks, etc and time it so he has to sit on the potty. If it doesn’t stop maybe he does need to go to the doctor.
Courtneys last blog post..WW – Before & After
January 14th, 2009
Because I know ya’ll and I’ve seen him scream and cr when I changed his pull up and I’ve seen him wear a wet pull up for an extended period of time, I definitly would not stay in the bathroom all day and force him to stay on the potty. I think that would traumatize him! I was talking to mom about it and she suggested taking him to a psychologist. Because I’ve seen him in action on a daily basis at potty time I would definitly agree! However if you remember D in my class wouldn’t go near the potty for a long time without bawling, but finally he started going. D is younger than Mini Me though so I would still say go to the psychologist at least once and get an evaluation and see if he has a plan of action! Best of luck!
January 15th, 2009
You know what the problem with kids is? They’re so blimin’ individual it’s hard to know what to do when a stage/milestone doesn’t go according to plan. My daughter turns 4 tomorrow and we’re making slow progress in the toilet training department. Tried all the gimmicks to speed things up and they didn’t work. She’s one of those “force me and i’ll dig my heels in” kids – which may have something to do with traits passed on by her parents *whistles and looks around innocently*. Letting her have the time to sort whatever issues she has in her own time and offer assistance where we can seems to work better for us than getting upset/worried etc. That isn’t to say some days I would gladly request a refund cause clearly something is faulty here!
I think how it happened was we plonked her on the toilet whenever we remembered and told her how it all works – I also let her see me go. Then she started going and sitting on it by herself and pretending to go and then finally she actually did go. It’s the poos we’re having the most problem with now 
It sounds relatively calm and straightforward but I’m leaving out all the trial and errors we made – and I’ll admit we made progress and then an unfortunate incident set us back a couple of months during our travels to here.
Admittedly, we also have the benefit of both parents working at home and her not going to kindy/daycare/preschool etc which takes a lot of the pressure off also, and I can imagine that is not the scenario for most parents going through toilet training dragging-on issues.
At the risk of this becoming a tome and being TMI, my daughter didn’t click with the potty and went straight to the toilet. Straight being a really wiggly line
Anyway, best of luck with everything – I hope whatever it is that is causing the delay is resolved in the near future so you can move onto stressing about another stage/milestone
Strudels last blog post..Project 365 – Day 9
January 15th, 2009
That has basically been our outlook…he will go in his own good time because, to quote you, “force me and I’ll dig my heels in” is exactly what we have attributed this too for a long time and I, like you “whistle and look around innocently”. I’m not sure if you have reached the post yet (because I pre-wrote them and postdated them) where I did potty train between 2 and 3 but when I had to poop on the potty, I would gag and heave. I still do sometimes and if I go into a bathroom behind someone who has pooped, even if they have flushed, it has made me sick before. That whole “what do your stools look like” questions you get at the doctor’s office???I don’t know, if I looked, then I’d have to puke. I flush before I ever remove my behind from the toilet because I know seeing it will make me sick. I puked once when someone was changing Walker’s diaper while I was pregnant with Jace and we were on opposite ends of the house. (Sorry TMI there too)
Jace will not get near his potty or the toilet. You can’t get his clothes off of him and if you force him, “hiding the pull-ups, locking them up” and force him into underwear, he will just pee where he is and wear wet clothes for hour without telling you. Once in an attempt to out stubborn him, I made him wear underwear, he would wear them wet until his socks were wet and we forced him to change. 9 outfits and 3 pairs of socks that day (and this was while we owned the daycare) and I said, “nope, not now, maybe later”.
My concerns about the issue are not so much that he isn’t doing it because again, I think he knows this is his last piece of control over us, the parents, and when he relinquishes this, we will not have anything to hold over his head. So, I don’t fret that near as much as most everyone I know has fretted it. My real problem is that he won’t talk about it, when asked, instead of happily stating the obvious “nope, didn’t potty today”, instead he bows his head and hides. We have not shamed him at all about it. We have made statements in front of him about how we aren’t pushing him b/c we know it is about control but we definintlely haven’t gone the shame route. So, it bothers me a little that he acts like he does about it.
Also, I”m not sure if you have reached the post where several months ago I tried to make him clean himself. Walker potty trained about 2 months after he turned 3 and it was another month or so before he started pooping in the potty. The first time he ever pooped in the potty, “I helped him get on the potty and I left him. I said, when you are done, call me and I’ll come clean you up and help get your clothes back on straight.” He has NEVER once called me to come help him wipe. That day he simply said, “I did it myself”. I know he is doing it too because I wash his underwear, lol.
I don’t know if that worries Jace or not. But, anyway, once I was going to make him clean himself. I got the pull-up off of him while he was standing, I tried handing him the wipe. When the wipe touched his hand, he went nutso. He will use them any other time to wash his hands or face but that day, when he thought he had to wipe poop off of his behind, he flipped out.
Up until about 6 months ago he woudn’t even carry poopy diapers to the trash. It hadn’t been long before that we forced him to take his own wet pull-ups. But, if it were poopy, he would lie in the floor and screech and scream. We finally started making him take the poopy one before we would help put a clean one on him. He carries them now but with two fingers and an outstretched arm.
Did you read the comment from Kaila on one of these posts? She worked for me. She knows him. She has seen hiim in action. I think what she has to say is way more informational than the way I have been able to write it.
Lastly, he has a serious issue when it comes to control. Period. So, you look at me and say, what kid (especially a 4 year old) doesn’t. But, I mean to the degree that it is scarry.
When Walker was 3 he wasn’t talking much at all. He had words, he could communicate but he wasn’t carrying on conversations. So, we took him to the APS (Alabama Psychiatry Services) and had him evaluated. That’s when we learned of his high IQ, his tendency to be a little scattered (not really ADD, just in need of sound structure) and the counseling was more or less for us than for him. The counselor did several sessions with Walker, some with me and Walker, some with my husband and I and Walker and then some with just my husband and I. That was about it. Probably 10 or so all together.
Her theory was that we needed to change our parenting tactics more than Walker needed to change his personality. And it woked. She gave us some skillsl to deal with him. And, to be honest, I pray that this is what the end result is when we see the doctor this time. I want to know what is going on with him, but I”d much rather know that we need parenting skillsl more than he needs anything.
It’s not easy either, to sit, while someone says, well, I think you son is ok, but you guys don’t know how to handle him. But, she was right. The way the APS works is this, I called yesterday and left my name, my child’s name and our insurance information. She forwards that to an APS nurse who will have me come in alone and do what they call an “intake interview”. Then, I will take Jace and she will do an evalutation of him and we will see a physician. Then, they will set up a plan. And, naturally I suspect we will began counseling. After the first counseling session with Walker and I is when the therapist suggested we have a pyschaitrist test him (not one in their system, an outsider) and so we did. And, knowing his IQ tendencies (he is in Kindergarten, reading on 2nd grade level and doing his multiplication tables), has helped us a lot in dealing with him.
When Walker was tested, he was all over the place. The psch. office wasn’t kid friendly. But he still let Walker have freedom to move around. I could almost feel his own frustration as he tried to make heads or tales out of Walker’s abilities while Walker was wondering from one thing to another. And not wondering from toy to toy either, he was flipping through medical journals, psych. books, etc.
I appreciate your help and I will keep you posted. If any of this triggers any other thoughts, please shoot them my way, I want all the help I can get. By the way, people have been tellig me for over a year that he needed to go to the doctor. I am just as stubborn as Jace is though and I truly believe it is a control issue and I wasn’t taking him to his pedi and saying, “listen, this kid is stubborn, do you have any remedies for stubborn”. But now, now I (along with my husband) have made the decision that possibly there is an issue. Maybe just a sensory issue but something is going on. So, just as my son has a stubborn control streak a mile wide, so do I. I’m doing this because I think it’s best not because a bunch (100′s) of other people have told me to do it.
The bottom line, there is no cure for stubborn…not even those of us who use corporal punishment on occasion will attest that a “good ol’ spankin’” doesn’t necessarily cure stubborn. Just look at me!
By the way, it is 95 miles one way to APS, but it is the closest child facility near us. 95 miles one way…talk about seriously agitating……then to go once alone, without my son? Who in the heck is going to babysit him? And, why can’t my husband and I both come, let me do intake while he and son sit in lobby and then see someone later for the appt with all 3 of us for the dr to see Jace…well because they don’t go through charts that quickly and it will be a week or so before the doctors look at Jace’s intake information and make a decision. So frustrating..that’s what happens when you live in the boondocks.
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