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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
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Joyful courage, parent and podcast, ask Casey. Episode Five, potty training. You
Hey, friends, welcome to my fifth ask Casey episode where I take a request from the live and love with joyful courage Facebook group and answer the request to the best of my ability here on the podcast. Full disclosure, this ask Casey episode was sent in by a mom who's actually solved her problem around potty training, but I think that there is so much value in hearing what her challenge was. And I'm guessing that if you are a parent of a toddler, you are going to hear your story in her story. So let's, let's take a look at what this mama was challenged by. Okay, so potty training. I have been trying for over a year. I know majority say just back off and give her time when she's ready. She will do it. This is a little girl who was over three and a half, back off and give her time when she's ready, she will do it. We've tried everything, both kinds of potties, fancy underpants, watching Mommy bribes naked, me walking me, waking her in the morning and instantly putting on it with a drink and just leaving naked. I realize there have been challenges, changes in her life that may influence it, but have had the best success with trying to sit her on the potty every 15 to 20 minutes was doing pretty darn good. Then her daycare, slash preschool, changed the room she was in from toddler to preschooler. Ever since then, she's not really gone. I realize if I push her, it does not work, so I leave it alone for a bit, and then start trying different things again. Now it has come to the point where she refuses to even sit on the potty in most the most recent occasions, when she is doing number two, we will call it, she goes in the corner or hides, basically, wants privacy. So the other day, she went to the other side of our island and told me not to look so I knew it was going on. I got all excited and said, Let's go do it on the potty. Come on, you can do it, etc. She said, No, I don't want to. So I said, you want to stand there and do that in your pants rather than go on the potty? Does that make sense? She replied, Yes, that makes sense. Recently, she started saying there was a monster in there. She has never had that issue before, and she has the ELMO potty, so she's not on the big toilet. Then Grandma told her she was taking her for Prince, she was taking her for Princess pedicure, and daddy said she could pick out three surprises once she goes on the potty. She also uses I peed as a reason for me to go in at bedtime. And I know she can do it all, because she has held it through the night too. And for a while, we were having her wear zip up pajamas backwards, because as soon as she did pee, she would take off her diaper and then pee on the carpet. This has been the biggest issue that peeing on the carpet piece, and one time she did, and I talked to the pediatrician, and he said that type of thing, she knows what she's doing, and that behavior deserves a timeout. But I'm not doing timeouts anymore, because they do not work with my daughter, and I've chosen instead time ends. I don't know if it's impacting her, but I had someone suggest a professional evaluation, because of this, mixed because of this, mixed with her behaviors lately, and when I spoke with the director, they feel at the preschool, they feel she does need or all of us as a family need assistance. I know I'm going past the potty training. But now I'm not sure if the potty training problem is because of other issues I never punish for for not doing it on the potty. I'm always encouraging. I know Daddy might give her a hard time about it. Sometimes he feels she's going to be in diapers forever, but I always am very, very encouraging. And now, on top of all of this, we have a. Another on the way. So I'm afraid she will suddenly be trained and then regress. She is very sensitive. Also, sorry. This is so much my thumb is hurting. Now, I wanted you to have a good idea. Great, big smiley face with teeth. So the first thing that I would say to this mom is, Oh, mama, I am feeling you. I'm feeling your discouragement, I'm feeling your desperation, I'm feeling your fear. I'm feeling all of it for you, just in reading that out loud. And I'm sure you listeners, as you listen to that can feel that sense, and maybe you've had that experience of just, oh my gosh. Is this ever going to evolve? So one thing I want to say, like I said before I read that, was, yes, this has evolved, and this little girl has had success for the last couple weeks, so we're feeling good for her, but I'm so glad about this, and this potty training question has come up also in the intentional Parent Project, the 10 week class that I'm leading with parents right now, it is something that we all struggle with, and pottying, along with eating and sleeping, is something that you know, those three acts are the Three things that parents tend to get in the biggest power struggles with with our kids, because guess what? We can't make them do anything. We can't make them do that. We can't make them eat, we can't make them sleep, and we can't make them use the potty. So that's annoying, right? Because we want to make them do it. We want to make them do it. So if you are finding yourself in this situation where you feel like all the tricks, all the strategies, all of everything that you've tried just isn't working, my first bit of advice for you is, back off. Take a break. Take a breather. All right, I'm giving you permission to just back the heck off, because my guess is that if you are trying that hard, then you are also engaged in the long game of power struggle. And guess who's going to win every time your child, it's just, it's true, they are in control of their body. You
they're in control of their body, and they get to decide what to do with it. And isn't that so great? Isn't that something that we want our kids to appreciate and acknowledge about themselves? This is my body. I'm in charge of my body, right? They are in charge of their body. So let's talk about potty training. Let's go kind of to the beginning. So when are kids actually ready for potty training? So when I look through the positive discipline materials, what I find is that what is being stated is before 18 months, kids are not ready to be potty trained. Now, I don't know if any of you out there have worked with the elimination communication diaper free program, but I feel like I cannot do a potty training podcast without just mentioning what I learned in my experience, my second child was a boy, and when he was born, I read all about this whole diaper three diaper free thing, and basically, anthropologically, what they say is, babies are born knowing that they have to use the bathroom. We train them to lose that sensation by putting diapers on them. I don't know if that's true or not, but I went, I went with it. It worked for me. And so I with Ian. I was I paid really, really precise attention to what he was showing me with his body. I looked at his patterns. I would take him in the bathroom. I would hold him over this sink. I know gross, but that's what I did, and let him pee. And we had days where he would, he would only need one diaper the whole day, because I would catch him. And granted, you know, thinking back, I was the one that was trained. I was the one that was trained, but I gotta tell ya, he was finished with diapers at 18 months now, he did wear a pull up during the night, because there were nights where he slept so hard that he couldn't feel, you know, needing to use the bathroom, so we kept him in pull ups. No big deal. I was pretty loose about it. I wasn't as hardcore as some people. And, you know, I don't know. I mean, I think that starting off that way, and I was willing to do it, not everybody has the time or the gumption to do that. Okay? I was willing to do it, and it worked for us. So there's that. Now let's talk about readiness for a, you know, a toddler, a preschooler, who's actually been put.
To teach them how to wipe teach them, like I said, How to Fold up the the diaper, how to put a new one on, maybe a pull up at this point is easier, right? Teach them how to clean themselves up. And if this is the route that you need to take, you know, for a couple days, you gotta kind of let the cleanliness thing go right now. Of course, we don't want our kids to get any infections or have it be super nasty, right? So paying it, you know, kind of lingering around and paying attention is fine. Yeah, this isn't about like our kids being hurt. It is about saying, I'm ready to be done with diapers. You're a big kid. I'm so excited, because you can clean up yourself now. And another thing that I was reading in one of the positive discipline books, so, you know, we have there's positive discipline for preschoolers, talks about potty training. There's positive discipline for the first three years, talks about potty training, and there's positive discipline, A to Z Guess what? Talks about potty training. So there's lots of resources to support you with this, and every single one of those resources talk about stepping away from the power struggles and looking for every single opportunity that's possible to help your children feel capable of taking care of themselves. So that being said, Sometimes kids become, you know, the toilet is big, right? The toilet is big. Some kids are afraid to fall in. They're afraid of the loud flushing noises. It's all good. It's all good. You get to explore that with them, show them how they won't fall in to the potty. You know, get a little potty seat that's, you know, the perfect size for their little butts, or having a small potty in the bathroom is key, too. My daughter, I remember the first time she pooped. Oh my gosh, she's gonna be so glad I'm telling this on my podcast. The first time she pooped, we had a little Sesame Street plastic chair thing right cushion, and she sat on the potty, and she had her first poop. And I was hanging out, and it took a long time. She sat there for a long time, and when it was time to get up, she stood up on her little stool, and the plastic seat stuck to her butt, and that freaked her out, and she was like, the potty scary. And so what we did is we reframed that belief. She said, the potty scary. I said, potty isn't scary. Potty is just a little weird. It's a little weird that it stuck to your butt. You sat there for a long time. Isn't that so weird? So we changed the language from scary to weird that worked for her, that worked for us, and she moved it along. We also traveled with a little Travel Potty in my car, so it had like a lid that clamp down? So she did pee? Well, peeing is easy to dump. Yeah. Anyway, we had a potty in the chair when my son was little. We had the potty in the living room and the potty in the bathroom. So, you know, just remember, there is that window of time where there's potties everywhere, right? You want to make it as easy as possible for your kids to just say, hey, yeah, I'm gonna go potty. And back to the cleaning up after yourself. What you'll find when you offer up that responsibility to your kids that it takes a lot of work to clean up after themselves, and it's a lot quicker to use the potty, and they'll come up with that on their own. It's so exciting. So when you're thinking about potty training. Just take an honest look at what's happening. Right if you are struggling with potty training, take a good, honest look at what you are bringing to the challenge. What are you What kind of pressure are you putting on your kids? You know, where? What is your part in the challenge? And back off. Back off for a little while. If your kids are an older three or even four, and you're really in the challenge with them, it's a great time to say, hey, you know what? I'm noticing, we're having a really hard time with potty training, and it's time to come up with a plan. And I need your help, right? I talk about this a lot. I need your help. So have them be on the plan. Have them help create a plan that is, you know, long term results driven, like you're going to use the potty, it's going to be great. I don't know any grown ups that don't use the potty, so I have total faith that you're going to be able to do this. You know, look ahead. How many more days do you think you need the pull up well, if you give How many more days, I would say, maybe, say, like, do you want to use? You know, should we keep three pull ups or five pull ups? You decide, right? And then after the pull ups are gone, we're going to use the potty. You know, what times of day do you want to use the potty? How? What is a special word we can use when it's time for the potty? So is. Much opportunity you have to give them the power and and help them to recognize that it's really the ball is in their court. The more cooperative they're going to be. All right, it is also important, you know all of these things are help. Are helpful when you know, when there's no medical stuff going on or any history of sexual abuse. Both of those things can get in the way. So if your child is on the older end, make sure that you talk to a pediatrician about it now, what the reader or what the listener wrote in about peeing on the carpet, and the pediatrician say, oh, saying, Oh, that was, you know, she knows better, so that deserves a timeout. Hallelujah, that the listener said we don't do timeouts because it's not her fault. I mean, yes, she might know it's not okay to use the potty, but if she's hurting, if she is feeling disconnected from mom and dad, if she's feeling like this whole potty training thing is now more important than she is. That is painful, that hurts and and hurt kids hurt. And a great way to hurt mom and dad is to do something that that they know isn't okay, right? So it's not being naughty. We got to look under the surface of the behavior, right? Right under, you know, we instead of the tip of the iceberg, we need to look underneath the water underneath the surface, and under the surface is is a child who perhaps feels disconnected or unheard or as though you know she doesn't matter. And so if we connect with the child at that place and help her to develop that sense of significance and reconnect with her, what you'll find is the behavior like peeing on the carpet takes care of itself, whereas a timeout for that is just going to further distance the child from the parent. All right. So, um, yeah, yeah, I think that's all I have on the potty training. Um, making sure let me see I'm just, I've got all my books out here, and I had great feedback from some of my some of my people, some of my community around this issue. And really the same kinds of things that came up is, is are the things that I said? Oh my gosh, that sounded really confusing. I'm looking at a book and talking at the same time. So, yeah, so there you go. Be patient, be kind, be connected, be light. I think that's so important. Recognize when you're in the power struggle, and know that this too shall pass. You know, right now, you might be dealing with a two year old or a three year old that doesn't want to use the potty, and one day you'll be using you'll be having, you know, looking at a 13 year old or a 14 year old, and who knows what the challenges will be then, right? But not to worry. Not to worry, because you know where to come for support. You're not alone on the journey, my friends, we've all been through it before. There's so much wisdom in our community. So don't be afraid to reach out if you haven't already joined us on the live in love with joyful courage page, I invite you to jump in there. It's a it's a thriving community of parents who are reaching out and supporting each other. I am also on Facebook, just joyful courage has a business page you can find joyful underscore courage on Instagram, and I am at joyful courage on Twitter. So please, stay in touch. Stay in touch. I would love to hear from you, and maybe you have a question or a scenario that you'd like me to dig into on the next Ask Casey episode. I do these episodes, usually once a month, so if there's something that you would like to bring up and like to hear me talk about, send it my way. You can always get in touch with me. At Casey at joyful courage.com, casey@joyfulcourage.com and please, I have a whole new design on my website, so go check out my website. I gave it a little facelift. Www.joyfulcourage.com, www.joyfulcourage.com, big, huge. Love to each and every one of you. Have a beautiful weekend until next time you
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