"tough love" for potty training?

[eddy]

nope nope nope

Terrible idea

Jack PT at 3 years and 3 months. I can honestly say if we would have done the tough love thing it would have been damaging to the process.

[iamgrace]

Bad idea.

[Deleted]

oh, well that's just a GRAND idea.

next up: tying left-handed childrens' hands up so they don't write using "the devil's hand." oh, wait, that was rural pennsylvania in the 1950s.

[luckyval]

That's awful

I'd consider changing pedis if I was given that kind of advice

[shopgirl07]

I think it's bad advice for a 3 year old. But I'm not so sure it wouldn't be appropriate for a 4 or 5 year old if they didn't have any physical issues.

[Deleted]

That's crazy. My pediatrician told me that boys especially tend to potty train later, typically sometime during their third year. Both of mine trained fairly easily after turning three. It was easy because we waited until they were truly ready.

[rex]

No no no.

Positive rewards are far more effective.

He is probably just not ready!

[anlo]

Sept 30, 2013 8:21:22 GMT -5 luckyval said:

That's awful

I'd consider changing pedis if I was given that kind of advice

App like

That is horrible advice.

[JayhawkGirl]

A pediatrician said this? I'd be finding a new one.

No sense getting into a power struggle over going potty. The child holds ALL the cards here. The parent cannot make the child go potty.

It will happen in its time. For DS, that time was exactly 3 1/2. He literally woke up Memorial Day Monday and said he wanted to use the potty. It happened quickly and pretty stress free after that.

[muffin0]

I think MAYBE if the kid is able to do it, but just refusing this could work? 

But usually I'm going to go with no.

[Deleted]

Nooooo. You know I am not afraid of punishments but no no no. Punishing a kid for a bodily function is such a bad idea.

[Deleted]

Sept 30, 2013 8:32:22 GMT -5 muffin0 said:

I think MAYBE if the kid is able to do it, but just refusing this could work? 

But usually I'm going to go with no.

listen, punishment for holding it in, then walking into the kitchen, making eye contact with a parent, dropping trou, and crapping on the floor while laughing?  yes.  i can see that.

punishment for mere refusal still strikes me as wrong.  granted, my kid was an easy potty trainer, i think in large part just due to the peer pressure of seeing some/all of her friends doing it in class.  but i can't imagine taking a pee-covered child who tried and tried and tried to hold it because they're scared of the potty or being a jerk or something, and then throwing that kid in time out because they had an accident.  i know YOU aren't saying this.  but i get all het up about this stuff.

like, diapers aren't THAT hard to change, people.  so, just chill the fuck out.  (yes, i know lots of people want to move out of diapers to save money and how expensive they are.  but no one i know who is a potty training asshole was doing it for the dolla dolla billz.  they were doing it as some sort of contest of will.).

[Deleted]

That advice sucks.

[idoinjuly]

I'm not even going to think about beginning the potty training process until he's 3. That sort of power struggle and punishment is sure to not work.

[CurlyQ284]

I'm glad I read this. I didn't know boys tend to potty train around age 3.

[onomatopoeia]

Sept 30, 2013 8:26:42 GMT -5 jellymankelly said:

I got that advice from a ton of people (not doctors) and I just couldn't do it. The day my son cried so much about having to sit on the potty that he was hyperventilating was the last straw for me. I gave up and eventually he just did it on his own. Granted, he was 3 years 6 months, but our household was a lot happier and I didn't feel like I was traumatizing him.

I got advice from several other moms like, "Put him in underwear and make him clean up his own accidents and change his own clothes when he has an accident." That, to me, feels like setting him up for failure and then shaming him for it. I just couldn't do it.

To the bolded, I agree that it can be shaming when the child is obviously not ready to potty train or when it's done in a degrading way.  Done the right way though, it can be a great way to teach kids that hey, accidents happen, and this is how we deal with them (plus it's not just mom's job to clean your shit up, literally).  The second objective was to teach them independence and to know what to do if they had an accident at school, or while mom was busy.  If my 3 year old was too busy playing with trios to go to the bathroom and pees his pants, he could take care of it himself while I was making dinner. 

To the OP, that is very bad advice.  Rewards systems worked so much better for us, but even then if a child isn't ready that's also setting them up to feel like a failure.  Earn a sticker for doing something you can't physically do yet?  If someone told me I would get $1000 for doing a backflip you would bet your butt I'd be motivated, but I still couldn't do a backflip. 

[takeonyou]

Every kid is different. My son pt on hos own at just 2. He's weird. My dd was still in pull ups at night at 4.

Her pedi sucks ass and she should NOT liten to him. Tell her he is normal and that the best trick for boys is Froot Loops in the toilet.

Sent from my HTC6435LVW using proboards

[onomatopoeia]

Sept 30, 2013 8:49:01 GMT -5 Que? said:

Sept 30, 2013 8:46:46 GMT -5 onomatopoeia said:

To the bolded, I agree that it can be shaming when the child is obviously not ready to potty train or when it's done in a degrading way.  Done the right way though, it can be a great way to teach kids that hey, accidents happen, and this is how we deal with them (plus it's not just mom's job to clean your shit up, literally).  The second objective was to teach them independence and to know what to do if they had an accident at school, or while mom was busy.  If my 3 year old was too busy playing with trios to go to the bathroom and pees his pants, he could take care of it himself while I was making dinner. 

To the OP, that is very bad advice.  Rewards systems worked so much better for us, but even then if a child isn't ready that's also setting them up to feel like a failure.  Earn a sticker for doing something you can't physically do yet?  If someone told me I would get $1000 for doing a backflip you would bet your butt I'd be motivated, but I still couldn't do a backflip. 

Lemme guess, you rub your dogs nose in his shit but it's ok, you're smarter than the average pet owner.

LOL.  Okay.

If my 3 (now 4) year old pees his pants he is absolutely able to take the wet clothes to the hamper and get himself a new pair of underwear and shorts.  Because that's what we do if we pee our pants.  If he pees on the floor, he can also get a towel and wipe it up.  Because that's what we do when we pee on the floor.  I don't stand there barking orders at him, or tell him he's a bad dog. 

[thebuddhagouda]

Sept 30, 2013 8:38:58 GMT -5 cville said:

listen, punishment for holding it in, then walking into the kitchen, making eye contact with a parent, dropping trou, and crapping on the floor while laughing?  yes.  i can see that.

I don't know if this counts as punishment, but E got to the point where he was otherwise fully potty trained but would pee his pants while playing with the ipad because he wouldn't want to stop. We started telling him that if he didn't go to the potty, we would take the ipad away for that night, and we only had to do it maybe twice before he realized he could just take 60 seconds to go pee and then go straight back to the ipad. There was no time-out or any other shaming for legit accidents though. My kid is WAY too stubborn for that to even work. We completely bribed him to potty train.

[Deleted]

Sept 30, 2013 8:58:22 GMT -5 thebuddhagouda said:

Sept 30, 2013 8:38:58 GMT -5 cville said:

listen, punishment for holding it in, then walking into the kitchen, making eye contact with a parent, dropping trou, and crapping on the floor while laughing?  yes.  i can see that.

I don't know if this counts as punishment, but E got to the point where he was otherwise fully potty trained but would pee his pants while playing with the ipad because he wouldn't want to stop. We started telling him that if he didn't go to the potty, we would take the ipad away for that night, and we only had to do it maybe twice before he realized he could just take 60 seconds to go pee and then go straight back to the ipad. There was no time-out or any other shaming for legit accidents though. My kid is WAY too stubborn for that to even work. We completely bribed him to potty train.

that doesn't sound to me like "punishment" in the way that frkls's sil's pedi was describing.  that's just cause and effect with a twist.

[muffin0]

Sept 30, 2013 8:38:58 GMT -5 cville said:

Sept 30, 2013 8:32:22 GMT -5 muffin0 said:

I think MAYBE if the kid is able to do it, but just refusing this could work? 

But usually I'm going to go with no.

listen, punishment for holding it in, then walking into the kitchen, making eye contact with a parent, dropping trou, and crapping on the floor while laughing?  yes.  i can see that.

punishment for mere refusal still strikes me as wrong.  granted, my kid was an easy potty trainer, i think in large part just due to the peer pressure of seeing some/all of her friends doing it in class.  but i can't imagine taking a pee-covered child who tried and tried and tried to hold it because they're scared of the potty or being a jerk or something, and then throwing that kid in time out because they had an accident.  i know YOU aren't saying this.  but i get all het up about this stuff.

like, diapers aren't THAT hard to change, people.  so, just chill the fuck out.  (yes, i know lots of people want to move out of diapers to save money and how expensive they are.  but no one i know who is a potty training asshole was doing it for the dolla dolla billz.  they were doing it as some sort of contest of will.).

Yeah, this is more what I meant. 

My kid just refused to go. She was able, she just didn't want to. No big deal, I wasn't going to fight it. Then she was okay peeing but refused to poop in the toilet. So she changed into a pull up when she knew she needed to go. I could have forced her to just go on the toilet, but it wasn't that big of a deal.

Until she need to go to school. She was four and refused, I knew she would be fine once she did it and realized it wasn't scary, we had to take the pull ups away. She freaked for a day or two and then was fine. We talked it up big time until we were out of pull ups.

Other than saying "I think you can try harder to hold it, or try to pay attention when you need to go and try to go more often" there was no punishment (I don't consider that punishment - but I imagine some might ??)

I personally think that diapers are easier, then running to the bathroom at every store

[thebuddhagouda]

Sept 30, 2013 9:10:54 GMT -5 muffin0 said:

I personally think that diapers are easier, then running to the bathroom at every store

Amen to that! We're fine now that I know he can hold it for a while, but that first month or two where I was constantly having to pull over during our 30 minute commute to find him a gas station because you had like 90 seconds from him saying "I have to go" to it coming out were horrible.

[Deleted]

Sept 30, 2013 9:14:52 GMT -5 thebuddhagouda said:

Sept 30, 2013 9:10:54 GMT -5 muffin0 said:

I personally think that diapers are easier, then running to the bathroom at every store

Amen to that! We're fine now that I know he can hold it for a while, but that first month or two where I was constantly having to pull over during our 30 minute commute to find him a gas station because you had like 90 seconds from him saying "I have to go" to it coming out were horrible.

oh, i pulled over once at a doughnut shop (rookie mistake).  and wasn't it just the darndest thing, but L HAD to go ASAP every time she saw the sign for the next week?

i cut that shit out by stopping at a gas station just a bit further up the street.  suddenly, she could make it the whole way home.

[muffin0]

Sept 30, 2013 9:16:59 GMT -5 cville said:

Sept 30, 2013 9:14:52 GMT -5 thebuddhagouda said:

Amen to that! We're fine now that I know he can hold it for a while, but that first month or two where I was constantly having to pull over during our 30 minute commute to find him a gas station because you had like 90 seconds from him saying "I have to go" to it coming out were horrible.

oh, i pulled over once at a doughnut shop (rookie mistake).  and wasn't it just the darndest thing, but L HAD to go ASAP every time she saw the sign for the next week?

i cut that shit out by stopping at a gas station just a bit further up the street.  suddenly, she could make it the whole way home.

HAHA! Evil genius!

[hopecounts]

potty training should not have negative punishment (I don't consider natural consequences like stopping to chmage and helping clean up the mess negative just necessary)

Now whether she is ready/willing to actively work on PTing with him is a call for her family to make without the Pedi's interference.
My pedi's take is anytime before 4 is normal, so until they're 4 she'll answer questions and ask how/if it's going but no pressure or worries.

[maddysmum]

The last thing in the world you want to do is set up a power struggle over going to the bathroom. Which is all negative consequences do.

Because you know who always wins that battle? The kid who controls his own bodily functions. It's the ultimate trump card.

No matter how frustrating, no matter how long it goes on, it's gotta be positive. Anyway, it's almost always pressure from others that makes you feel the kid NEEDS to be potty trained ASAP. I tried and tried, did all of the things (and I'd already potty trained one kid - this wasn't all new!) with my little guy and he just did not get it. Then one night, at 3 and 1/2, he said he wanted to wear underwear. Overnight. The last round of potty training had been months before, he had never been dry in underwear ever and my husband said "sure" which I pointed out was really generous considering he'd be long gone for work when the wet bed needed to be stripped the next morning.

And he woke up dry, hasn't worn a diaper since and has had so few accidents ever (most of which were my fault for not being more on the ball). He just wasn't ready before. And when he was, he potty trained himself literally overnight.

[stephm0188]

My kid was well past the 3.5 year mark before he decided he was ready. We had a couple of days where there were accidents, but after that initial week... nada. I think he had two accidents ever after that.

I'd rather deal with diapers an additional 6 months than engage in a battle I can't win.Why torture both of us?