Dr. Greene’s Answer:

Infant Potty Training, or Elimination Communication, or the Diaper Free Movement, is a an increasingly popular potty training alternative. Here, parents learn to recognize clues that their baby is about to “go” and provide them with a receptacle just in time.

Several readers of Raising Baby Green have reported that they started doing this when they introduced solid foods and greatly reduced the number of diapers used—and got their kids out of diapers entirely not long after they started walking.

This takes a lot of work, but it can be good for the environment and for the pocketbook.

My daughter was finally potty trained at 2.5 years old and it was a long, drawn out process. I tried everything and even swore I would NEVER do the M & M candy bribery but I gave into sugar! That didn’t even work. What did work was my persistence, extreme patience and allowing her to find her own way (after a bit of prepping of course). After a while, she knew what needed to happen when but it was a battle trying to get her to go. Never the less, the day did come and we finally graduated to big girl underwear! In the end, I collected some great tools and tips that every parent should consider. If you’ve gone through the potty training school of hard knocks and have some words of wisdom to share please don’t be shy – share them here.

Potty Training Tools:

• Potty Book or Potty Doll
• Toddler Toilet Seat Cover and/or Small Potty
• Step Stool
• Big girl or boy underwear
• Night time training pants
• Reward System – stickers, potty chart, grab bag of goodies
• Waterproof covering for mattress (helps with bed wetting)
• Egg Timer – you can use an egg timer to set a routine

Potty Training Tips:

• You can start at 18+ months old or earlier but have realistic expectations
• If you start when baby is much younger than a toddler she should be able to sit down on her own for at least 10 mins without slouching or needing a prop
• You’ll want to train your child by age 3 especially if they are head to pre-school or daycare
• The average age to be completely potty trained is 2.5 yrs old
• Use praise not punishment
• Don’t ask “Do you want to potty?” instead tell her “Let’s go potty.”
• Have a routine – take her to the potty several times a day consistently (when waking up, after meals/snacks and before bed)
• Don’t force – make positive and as natural as possible
• Have her watch you (should be the same sex) so she can imitate you
• Small immediate rewards like stickers, potty chart are good motivators
• Have her choose her favorite big girl or boy underwear (ie. Dora)
• She should wear clothing that she can easily pull down to potty
• Teach good hygiene (how to clean private parts, flush and wash hands)

FREE: Potty Training Charts @ http://www.pottytrainingconcepts.com/CTGY/FREE-Potty-Training-…

When young children refuse to poop on the potty, they have often fallen in to what I call the D-D-D cycle, for Discomfort > Dread > Delay. They might enter the cycle from any point, perhaps from waiting to poop because they don’t want to interrupt playing, or perhaps from fear of the potty itself. But what these kids have in common is the uncomfortable passing of a large or hard stool. This can make them afraid the next time they need to go, which leads to stool withholding.

Then, when they finally do poop, it can be even more painful, reinforcing the dread and the delay. Researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia followed 380 children from before toileting was an issue all the way through successful potty learning, to see how children fall into this cycle. The results were published online in the June 2004 Pediatrics. The average age to complete daytime toilet learning was 36 months, and varied from 22 to 54 months. Along the way about one quarter of the kids experienced Stool Toileting Refusal (STR). For as many as 93 percent of the kids, the first step on the D-D-D cycle was the uncomfortable passing of a hard stool. This suggests that constipation may be inadequately addressed in children before they start to learn about going on the potty, and that solving the constipation problem may prevent many toilet difficulties that are commonly encountered.

When is the best age to start toilet learning in children? A study published in the April 2003 issue of Pediatrics reports that starting intensive toilet training before 27 monthsdid nothing to hasten the time that toilet learning was completed – all it did was to lengthen the months of toilet learning. Intensive toilet training was defined as asking the child more than 3 times a day to use the toilet.

This study was conducted by researchers from Children’s Hospital Philadelphia among hundreds of middle-class children living in the Philadelphia suburbs. The results might have been quite different in other groups or in other countries. Even in similar groups, individual children mature at different rates and in different ways. Still, this report reminds us that kids will learn to use the potty when they are ready, and not before. Our job us to teach them and support them, not to force them.

Dr. Greene’s Answer:

The way to move from diaper to potty for most strongly resistant kids is with little tiny steps–especially when there has already been so much emotional energy, pressure, and discipline involved. Take care to make every step an act of the two of you agreeing and cooperating.

If, for example, your child is happy using the diaper, the first small step is to get her using the diaper in the bathroom. Next, get her to use the diaper in the bathroom sitting down; it could be on the edge of the bathtub, on a chair, or on the floor. The goal is to encourage her to sit. If you push too hard, she will resist. You cannot force progress on this one–she will not have to poop on a potty until she wants to.

With younger kids and other issues, you can just make things happen. For example, if she was fussy and you needed to leave, you could just pick her up and go. Or if she were hitting someone, you could give her a time out. But here, force and punishments do not work. In fact, they only make things worse. The challenge at hand is to learn to engage cooperation.

Related concepts:

Confusional arousal; Partial arousal state; Sleep terrors

Introduction to night terrors:

Your little angel wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, calling for his mommy – but his mommy is right there, unrecognized. You try to comfort him, but he shrieks even louder, eyes bulging. He might be having a night terror.

What are night terrors?

Within fifteen minutes of your child’s falling asleep, he will probably enter his deepest sleep of the night. This period of slow wave sleep, or deep non-REM sleep, will typically last from forty-five to seventy-five minutes. At this time, most children will transition to a lighter sleep stage or will wake briefly before returning to sleep. Some children, however, become stuck and are unable to completely emerge from slow wave sleep. Caught between stages, these children experience a period of partial arousal.
Partial arousal states are classified in three categories: 1) sleep walking, 2) confusional arousal, and 3) true sleep terrors. These closely related phenomena are all part of the same spectrum of behavior.
When most people (including the popular press and popular parenting literature) speak of night terrors, they are generally referring to what are called confusional arousals by most pediatric sleep experts.
During these frightening episodes, the child is not dreaming and typically will have no memory of the event afterwards (unlike a nightmare). If any memory persists, it will be a vague feeling of being chased or of being trapped. The event itself seems to be a storm of neural emissions in which the child experiences an intense fight or flight sensation. Once it is finally over, the child usually settles back to quiet sleep without difficulty.
These are very different from nightmares.
True sleep terrors are a more intense form of partial arousal. They are considerably less common than confusional arousals and are seldom described in popular parenting literature. True sleep terrors are primarily a phenomenon of adolescence.

Who gets night terrors?

The tendency toward sleepwalking, confusional arousals, and true sleep terrors often runs in families. They tend to be more common in boys, and are much less common after age 7.
The events are often triggered by sleep deprivation or by the sleep schedule’s shifting irregularly over the preceding few days. A coincidentally timed external stimulus, such as moving a blanket or making a loud noise, can also trigger a partial arousal (which again shows that the event is a sudden neural storm rather than a result of a complicated dream).

What are the symptoms of night terrors?

Typically, a confusional arousal begins with the child moaning and moving about. It progresses quickly to the child crying out and thrashing wildly. The eyes may be open or closed, and perspiration is common. The child will look confused, upset, or even “possessed” (a description volunteered by many parents). Even if the child does call out his parents’ names, he will not recognize them. He will appear to look right through them, unable to see them. Parental attempts to comfort the child by holding or cuddling often prolong the situation.

Are night terrors contagious?

No.

How long do night terrors last?

Most often, a confusional arousal will last for about ten minutes, although it may be as short as one minute, and it is not unusual for the episode to last for a seemingly eternal forty minutes.

How are night terrors diagnosed?

The diagnosis is based on the history. When a question remains, a physical exam or tests may be run to rule out other possibilities.

How are night terrors treated?

When an event does occur, do not try to wake the child — not because it is dangerous, but because it will tend to prolong the event. It is generally best not to hold or restrain the child, since his subjective experience is one of being held or restrained; he would likely arch his back and struggle all the more.
Instead, try to relax and to verbally comfort the child if possible. Speak slowly, soothingly, and repetitively. Turning on the lights may also be calming. Protect your child from injury by moving furniture and standing between him or her and windows. In most cases, the event will be over in a matter of minutes.
Night terrors can also be treated with medications, hypnotherapy, or with other types of relaxation training if they become a significant problem.
A Novel Approach – The Greene Technique
When my youngest child was going though night terrors, I observed that he was also “working on” achieving nighttime dryness. In fact, night terrors are most common at the same ages that children are becoming aware of the bladder feeling full during sleep. It dawned on me that perhaps some of these kids just need to go to the bathroom, but are not yet able to wake up fully when their bladders are full. I’ve now treated many kids by having the parents take them to toilet while they’re still asleep. For many of these children, even though they do not recognize their parents, they will often recognize the toilet and urinate. For these children, the episodes stop abruptly and they return to sleep. The calm is dramatic.

How can night terrors be prevented?

Prevention usually involves trying to avoid letting the child get over-tired, and trying to keep the wake/sleep schedule as regular as possible. Taking the child to the bathroom before the parents go to bed can also prevent some night terrors.

Related A-to-Z Information:

Enuresis (Bedwetting), Epilepsy, Nightmares, Sleep Apnea

Introduction to constipation:
As long as your child is in diapers, every single bowel movement will be right there for you to see when her diaper is changed. During the diaper years, the stools undergo several changes. The first bowel movements are the thick, sticky, tarry meconium stools formed while the baby is still inside you. During the first week these give way, in breastfed babies, to soft, yellow, breast milk stools. These usually look like yellow mustard with little seeds. By the time a baby is one week old, she has an average of 8 to 10 of these pleasant (as stools go) stools each day. Formula-fed stools are often tan or yellow at this stage, and a little firmer than breast milk stools. Either way, there are many dirty diapers!
For most breastfed babies, the number drops to about 4 per day by 4 weeks old (although many kids have a different pattern). Formula-fed babies usually stool less often at this age, and the stools do not change much with time until solid foods are introduced (because unlike breast milk, formula doesn’t change over time).
By 8 weeks old, the average drops to 1 per day. Most formula-fed babies will not go less often than daily, but many breastfed kids will poop even less often than this. I know many babies who only go every three days. If a happy formula-fed baby goes 4 days, or a breastfed baby goes 7 days without a stool, I recommend that he or she be checked by a pediatrician (sooner if the child seems to be in pain). Still, it can be completely normal to go only once every eight days — as long as the stool is soft when it comes out. Breast milk is an amazing food that leaves very little in the way of waste.
Beginning solids usually produces a noticeable change in the character of the stools. They may be either softer or firmer, but they will likely smell worse (kids also smile and laugh more at this age, more than making up for the unpleasantness). Most children’s intestines are very responsive to the foods they eat.
Toilet learning may also result in a significant change in the timing and consistency of stools.
Also, at school-age, when children begin going to the bathroom alone (and parents are less aware of the frequency and consistency of stools), some children may go through another period of constipation.

What is constipation?

When a child is constipated, the stool in the intestines has backed up more than it should. The longer stool sits in the colon, the more water is absorbed back into the body. When a child is constipated, the stool tends to be hard and passing it tends to be painful.

Who gets constipation?

Anyone can become constipated. Common times include during the introduction of solid foods, during toilet training, or when fluid intake is decreased.

What are the symptoms of constipation?

Babies will normally strain from time to time to move the stool along through the intestines. If you want to do something when babies grunt, push, or strain, try picking them up to get gravity to help them in their efforts, or try holding the knees against the chest to help them “squat” — the natural position for bowel movements. Straining is usually normal. Crying while straining may be a sign of constipation. Hard stools are often a sign of constipation.
A decrease in stool frequency might suggest constipation, but it may also be normal.

Is constipation contagious?

No

How long does constipation last?

Constipation lasts until the hard stool is passed, and the intestines begin moving stool along at the normal rate.
Constipation can become a vicious cycle that lasts until treated.
I call this the D3 cycle (discomfort – dread – delay).
Children can enter the D3 cycle at any point. Sometimes it begins with an uncomfortable experience passing a hard stool created by a change in diet or a brief illness. Sometimes the starting point is simply the fear of sitting over the gaping hole in the potty to poop. Sometimes children are engaged in playing and choose to ignore the urge to poop, holding the stool in just to delay interrupting a vitally important game.
Whatever the starting point, they end up having a painful experience. When the next urge arrives, the child decides to delay pooping in order to avoid what happened last time. The longer he delays, the firmer the next stool becomes. When he finally does poop, the event is even more uncomfortable, which confirms his fears. What he dreaded was true!
He vividly learns from this experiment, but it’s the wrong lesson. So next time he is even more determined to hold the stool in. Discomfort leads to dread; dread leads to delay; delay leads to discomfort.

How is constipation diagnosed?

Constipation is diagnosed based on the history and physical exam. It can be seen on x-rays, but these are usually not needed. Children who have constipation that does not respond to treatment may need further evaluation to look for other possible causes of constipation, including Hirschsprung’s Disease, hypothyroidism, botulism, or food allergies.

How is constipation treated?

The simplest first step is to give the child more to drink to soften the stools. At the same time, readjust the balance of the foods in the diet to help. Bananas, rice, soy, and products made from white flour tend to produce firmer stools. Pears, peaches, plums, apricots, peas, and prunes make stools softer. By balancing the diet, you can often keep the stools comfortably mid-range.
If the stools are still too firm, juice is the gentlest medicine to soften them up. Apple juice twice a day is a good bet. If this doesn’t work, prune juice is even better. In addition, when your daughter is straining you might want to put her in a tub of warm water. This will relax her muscles and make the stool easier to pass.
Glycerin suppositories can be very helpful if diet and juice don’t work, but overuse of suppositories can lead to dependence on them. Constipation stubborn enough to make suppositories necessary should be discussed with your pediatrician. The same holds true for baby laxatives. (Hint: If your pediatrician does recommend a laxative, 1/2 teaspoon of unprocessed bran, mixed with food twice a day, is about as effective as many laxatives and much cheaper).
In some children, the D3 cycle is so entrenched that in order to break free they need a stool softener to take the process out of their control. This is especially common if the stools have been hard enough to produce anal fissures. One excellent way to soften the stools is with mineral oil. The oil makes the stools slippery enough that they can no longer delay and soft enough that the stools no longer hurt. The most common reason for mineral oil to fail is using the wrong dose for the child’s weight.
If constipation is triggered by cow’s milk protein allergy, or other food allergy, then avoiding the offending food can make a big difference.

How can constipation be prevented?

By staying familiar with a child’s normal stool patterns, parents can adjust the diet when the stools are starting to get too firm or too loose. Also, a high fiber diet can help to keep the stools regular for children who are drinking plenty of liquids.
For children who are learning to use the toilet, an effort should be made to avoid entering the D3 cycle. A relaxed attitude toward toilet learning and prompt attention to any discomfort, dread, or delay can prevent constipation problems.

Related A-to-Z Information:

Celiac Disease, Congenital Hypothyroidism, Diarrhea, Food Allergies, Infant Botulism

My youngest son was having a confusional arousal, and his mother observed that these events are most common at the same ages that children are becoming aware of the bladder feeling full during sleep.

Perhaps these kids just need to go to the bathroom. We stood him in front of the toilet, and he urinated-still not awake. The episode faded abruptly, and he returned to sleep. The calm was dramatic. Was this a coincidence? Or might this be a revolutionary new help for parents whose kids have these frightening episodes.

If readers try this and let me know what happens, we will find out. If you give it a try, let us know the results, either way. I’ll correlate the different experiences and broadcast the results. Together we can learn more about the wonder and mystery of sleep in children.

Dr. Greene’s Answer:

One of the great adventures and accomplishments of childhood waits just around the corner. Even though learning to use the potty is a universal rite of passage, experts have wildly different ideas about when and how to proceed.

Some recommend doing almost nothing and letting nature take its course. Others consider the process of active potty training to be of critical importance to future psychological development. Who is right?

The truth is that sometimes kids do learn to use the potty with almost no help from parents. Most of the time, though, they need our guidance and encouragement.

No single method is best for every child. By understanding the underlying forces that surround this event, you will be able to understand which of the many recommendations are most likely to work for your little one.

I’ll outline for you here an approach that, with some individual variation, will work for most kids.

Ready…

With any adventure, it’s wise to be prepared before you set out. The time to start depends far more on development than on age. Here are some signs that your child is ready:

• Cute moments when your little one mimics Dad or Mom.
• Frustrated moments when a person or toy is in the wrong place (“No, Mommy! — Here!”).
• A trail of clothes strewn across the floor as your toddler gleefully tries to undress.
• A face glowing with pride at an accomplishment.
• Curiosity about the toilet and the genitals – theirs and yours.
• Talking about pee pee and poo poo.
• Dawning awareness of when pee pee and poo poo are happening – especially just before the fact.

…Set…

As these signs of readiness are emerging, reinforce your toddler’s awareness of toileting. Watching parents, friends, or animals helps. Better yet – alert your child when you see that he has gone, is going, or needs to go.

When you notice behavior such as straining, tugging at the clothes or shifting from foot to foot, point it out! Even when it is obvious to everyone else, it may still be a mystery to a child. Help him learn his body’s signals. Let your child run around naked – watching it happen live a few times speeds everything up. When he does poop in the diaper, begin going together to put the stool in the toilet, so he will learn that pee pee and poo poo belong in the potty.

…Go!

When you are ready, introduce a potty as follows:

Dress for Success

The long-term goal is to enable your child to go to the potty on his or her own body’s signal, and to need little outside help with any part of the procedure, from sitting down to washing up afterwards. While the complete process may take a couple of years (the ability to wipe oneself effectively is often the last skill to be mastered), there is no time like the present to set your child up for success. Dress kids in loose clothes that they can easily take off by themselves.

Keep diapers off as much as is practical during toilet training. This will increase awareness and motivation for success. Big boy underpants are great! Pull-ups can prevent messes, but if you use them, I recommend cotton ones if you used paper diapers or paper ones if you used cloth diapers, so that they do not feel like diapers to your child. Nighttime diapers are still appropriate until your child begins to have dry diapers in the morning. This can normally take a couple of years after daytime control. If it lasts longer, talk with your pediatrician.

The Age-Old Question

A child is happily playing with blocks, but suddenly an intense expression appears on his face. The room gets uncharacteristically quiet. He squats behind the couch, and his cheeks begin to get red. “Honey, do you need to go potty?” you ask.

“No!” declares the toddler automatically. The question doesn’t help anything. Instead, tell your child what you observe, and tell her, “It’s time to go potty!”

Potty Time

At the beginning, you might want to set a timer for every 2 hours. When the timer goes off – “It’s time to go to the potty.” If he appears to need to go, or says he needs to go – “It’s potty time.” Make potty time something to look forward to. Keep your child company while he or she sits on the potty for a few minutes. You may want to have books, toys, or a box of dress-up accessories that are only used during potty time. Your undivided attention is the key ingredient.

Encourage your child to celebrate successes. If nothing happens, smile and say he’s learning. When accidents happen (and they will – poop on the carpet is part of the learning experience), don’t scold your child, but scoop it up, put it in the potty, and say, “Soon you’ll be able to get it in the potty every time!”

After a week or so of success, change potty time to “Head into the bathroom and sit on the potty – I’ll be there with you in a minute!” When this is working well, progress to “Let me know when you’re done, I’ll check your bottom.” Gradually encourage his independence.

And make no mistake – independence is what is happening here. Toilet learning is a wonderful, bittersweet snapshot of growing up. Changing his diapers for him was a central part of his life (and yours) up until now. Soon, for both of you, it will be time to celebrate no more dirty diapers!

Dr. Greene’s Answer:

One of our advantages as parents is our size. If we need to get our preschoolers into our cars in a hurry, and friendly negotiations have failed, we can still scoop them up and slide them in. If two preschoolers are fighting, we are big enough to gently but decisively separate them.

But in the arena of helping kids to poop on the potty, our superior size affords no advantage. We can teach them how to do it, we can tell them when to do it, but we can’t just make them do it. They are able to simply decline. The longer they refuse to comply, the more frustrating and embarrassing it becomes for us as parents (especially if there is peer, or in-law, or school pressure!).

We hear that if we just wait, they will learn. We’re told that no one graduates from high school in diapers. But we wait, and there is no progress.

We throw our efforts into getting them to use the potty, sometimes to the point of “extreme duress,” but that tack doesn’t work either. The more we try to force them to use the potty, the more they can resist. And they will win.

Children don’t have to poop on the potty unless they want to.

The good news is — they want to!

Children have a deep, urgent desire for growth and mastery. They would love to be able to poop on the toilet like their parents, like their teachers, like their friends. This longing is profound, and will win out in the end.

What could be powerful enough to block this freight train of progress?

There are several answers to this question, but in your son’s situation it sounds as if he is trapped in what I call the D3 cycle (discomfort – dread – delay).

Children can enter the D3 cycle at any point. Sometimes it begins with an uncomfortable experience passing a hard stool created by a change in diet or a brief illness. Sometimes the starting point is simply the fear of sitting over the gaping hole in the potty to poop. Sometimes children are engaged in playing and choose to ignore the urge to poop, holding the stool in just to delay interrupting a vitally important game.

Whatever the starting point, they end up having a painful experience. When the next urge arrives, the child decides to delay pooping in order to avert what happened last time. The longer he delays, the firmer the next stool becomes. When he finally does poop, the event is even more uncomfortable — confirming his fears. What he dreaded was true!

He vividly learns from this experiment, but it’s the wrong lesson. So next time he is even more determined to hold the stool in. Discomfort leads to dread; dread leads to delay; delay leads to discomfort. The rectum stretches internally so that more stool can be held, and soon urges to defecate are not often felt. The D3 cycle becomes a powerful trap. Progress is derailed.

The D3 cycle must be broken before moving ahead with potty learning.

Sometimes going back to the “good old days” of using a diaper can break the D3 cycle. The child relaxes, the stools get soft, and the tension disappears. Stools again come regularly and without protest. It sounds as if this has happened already for your son. This solution runs the risk, though, of forming a very strong connection in his brain: diapers are good, potties are bad!

Sometimes modifying the diet can result in soft enough stools to break the D3 cycle. I’ve given dietary suggestions for this elsewhere.

In some children, the D3 cycle is so entrenched that in order to break free they need a stool softener to take the process out of their control. This is especially common if the stools have been hard enough to produce anal fissures. One excellent way to soften the stools is with Miralax. Miralax is a powder, mixed into a glass of liquid, that helps increase the water content of stool, thus reducing constipation. It works best if you also increase the amount of liquid your child drinks each day. Talk to your pediatrician for information on the best way to dose Miralax for your child.

If the child does not begin having soft stools daily, increase the dose a bit until you reach a dose that works. (Don’t go above 3 times the starting dose without checking with a physician.) You may need to adjust the dose downward if the stools get too loose or too frequent.

Once you’ve arrived at a dose that works, keep him on this dose for about 2 weeks. This will give time to break the connection in the child’s brain between poop and pain. Children relearn that stools don’t hurt. Also, the rectum shrinks back to normal size, fissures heal, and (perhaps most importantly) the urge to poop is once again felt.

After two weeks, gradually taper the Miralax over another two weeks or so. This process will often break the D3 cycle completely.

We also know that increasing dietary fiber and increasing liquid intake help make softer stools. But for the majority of children, adding fresh fruits and vegetables to their diet is quite a chore! Other alternatives include Benefiber (a fiber supplement). Benefiber is one of a few fiber supplements that are tasteless powders and can be sprinkled on your child’s favorite foods. Once the D3 cycle has been broken, it’s time to revisit the issue of pooping on the potty.

Often the quickest way to success is to make steady, little steps forward, rather than just trying again to get him to go straight from diapers back to the fearsome potty.

First, encourage him to do his pooping in the bathroom — like you. He can keep his diaper on, he can be across the room from the potty, but he’s in the right room. Usually this step isn’t too tough. If it is, figure out why (difficulty getting cooperation in many areas, difficulty breaking away from play, defiance, etc.) and address the underlying issue. Once he has comfortably pooped in the right room for 3 days or more, he can take another little step when he seems ready.

Next, have him poop sitting down — like you. He can sit on the floor, on the potty with the lid down, on the potty with the lid up, or wherever he wants in the room. He still gets his diaper (or pull-up or underpants as the case may be). Again, once sitting has become comfortable, he can try another little step.

If he has been sitting on the floor, he moves to the potty or toilet. If the lid has been down on the potty or toilet, now lift the lid. He still gets to wear the diaper (or whatever). This step is usually surprisingly easy. Wait until he is comfortable with each stage before he takes another tiny step.

The next step may be to simply remove the diaper and have him go on the potty — like you. Many kids will move from the last level to this one with unexpected ease. If you gauge that this will not be the case for your son, you can instead cut a little hole in the bottom of the diaper. He can go as before, and the poop may or may not fall into the potty. As the days go by, make the hole larger and larger. I’ve known some kids who just wore a waistband for a bit! Before long, he will want to be free of the diaper altogether, now that he is free from the fear.

Your son wants to use the potty even more than you want for him to –he just doesn’t know it yet. His practical experiments have proven to him his hypothesis that this achievement is unattainable for him. He is discouraged and afraid, and doesn’t want to have to face pain, failure, and fear.

By loosening him from the chains of the D3 cycle, and then by taking this huge task that had inspired dread, breaking it down into small achievable steps, and getting him going again, you can set him free to enjoy the growth he is longing for.

And you also model for him an important process. This approach is a potent tool whenever he (or you) gets trapped in the eddies and bywaters of development. It will serve both of you well whenever an overwhelming obstacle (whether it be a term paper, or making the baseball team, or weight loss, or credit card debt) looms large on the path ahead.

I hope he has a wonderful junior kindergarten year!