The Whole Parent Podcast
The Whole Parent Podcast
Potty Training #003
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Are you on the front lines of the potty training battle and about ready to retreat? You're not alone. In this episode of Whole Parent Podcast, we march through the trenches of transitioning toddlers from diapers to the potty. You'll gain insights into the emotional journey, not just for the kiddos, but for you, the captains of the porcelain throne.
Truly, the art of potty training can feel like and insurmountable challenge. It requires patience, reassurance, and confidence most of us feel like we just don't have... BUT WE SHOULD! We're experts in this... we just forget that sometimes.
We tackle common parenting fears and dismantle the myths that shroud the potty training process. From the significance of a shame-free approach to handling accidents, to the potential of using rewards judiciously, we cover strategies that respect both the child's individuality and the parent's role in this developmental milestone. And if you're wondering about the journey from diapers to underwear, or even commando, we have practical advice that promises to make the transition as smooth as a baby's bottom.
Round out your potty training strategy as you listen to these shared experiences and research-backed insights. Remember, whether your child is just starting out or has been at it for a while, there's wisdom here for every stage. And don't keep these nuggets of knowledge to yourself - sharing this episode with someone in the midst of the potty training pilgrimage could be a game-changer for them.
Join me as we rewrite the narrative on potty training, fostering independence and confidence in our tiny humans, one episode at a time.
The number one thing that parents need to wrap their heads around is that their commitment to potty training is probably the single greatest factor in success. Alright, welcome to another episode of the Whole Parent Podcast. Today we are talking about one of the things that we get the most questions on and, unsurprisingly, it is potty training. If you have been around any sort of parents of young kids let's say toddlers two, three, four years old, it is undoubtable that you have heard about the potty training blues or the potty training anxiety, and so it's unsurprising that you know.
Speaker 1:Wherever I get asked questions whether that's through email for people on my email list, whether people DM me places like Instagram or Facebook or even TikTok or leave comments on my videos and especially in the membership that I run, which is kind of an exclusive group that parents can pay for access to, where we do a bunch of different things. We do workshops on a regular basis which kind of dive into different things like this potty training, whatever that are specialized. They're kind of like mini courses 90 minute workshops. We also do group coaching, which is a version of kind of what I'm doing on the podcast, but instead of having the questions be submitted ahead of time and then I only pick a couple of them. At group coaching, anybody can come and ask any question and I'll respond live in the moment, in the same way that I do on this for the podcast. But wherever I get asked questions, almost inevitably the topic of potty training comes up and people. It just creates so much anxiety around parents and so it's unsurprising that we're it's one of the most common questions and so we've taken three questions that seem to get at the spirit or kind of the majority of the questions that we get asked about potty training. We've taken these three that kind of get to the heart of that and then we're going to answer these and hopefully, if you have a child in your life who is of the coming up to the potty training age maybe is potty training age, or maybe you're nervous about the fact that you haven't done it yet maybe you have a three year old or even almost a four year old and you're just like, oh man, what do I do?
Speaker 1:Have I missed the window? Or maybe you just have another family or parent in your life. Maybe your kids are older, but you have you remember this and you might have a person who you're related to or something like that. Who has a child who's going through this? I hope that this potty training episode serves you, and so I'm going to jump right in first question, which comes from Liz. She doesn't tell us where she's from, but that's all right. Liz, wherever you are in the world, I hope that this answer helps you. She says hi, hi there, this is Liz. My child's name is Ethan. He's two and a half years old.
Speaker 1:We've been working on potty training and it's been a real struggle. Ethan seems to have frequent accidents. He's resistant to using the potty when we encourage him. We've tried using training pants and stickers as rewards, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference. How can I address these potty training challenges with a toddler who's having frequent accidents and isn't eager to use the potty consistently? Thank you, liz, for an amazing question and I am going to give just right off the bat.
Speaker 1:We have some more questions, obviously, that we'll get to, but I really want to give my number one, potty training hot take right at the top of the episode, because, liz, I think this may be what's going on and I really want to couch this and I want to nuance this, but I think that this is actually the single greatest impediment for most parents who come to me with potty training questions. And this is the advice that I, when I have given advice interpersonally or again and the membership. When I talk about this, this is always the first advice that I give. But the biggest single barrier for potty training for so many kids actually has nothing to do with the kid right. So I get all these questions is my kid ready? How do I know when my kid's ready? How do I incentivize? How do I do all the stuff? Actually, I think all of that stuff is secondary.
Speaker 1:The number one thing that parents need to wrap their heads around is that their commitment to potty training is probably the single greatest factor in success, their commitment to potty training. And I don't want to say here, I don't want to belittle this and say, oh well, this is just an issue of, oh, parents are soft or parents are inconsistent, whatever right I don't want to make. I don't want to say that what I'm trying to say here is that the reason that so many kids feel so anxious about potty training so in this case, ethan really resistant to using the potty when we encourage him. We've tried to use training pants and stickers, but they don't seem to make a difference. How do we address the challenges?
Speaker 1:Right, the biggest reason that I find that kids are so resistant when I talk to parents is because the parents themselves are resistant. They're super, super anxious about it and I don't I can't tell you exactly where this comes from. I've tried to do some research on this and it's really really hard to find any really good research, but it just seems like over the last, let's say, 50 years in Western culture, we have developed this, this mythology around potty training that it's going to be this horrible experience for everybody involved. Right, that it's going to be this potentially traumatic. Right? I parents seem to have no problems with all of these different aspects of parenting and you know, obviously, I'm a huge advocate for emotionally, mentally, relationally healthy parenting and not doing things that could have potential long-term outcomes.
Speaker 1:The thing that parents seem to be most concerned about long-term outcomes related to other than maybe sleep. Right, sometimes parents get pretty anxious about sleep, but other than sleep, the thing that they have most concern is going to have some long-term outcome is potty training. If I do this wrong, I'm going to screw up my child for life. They're going to, you know, have body image issues or they're going to have issues with their bodily functions or this or that, or they're going to have. I mean, I've had parents going to be and say, well, if I do this wrong, I'm going to have IBS right and some of that right. Some of that is true, that you can. Definitely. If you have a child who has a traumatic environment growing up, they can have physiological symptoms growing, you know, when they're older, especially gastrointestinal system issues. But that is not because of potty training, it's because of long-term, you know, neglect and abuse and things like that that lead to those types of outcomes and trauma and unprocessed trauma and you know, complex trauma and all of those other things.
Speaker 1:But parents are really nervous about potty training and what happens is so frequently kids who are, let's say, two, three years old, especially they have the emotional attunement to their caregivers, especially securely attached caregivers who are, you know, the majority of the people who are engaging in whole parent content. These are people who care enough about parenting to be engaging in these conversations and so they're a lot of times really connected to their children and when they have, when the parents have a deep resistance or anxiety around potty training. The child picks up on that. And so when the parents are constantly either talking about it or just in themselves, right, their facial expressions, their body language, when they're really, really hesitant about oh, I don't know if I want to, you know, do this potty training thing right now? Well, maybe we'll wait till we get back from vacation, or maybe we'll wait till this and that and sure, there's better and worse times to try and start potty training. We just came out of the holidays that's when I'm recording this.
Speaker 1:If you tried to potty train your kid Christmas week probably not a good idea. Try to potty train your kid over you know some really time in your life when all of your other routines are screwy. It's probably not a good idea. But parents are so worried that they're always looking for the perfect time and the perfect way. And is my kid ready and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:The real question that most parents should be asking if your kid is, let's say, over two, right, if you're trying to potty train an 18 month old, then you have some real questions about developmental capacity. And can they do it when your kid's over the age of two, under the age of, let's say, four? The real question is not. Is my kid ready as much as this Is? Am I ready? Am I? Have I done my work related to potty training, where this is not a terrifying prospect to me? Am I okay with bodily functions as an adult, right? Am I comfortable with saying things like poop and pee? Am I comfortable talking about gas and farts and toots or whatever you want to call them right? Am I comfortable about talking about being open about these things? Am I comfortable about my own bodily functions?
Speaker 1:Because, for whatever reason, when parents are not, for whatever reason, for whatever reason that parents are uncomfortable, kids naturally pick up on that and then they get uncomfortable with this process and so parents go like I don't know what happened, I don't know why they're having accidents with this. Well, you've created a very anxious environment for your kid. When you yourself are anxious and I want to just say here I am anxious potty training my kids Okay, I've done all of this work and therapy. I've worked with hundreds of parents about potty training I try and destigmatize as much as I want and then, when it comes to my own kids, I get scared and nervous and anxious. So I don't want to say that this is going to be some easy process, that you're just going to one day wake up and not be nervous about it, not be anxious about it. You, you, you may very well be, but if you begin from the place of, I'm going to fail. If you begin from the place of, this is going to be so hard, oh, my kid's going to hate this. You know, whatever Ethan in Liz's case, ethan is just going to resist this. Then the answer is yes, they will. So how do we actually kind of do this? Well, we're going to get to it later on in another question. But we have to do a reset and then when we, when we reset, right. So we have to have a kind of like, a hard, not like, okay, we're going to stop using the potty, but when, when we decide we're going to like, do this, we're going to go all in on this. As parents, we're going to be really, really committed to potty training.
Speaker 1:I would say get away, get rid of the training pants. You know, nighttime can be a different thing, but during the day, no diapers, no night, you know, no, no pull ups. I think those are really confusing for kids there. Is it a diaper, is it not a diaper? I mean, I don't even know the answer to that question Is a bull up a diaper? I think so. So you know, getting rid of training pants, just you know you're going to have accidents. There's going to be PN clothes, but if you are not scared of that and anxious about the fact that there's going to be PN some clothes, it's going to be much, much better because it's going to be much clear to your kid and then when you restart this, it's just going to be a normal thing for you.
Speaker 1:Do not make this this huge, huge deal Like you can make starting potty training. You can make that a little bit of a kind of a celebration or you can kind of mark that time in a way. But then, about the potty, you are going to have a very consistent level of. This is normal and I really want to stress this because it is normal. All of us use the bathroom multiple times a day, if you don't see a doctor, but all of us, right, use the bathroom, bathroom multiple times a day. In fact, you probably should be using the bathroom more, because most of us don't drink enough water and we should be peeing more than we do, and so all of us do this action of going to the toilet to get rid of our bodily waste every day, multiple times? How many other parts of your life are you going to teach your kids something that you do all the time, every day? There is nothing to be anxious about here.
Speaker 1:You are a potty expert. I don't care if you have a degree in child psychology or if you've, you know, written a book on potty training. No, you are a potty expert because you have been doing this for your whole life. Since you were two years old, you have been using the potty. You know what it feels like. You know what it's like Now. This also means that it's a little bit unique to teach a kid who doesn't know any of what it's like and we'll get into that in a second.
Speaker 1:But as the expert, I want you to look at this like a season pro. This is not your first time. Stop thinking of this. This is my first kid that I'm potty training. I've never potty trained anybody before. I'm really nervous about it. Start thinking about it in terms of I'm just teaching my kid to do something that I do every single day, and so you know if.
Speaker 1:Go to your job, figure out a task that you do at your job every single day, right, whatever that task is something that you could do, you know, without even thinking. That's how you should view it. This is not a scary, terrifying thing. This is part of life, and poop and pee they go in the potty and that's just part of growing up. That's just part of being a human being. That we don't poop on the floor, right? That's just part of being a human being. And so are we going to have accidents? Yes, but it's not going to be a really stressful thing. We're just going to view this and it's going to be a commitment level from the parents that begins there. Just, we have to stop being scared of it, and I can't stress this enough.
Speaker 1:If you are scared of it, if you are anxious, don't potty train yet. Do more work. Do your own self work, get comfortable with it. Talk to your partner about how you know hey, we're going to start using the terms poop and pee. We got to be okay with our own bodily functions. We have to be okay with that.
Speaker 1:These are not shame inducing things. Maybe you were shamed as a kid for your bodily functions. You don't want to bring that into your own kids life. So you got to start deconstructing that shame. And it is not when your kid is ready, but when you are ready that you can approach potty training as you know, hey, this is not a big deal. And when you approach it that way, your kid's going to pick up on that energy. They're going to their mirror neurons are going to fire, they're going to reflect that back to you and they're going to go. This isn't a big deal.
Speaker 1:And the number of times where it's like we got to do this sticker thing, we got to do this treat thing, we got to give them a chocolate chip every single time they pee in a cookie, every time they poop, and oh, and we got to like use these training pants and like they can never have an accident. If they pee on the floor one time, then they're going to know. This is the key. You have to be, in your own mind, comfortable with this process, not just a potty training, but of using the potty. It's not gonna be weird, it's just not. All of us boob every day, all of us pee multiple times a day. That's just life. And you gotta get your kid to understand that it's not scary, it's just part of life, and if you're scared of it, your kid's gonna be scared of it. So that's our first question. Thank you so much, liz. I hope that that begins.
Speaker 1:I know that I didn't address specifically the stickers as the roar charts or the training pants, other than just saying don't do it. But really we just have to get past that layer of anxiety first, and if we don't get there and I know that's the big thing, right, I spent a long time talking about this in this episode because that's actually the biggest hurdle for most parents. So, liz, I hope that helps and, if not, like, pick up what we're gonna talk about with Susan and Jennifer. Hey guys, john here, interrupting myself just to ask you for a quick favor Before this episode is even over. What I really really would appreciate, if you are finding anything helpful that we're talking about as it relates to potty training or any other topics that we've covered on the podcast or that you know that we're going to cover on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Go into whatever podcast app you listen to, whether that's Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts or wherever, and rate this show and, especially, write a review. I read every single review that we get. I have been so blown away by the reviews that we've gotten from the first two episodes and on the podcast as a whole, and I am super stoked that we have had so many people taking me up on this. You have no idea how helpful it is. I mean I don't want to sound like I'm begging you, but I am begging you If you can just go and just take that extra couple minutes, if whole parent is helpful to it all. This is one way that you can really really help whole parent to get out and spread this message of positive parenting, of psychologically healthy parenting, building resilience in our kids and confidence in our parents. If you want to help get that message out to the world, go in, rate this show right now five stars and write a review.
Speaker 1:Okay, now back to potty training. Okay, so our second question comes from Susan, whose child's name is Noah. He's also two, so it says hello, my name is Susan. My child's name is Noah. He is two years old. We've been trying to potty training him, but it's been quite a roller coaster. He seems genuinely interested in the potty. He'll even follow me to the bathroom and watch what I do. Very good, I'm stopping in the middle of this question.
Speaker 1:Very good, susan, that's one of the pieces of de-stigmatizing. Peeing and pooping in the potty is to let your kid come with you, right, so that you're not scared of this process. Hey look, I'm doing it. No big deal to me. Kids thrive on that. You know. They have what's called observational learning. That means that they can actually learn how to do a thing by watching someone else do it. That seems silly when it comes to the potty. It seems much more intuitive when it comes to shooting a free throw or learning some fine motor skill that they're watching you do. But potty is the same thing. Okay, so de-stigmatizing Very, very good, susan, you're already on the right path. Okay, so he'll even follow me to the bathroom and watch what I do. But the moment that I try and put him on the potty, he freaks out and gets extremely upset, sometimes crying inconsolably. I'm not sure how to handle this sudden fear and resistance when he initially seemed eager.
Speaker 1:Any advice on how to help a child like Noah overcome this fear and become more comfortable with potty training? Yes, I do have some advice, susan, and I want to break it into two different pieces. So the first piece is you've done a great job, or I should say three pieces Now. The first piece is exactly what I just said to Liz. You've done a great job of de-stigmatizing the potty, de-stigmatizing as much as you can, right. This is no big deal. I'm hoping that. You know. Hey, it might be some of this anxiety and resistance might come from mirroring what's happening at home with you, but it seems like maybe that's not the case, but maybe it is right. So you know, if that advice rings true with you, as I said that to Liz, susan, take that, internalize that and go into it this. But I want to add two more things. I don't want to just give you the same answer.
Speaker 1:So the second thing that I want to highlight here is that pooping especially and peeing is a I've said over and over this is a normal thing that all of us do, and it's typical and it's not nothing to be afraid of for us as adults. It is novel to our kids, though, because for their whole lives they've had an experience of what it feels like to poop. They've had an experience of, hey, I crouched down or whatever, or wherever I am, or I'm laying down and I feel the poop coming, I don't hold it, I don't do anything related to that. I just let it flow out of my body and I feel it in my diaper immediately. And now you're asking them to do this differently, and so some kids just get freaked out about the newness of it, because it's a novel experience of what it feels like to poop and pee not into a diaper, not pressed against your body, and it might seem like, oh, it's so gross, why would they want that? Well, remember, what is known or familiar is comfortable for all of us, and I know that that sounds like silly, oh, of course that's true. But even things right this is the trauma-informed community understands this Even things that are harmful oftentimes, like patterns of abuse with a domestic violence situation or something like that, or being in a toxic work relationship, even though these things are objectively harmful and you know that they're harmful, if they are familiar, they are often deemed comfortable, and so it's not a question of whether or not it's better to poop in the potty or poop in your diaper. It is better to poop in the potty, like in every sense, no diaper rushes all these other things right, all these other reasons. But it's not yet familiar and so therefore, it's not comfortable, and so kids can get really, really resistant to that feeling and you have to talk them through it.
Speaker 1:This is why, by the way, I potty trained my first two kids at completely different times in their development. Number one I had to get clear in my mind that I was gonna be committed to it and all the anxiety around it. And it was more difficult for my three-year-old for sure, like I was more scared about that, because I felt like I had missed a magic window which, by the way, there's no magic window, like stop drinking the Kool-Aid, there's no magic window. So, number one I thought that I had missed this magic window and so I was more hesitant to it and I had to get my mind wrapped around. Hey, this is not something to be scared of. So that was number one. But number two, it was also because they're verbal skills.
Speaker 1:So my oldest, at 20 months old, we potty trained him. Or at 22 months old, we potty trained him before two, and it was because he could carry on a full sentence with us before two. Right, we had no idea then how strangely advanced his language skills were. We didn't know. We still are learning that he is a really, really gifted kid in certain ways, and so that was just normal to us, right, that we could have a full conversation. My three-year-old he's now three we potty trained him. Basically he's almost four we potty trained him right when he turned three.
Speaker 1:The reason why that we waited over a year longer was because he was in speech therapy after he was two, because he really couldn't communicate verbally and it was only until he was three years old that we could feel like we could carry on a conversation and we could talk about things like oh, this is going to be a different feeling. Oh, it's going to feel different for the poop to fall out of your butt and fall into the potty. That is a novel experience, right, that's going to feel new, but there's nothing to be afraid of. We're still just getting rid of it. It's still yucky waste in our body and it has to go right. So, being able to have that conversation, not only are we destigmatizing the potty and all that and bodily functions, but also we have to destigmatize the feeling of like literally loss aversion that kids have to eliminating their waste. So they'll just eliminate their waste and they'll go.
Speaker 1:I feel like I've lost a part of my body, which is a little bit of a weird thing, but like, no, like, that's what it feels like to kids. And so, again, this might be an uncomfortable episode for you to listen to if you have not yet done your work surrounding bodily functions and pooping and peeing and all these other things. But just understand that it feels weird to a kid and because it feels weird you have to be able to process that with them in a conversation. And a lot of times it's not while they're on the potty, right, a lot of times we think, oh, we're going to potty train while they're on the potty. No, potty training is a way of life during that period of time and so it's conversations off the potty about what it's going to feel like on the potty. So that's a really big one. And then the last thing they'll say because I told you I'd give you three things the last thing they'll say is that one of the ways in which I advocate for potty training, at least early stages, is to not have the kid use the potty until they're actively already peeing or showing signs that they are peeing or actively pooping or showing signs they're pooping.
Speaker 1:Now people immediately get really uncomfortable with this, especially people who, again, are very sensitive to bodily functions and fluids and all this stuff. First of all, my kids just went through the stomach flu. If you're sensitive to bodily fluids, don't become a parent, right? Like? That's just the amount of times that I've had to change sheets because my kids threw up on them, when all three of my kids were throwing up at the same time over Christmas Day, like you know. Not something that I like to think about, but that's part of being a parent. So if this makes you uncomfortable, maybe it's not for you, but I really do think that this helps because it helps clarify.
Speaker 1:So what we do when we potty train our kids and what many parents do, and what we've advocated for other parents to do, is to literally spend several days with your kid, sometimes two days, sometimes four. Depends on the kid, depends on how old they are, depends on how quickly they pick it up, letting them basically be totally naked around the house and they can wear a shirt if they want, but just letting them be totally naked. And when they start to pee or poop, then you always have the potty with you. That's the key. The potty comes everywhere with you in those first couple days. It's always at arm's reach, right, and there in your eyes are always on them, right? You're going to have to take your phone and plug it in somewhere. If you're on your phone, scrolling on TikTok or Facebook or whatever, and your kid poops in the corner, like that's on you folk, like you have to do that. You have to be eyes on so eyes on kid potty in hand, basically for two days.
Speaker 1:Is it boring? Yes, deal with it, just part of being a parent. They start to pee or poop. You run the potty over to them and you go, poop goes in the potty, pee goes in the potty and you have them sit down while they're actively already going. This changes the dynamic from you're going to go, sit down and wait, which is number one, boring kids don't like boring things. Number two it teaches them the wrong message, which is that you shouldn't be feeling like you have to go to the bathroom and then use the bathroom. You should be forcing yourself to go to the bathroom even when you don't have to, which is just doesn't work, right? That's not the neural pathways that we want to build. We want to build hey, pee goes in the potty. When I feel like I have to pee, I go to the potty. That's what we're trying. That's the eventual goal, right. And so if so many parents think about, like the eventual goal, the goal is to keep the pee off the floor. No, the goal is, when I feel like I have to go potty, I go pee in the potty. If some pee winds up on the floor in the process, you clean it up. That's just life, right, and that's actually how you prevent the most accidents.
Speaker 1:So the fear and the resistance to sitting on the potty and waiting, that's a typical thing. Number one, because it's a novel experience and unknown and scary, especially when you're have anxiety coming up to that experience, right. So you're sitting on the potty waiting for this thing to happen that you're nervous about, versus, hey, it's already happening and you're sitting on the potty. It's just kind of it's there, it's going on. And then you build those positive associations of oh you know what, that wasn't so bad.
Speaker 1:And so actually trying to go away from, at least in the early, early stages of the first couple of days, the sit down every 10 minutes and try that so many of us were brought up with. Actually, that's kind of the opposite of what you want to do. You want, when they have to go, for them to sit down and go, not when they don't have to go, for them to sit down every 10 minutes. That's not how any of us do the bathroom, and if you do, if that's how you use the bathroom especially the guys out there I recommend that you go get your prostate checked, because that's not especially for you know, men or women and men can both get UTIs, but women tend to get UTIs more. If you feel like you constantly have to go to the bathroom and you're sitting down every 10 minutes, go find out if you have a UTI. Right, that's not typical bodily functions. That's not what we are aiming for.
Speaker 1:And so for kids, same thing is true. You don't want them to build that habit. So, so, just that. That would be my three pieces of advice for you, susan, as you're working with Noah and it may take, you know, doing a heart, especially because he's two. I don't know if you you said he's two and that could mean he's, like you know, almost three. It could mean that he just turned two. If you just turned two, it might, it might be worth Totally stopping the potty training process for a month, totally resetting and then starting over. That might really really help you and that might really really help, noah, because when you restart, then you can kind of do it in this new way, which is we're gonna we're not gonna sit on the potty and wait. We are actually going to, as soon as we feel something, go to the potty or even, after it starts happening, go to the potty, okay.
Speaker 1:So last question here, because we're already running out of time. It comes from Jennifer and her child's name is dano. Says hello, my name is Jennifer, my child's name is Daniel. He is for okay. So now we have a kid who's a little bit older, on kind of the other side of the of the potty training. We've been potty training chat. We've been facing potty training challenges because Daniel is extremely attached to wearing pull-ups and shows no interest in using the toilet. Despite our efforts and encouragements, he's resistant to transitioning to underwear and using the potty. I'm starting to worry about his progress. Can you have some guidance on how to potty train an older child who remains attached and reluctant to use the toilet? Yes, I do have some ideas.
Speaker 1:So up until this point, I've not talked about reward charts and I've not talked about rewards for potty, and that is because, ultimately, I think that those for younger kids especially are ineffective and counterintuitive. Why? Because reward charts. They want to Go through life and do the things of life and and learn and grow. And the more you can just lean into their own Internal motivation to use the potty because they're a big kid, the better off you're gonna be. However, there are times and this is something that even I'm learning because the research is evolving on this stuff that was not even 20, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, five years ago, when reward charts were Parenting experts were out on reward charts. They said don't do that, it's a bad idea. You know, you're ruining all this internal motivation, etc. Etc. And that is true for things that kids would be motivated for without a reward. If you give them a reward for it, they will lose their motivation to do it without that reward. So, for example, I'm just gonna give you an example Unrelated to potty training because it's a little bit easier to explain.
Speaker 1:When I was in high school, I was really into history. I loved history. I'm just a nerd in that way. Um, as soon as I realized that it was easier to get a good grade by actually doing the minimum Amount of work, so if I wanted to. You know, if I was assigned to do a project, I could do a project on something that was really easy to do a project on, or something that was more difficult to do a project on. As soon as I realized that I would get a better grade doing a project on the easier thing Because I'd be able to cover it more robustly, I wouldn't have to do so much work, it would take me a lot less time. It changed my motivation from actually learning why, you know, doing the thing that I wanted to do because I wanted to do it. I wanted to learn, like about world war two or something, um, and instead focus on just getting the grade.
Speaker 1:That is one of the reasons why, at the education system as a whole is trying to move away from the grading system, I mean. But when I say trying to, uh, we know that grades aren't aren't good for kids, they don't provide any sort of benefit to kids long term and they actually don't Increase achievement levels. But Even that, though that is the case, people still use grades because it's, you know, a system that we understand and everybody kind of understands. Oh well, the a, b, c, d, f, uh grading system and colleges use it and Hopefully employers stop using it. But even employers sometimes use it, internships use it, etc. So, uh, all that being the case, sometimes motivation like grades, like Chocolate chips on the potty, whatever Can take a child's motivation and they can suppress it by replacing it with a physical external source, and then they never get that motivation back.
Speaker 1:However, when a kid lacks the motivation All together to do a thing, reward charts or especially challenge Based things, things where a kid can feel like they have progress moving towards a challenging outcome, actually does the opposite right. This is especially true in neuro divergent kids. We don't know if Daniel's neuro divergent probably wouldn't even be necessarily diagnosed at four years old, even if he was Um. But even though it kind of goes counter to what I just said, if there is no Motivation to do a thing, then the reward chart becomes a stepping stone toward that motivation. So what would I do in this case? Number one we got to destigmatize everything that I said to Liz in the first question. Number two If you want to restart in a hard reset, like I just told Susan how to do with Noah, you can do that and I think that that might be helpful. Right? But number three, if it's necessary, at four years old. This is where I would pull out some sort of challenge based reward chart for a kid to see this and go okay, there's really no motivation to get away from the pull-ups.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, I did this with my six-year-old. So remember, I told you that I was able to basically fully potty train my oldest at 20 month old or 22 months old, that is true except for not at nighttime. He's a super heavy sleeper. It was not at nighttime and we were got worried. So, even though he potty trained really early During the day at night, we're at six years old and he's still using pull-ups. He was very attached to them. He said look, this is just easier, this is simpler. I don't understand why I wouldn't do this. On the other hand, his three-year-old little brother basically night trained at the same time that he day trained. He was potty trained at three by three and a half. He had no diapers at night. So it's different for different kids, right. So they struggle with different aspects of this.
Speaker 1:But my six-year-old really needed motivation. He needed external motivation. So we created a challenge system called the dry diaper challenge, which was hey, we are going to Create a motivation structure for you to have a dry diaper overnight, and there was no punishment if he didn't don't take that and hear that in that way, but there was some positive benefits to him. He got to, like you know, mark off days on a calendar. He got to pick little reward type things for those we're gonna go. I mean, I wasn't a lot of stuff, but it was more like, okay, we're gonna go to this thing this day as kind of like a celebration of day three of the dry diaper challenge. And well, what if I don't have dry diaper in three days in a row? That's fine, we'll go to that thing whenever it is three days in a row, even if that's four years from now. So we didn't put a lot of pressure on it, but we did create a reward structure and that reward structure paid huge dividends.
Speaker 1:Now, at the end of that reward structure, when it was very clear that he could be night trained, in that he was not gonna have very many accidents Although he still had some until he, you know, really really got to that level of consistently not being and that's now it's been months since he's had one, but there was a period of time where it was still, you know, once every two weeks we were having them. But when we knew that it was going to be very infrequent and we went to not having diaper, then we changed the challenge to the no diaper challenge. And then at the end of that he goes okay, so all of the rewards, all of the incentives has been exhausted, and he's a smart kid. So he says all right, so I would just now that I'm done with that, I prefer to go back to the diaper. And and we had to sit down and have a conversation about how, hey, there is actually all of these other reasons why diapers are not good. Now, that might not be necessary for a four-year-old, but it might be, depends on the kid. And so then we had the conversations about UTIs and rashes and all these other things that you can get when you have an overnight Diaper with an older kid. If you don't need one, you know, especially if you don't need one. If you need one, that's, you just have to mitigate those risks as best you can with your pediatrician. But if you don't need one, these are the reasons why it's better to not have one. And he got it.
Speaker 1:And it sounds crazy, but he really needed the challenges to give him the motivation. But deep underneath that motivation there was also a sense of insecurity I can't do this, I'm never going to be able to do this. And he was worried about that. He told me later I was really worried that I was never going to be able to do this. And it was the motivation that got him the, the opportunities to do it Right. Because of the challenges the dry diaper challenge. In the no diaper challenge, he actually got into a place where he felt comfortable With the fact that he could do it in fact, and that was able to eliminate that fear right. So that's what the motivation and that's what the external incentives and rewards, starts and stuff. That's what it can bring if it provides the incentive enough to actually have enough positive examples. I can do this.
Speaker 1:When secretly, deep down, he was feeling and maybe I can't, then it allowed him to then move forward and and Detach, as Daniel needs to, from the, the pull-ups, and it's no, it's not an easy thing when you have an older kid who starts to get hooked on that right. If you're having significant issues and you really can't seem to get we're just like almost Pathologically attached to the diapers then that might be a time to say, hey, I'm gonna go seek external help, I'm gonna go to a child psychologist or I'm gonna go to a child therapist so that we can process this thing. I think a lot of parents are really scared to do that because they think, oh well, if I put my child, you know, with the child therapist, because they're having trouble with this, at five years old, six years old, whatever, then they're gonna need one for the rest of. That's not necessarily true. There are oftentimes, when you know targeted mental health interventions can be, you know, skill building for the parents and for the child, scaffolding with what we call it, and then we move past that and then you know, hey, we were able to get over that and move and move through. But that's what I would say, jennifer. I would say Create some sort of external motivation structure, and it may mean that you have to transition from Not directly to underwear. Right, this is another thing, this is another kind of hot take on this.
Speaker 1:Underwear feels like a diaper to a kid because it's it's pressure on that, on their genitals, and so, because it's pressure on their genitals, they feel like, oh, I'm supposed to. You know, I forget to, then I'm not supposed to pee in my pants, because I have done this for two years or, in Daniel's case, four years. My whole life I've been doing it one way. Sometimes you can go, hey, we're gonna go commando for a month. Right, we're gonna know, no underwear. Um, it's perfectly hygienic, don't worry about any of that. A lot of us were sold that lie that we absolutely. You know, kids have to wear underwear, cuz, not hygienic. No, you know, just make sure that you're changing them regularly and they're not wearing the same clothes over and over, and they take regular baths and you're washing them adequately and all that other stuff. But you can go commando for a month. Sometimes that can provide a transition period between doing pull-ups and doing underwear.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I really think that this is an example of a kid who does not see any purpose in in not doing Diapers, similar to my six-year-old. Maybe that's not the case, but it seems like it might be and they just need that. That, those examples of hey, you can do this, you can do this, we're gonna do this together and you're gonna be able to accomplish this. And so I hope that these three things really help to Liz, susan, jennifer, but also all of the parents listening to this. We're going through the potty training thing. Um, I got another one to potty train, so that's good. Yeah, I'm sure I'll be all talking about that when I do that, especially on my social channels and in my emails.
Speaker 1:But you know, just know that that it is. It is a scary thing, but it's actually. It doesn't have to be. You know, if we go back to my first piece of advice for Liz, you know this is normal bodily functions. You guys are all experts in this. All the parents that are listening to this. You know you. You have mastered the control of your body bodily functions. You've been doing this much, much longer than you didn't do it right. You were maybe not potty trained for two years and now you know you've been 30 years, at least 25. You know 30 years, 40 years, that you've been doing this. You are an expert in this and so don't feel like this has to be this huge thing to overcome. It is not a gigantic mountain looming in front of you that's going to destroy you and your child's life or your relationship. Potty is just part of life and there is a level of that you're going to embrace.
Speaker 1:The suck it's not going to be great all the time. There's going to be pee on the floor. Sometimes it's going to be rough, there's going to be poop on the floor, there's going to be accidents, there's going to be bedwetting. All of that comes with the turf. You will not avoid all of that, so just embrace that you won't. And Yet, even though those things we can clean it up, it's not going to be the end of the world.
Speaker 1:And when we have an accident you know, I didn't mention this in the episode, but I should before, before I sign off here when we have an accident, parents go well, what do I do? You know, what do I do? Um, the, the. The answer is you don't make a big deal about it. But you also don't Confuse your kid by saying oh, that's okay, right? So a lot of parents want to do that. They say oh, that's okay, it's okay to pee on the floor like it's no big deal. Um, no, don't do that. You just skate, redirect, he goes in the potty, poop goes in the potty, and you know, we'll clean it up, but poop goes in the potty. We'll clean it up, but he goes in the potty.
Speaker 1:The more non-emotional you can be about this process. The less non-emotional your kids, the more non-emotional your kids are going to be. Less Emotional your kids will be about it and, guys, they don't want you to be emotional about it. They want to get through this too. Your kids will do as well as they can, and so just remember that your kids are doing the best that they can, and we just got to help them to get there. We're all experts in potty. We just got to remember that we're also experts in potty training. Until next time. Yeah, it's been the whole parent podcast talking about potty. Hey, guys, this is John. One more time. Another worth the end of the episode.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to take a moment to say Thank you for listening, thank you for all of those who have already rated and reviewed this episode, either while listening today, or who have already rated and reviewed the show. You have no idea how much that helps, and I wanted to just give you one other call to action. If you have somebody in your life right now who is either Before the potty training journey maybe their kid is one years old or two years old and they haven't started it yet or who's in the midst of potty training, or their kids are right around that age. Please share this episode with them.
Speaker 1:Every podcast app you listen on has a way of sharing an episode with a live text or email. Send this to somebody who needs it. I know that it can be kind of daunting to send this type of podcast or parenting information Podcasts to people, but when you do that, this message gets spread and every parent deserves to have the most up-to-date, the most well-researched Information about how to do these things. As we talked about in this episode, potty training can feel so daunting, you can feel so scary, and so you have no idea how much you can change somebody's life. So go ahead and share this with somebody in your family or in your friend group who might benefit from it, and Together, I think we can really change the world. Maybe that's crazy, but I guess we'll find out. I'll see you next time.
