Boring Post for Saturday---Potty Time

 My grandson is in the process of being potty trained.  Since I spend weekdays with him, I am in large part responsible for the training.  It is not going that well from my perspective.  I am working harder at the training than my grandson is and he is so stressed about it.  My stomach is in knots at the end of the day and in fact all through the day.

But, he is not my child.  I have expressed a few opinions about things which have been largely ignored.  I am a good care-giver in that I am really trying to follow the wishes of the parents.  I think it is up to them.  Whatever happens, they will deal with the consequences.  They know and love their child more than I do. I respect that.  But, have you ever tried to do it somebody else's way when you don't agree? And it isn't going that well?

Since I can't really say again my own experience with potty training to them, I am saying it here, just to get it out of my system. They don't read the blog. My child is over 40 years old, so a long long time ago on a different continent, far away, I potty trained my almost three year old.  I had a potty chair.  It was before pull up diapers.  If you can believe it, disposable diapers had adhesive tape. (I could tell a funny story about the private part being stuck to the adhesive, but I won't.)  I tried to interest my son in using the potty, but I wasn't getting anywhere much.  I was beginning to despair that perhaps he would wear diapers the rest of his life.

Then, inspiration came.  My son wanted gum.  Gum isn't something that one gives to 2 year olds, so I didn't.  But, one day when he begged for gum, I told him that if he used the potty, I would give him some.  I really didn't think it would work.  I am not much on bribery or rewards for things.  I am not consistent enough to do a good job at it.  But, my son used the potty for the gum.  So, I told him that if he used the potty, I would give him a half stick of gum.  To get the gum he ran to the potty every chance he got.  I feared that I might have to carry gum around for the rest of my life for when he used the potty.  But, after 2 weeks he seemed to forget about the gum and he was trained.

I am not the authority on potty training.  I believe every kid is different and no method works universally.  But, in behavior modification, I have come to believe that the one working on the behavior should buy into or be working at least as hard as I am to achieve the goal. When I used an external reward for potty training it worked like a charm.  My son wanted to use the potty.

Of course, I am too old and was too young then to remember my own potty training experience, but as the oldest sibling, I remember Mom sitting in the toilet for what seemed like hours reading to the potty training child until they produced results.  I attribute that training as the reason I still read in the bathroom today.