February 10, 2007
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Foiled at Every Turn
I have to say, it’s rather disconcerting to find that your child is not fazed by torture.
Before you call Child Protection Services, lemme’splain. I am potty training. My child has actually responded rather well to being trained, or did once I followed my MIL’s “old style” version. My version wasn’t working at all. I would sit her on the potty every 30 (and then 15) minutes and give her five minutes or so to “try”. She had to run around the house in panties so she could learn what an accident felt like. She learned nothin’. I learned how to clean my wood floors in a hurry. It didn’t matter how many times I had her sit and try; she would have an accident after she got up. So my MIL told me to stop that nonsense and do it the tried and true way of old–set that child on the potty in the morning, make her sit there until she went, praise, reward, and do it again thirty minutes later. After a day or two of sitting and waiting for literally hours at a time (we got a lot of mileage out of Heffalump and Socks on Fox), she finally realized that she could control this thing, and she did. Voila! Trained, right?
Wrong.
My child forgets. Procrastinates. And I still find myself pulling out the can of carpet cleaner a couple times a day.
This is where the torture comes in. Surely you’ve all heard of the joking comments that when your child just refuses to potty train, you should just take them out to the garden hose and wash them down with cold water? That ought to do the trick after a couple times. Well, if anyone actually does that they aren’t admitting it to me, and no, I haven’t lowered myself to such depths either. Besides, it’s the middle of winter. I think *I’d* call CPS on myself. It did occur to me that I could put her in the bathtub after an accident, however, and wash her down with cold water. Surely that would be odious enough to encourage her to get to the potty in time, right?
Wrong.
She laughs. It’s hard to get some decent torturing accomplished when your child thinks said torture is funny.
AK and William
Stephen
Saturday morning while Mommy and Daddy get thirty extra minutes in bed.
Comments (1)
wow, that reminds me of my attempts to potty train Margaret. being my first child, i naively started the training when she was 1.5. haha! it was over a year long process. i was so stubborn and refused to let her wear diapers once the process began. i spent all day, every day cleaning up after her. i was sure she’d never learn. she ended up catching on one weekend she spent with her grandparents. go figure!