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My question is in regards to potty training. My daughter is 22 months and we've been taking potty training slowly. Bought the potties, got her interested, and let her sit etc... She's peed successfully once in her potty and twice in the big toilet. That was weeks and weeks ago. Now, she announces she wants to use the potty every other day or so, sits on her potty for ten minutes, pretends she's gone (says "I did it") however she doesn't do anything. Then, if I walk away to get her diaper or something and give her any space, she pees on the floor beside the potty saying 'look at me!' The first time I couldn't help but laugh, but now it is really upsetting and disappointing. What is going on?

Jeff's response:

Your curiosity is your best friend as a parent and I if we were talking in person I would use the old therapist trick of asking you to answer your own question. "What do you feel or imagine is going on?" I would do this for two reasons. The first is because you are the world's expert on your daughter and have spent the last almost two years doing intense research on just who she is. What are her hard wired character traits? How does she teach herself new skills? Is she so socially motivated that getting a laugh out of you is vastly more fun than peeing in the potty? Is she really ready for this step? Any question you can think of here that will help you organize your understanding of exactly who is this person called your daughter. This exercise gets you to run through your data banks and come up with a possible theory about her. This is so valuable because being an expert on her is your job. You will help her to interpret the world and the world to interpret her until she learns to do it for herself. That is how you will be able to help her develop the all important "social and emotional" skills, knowledge and attitudes that she needs to succeed in life. Your understanding of her will also really build trust into your relationship. I always find that parents "know a great deal more than they imagine they do. Especially if I ask them to just guess at what they know instead of trying to absolutely sure.

Secondly as 99% of us parents are, you must also be, an amateur. You do not know how to potty train or anything else except by trying and (please don't be upset!) failing. So your job is not to be either upset or disappointed but curious, "Why isn't this working" is a far more productive state than disappointment or upset. You may have expected too much from both yourself as a parent or your daughter as a child. Children pick up on our adult emotional states much more than our words. Your delight in her trick or your upset and disappointment will be more powerful than anything that you say.

As I haven't potty trained anyone for almost a quarter of a century I couldn't remember the age range that researchers have for most children ( and remember no mater what when it comes to any one child, there are always exceptions). The "Pull Ups" web site had a range of 2.5 to 3.5 years which puts your daughter's age as much younger than most children when they are successful. One possible explanation is that as a parent you are ahead of your daughters readiness. So I hope that this relieves you of some of your upset and disappointment in not succeeding.

By the way I remember reading that in England before the Second World War parents were expected to potty train their children by the time they were one year old. And over half of the men who were recruited and rafted into the army stll had problems with bed wetting. So beware of expectation yo pick up casually about children's readiness.

So if it okay for her to not really be ready, or care about the new adult pee and poop disposal system, the expert advice might be to just put it away and try again later. There is no point in deepening the habit of goofing around about it. Wait awhile and then if you sense a higher degree of maturity in her give it another try. The good thing that you get to do here is to be a leader and set the goals and the conditions for your cooperation. If she is not with the program it is okay to stop and wait until another moment to then reset the goal for her. The same applies to lots of new skills and expectations we have about them being ready to matser them.

Since growing up is one long learning process, and readiness is always an issue, taking away the potty, not as punishment, but as leadership, with the message that "you can try again another time" is entirely appropriate. It is relaxed, and carries the positive expectation that the child will not head off to high school or college without having mastered the skill. There is faith that the child will learn when there is readiness.

I taught children to read for a few years and I was always astounded how we would be working on sounding out and recognizing familiar words or similar sounds and it was a huge effort until one day the child would come to school and suddenly it would just start to fall into place. The shift was so significant that it took away my sense that we "teach" our children. It was replaced by we help direct their attention and wait until the readiness to learn ripens and they teach themselves. We just help them choose what is worthy of their focus.

And each child will teach themselves differently, and some will need more support while they learn, and others less. Some will learn to read like a snap, but struggle to learn to do a somersault. So here come's your most important job as a parent. While you are helping her learn to potty train herself, you are making sure that she builds and keeps a sense of faith in her ability to learn, and self confidence that her efforts will pay off. Setting goals for her that she can stretch and succeed at give her that sense.

Children who grow up with that kind of faith and self confidence have the ability to see opportunities where others see barriers, to recover from set backs, and to look forward to the future and life in general. As her first and most significant helper, how you see her and help her learn will do a great deal to accomplish this goal. And while our society will help you with teaching her academic and athletic skills, they do not yet help you with her much more important social and emotional development.