Lessons from the Potty War

I know I posted a long time ago about the difficulties we'd had potty training Chaela.  What many of you don't know is that, up until a few days ago, we were still having problems.  At almost 3 and 1/2 and after over a year of attempting to potty train, Chaela was officially considered "delayed of resistant" (as diagnosed by the internet). 

Over Christmas and up until I went back to work at the very end of January, she seemed to be doing alright.  Then work started, and everything crashed and burned.  She was going through upwards of six pairs of pants per day some days.  Not only is that annoying and a pain to clean, but she just doesn't have enough clothing to be doing that, because I'm not a 'laundry-every-other-day' kind of mom to begin with.

We tried several things, from anger and punishment to reward her for good behavior to every combination in between.  Nothing changed.  Work ended, and I thought that might be enough to get her back on track, but it wasn't.  It didn't matter what we did or didn't do, or how we talked to her about it, or how we reacted to her accidents, she just kept having them.

I couldn't take it anymore.  Well, no, I was way past that.  I felt hopeless.  So I sat down at the computer and did a google search for "potty trained kids having accidents" (or something like that).  The search got a ton of hits.  Yay!  I'm not alone!

There are several reasons why a child might be resistant to potty training, but as I went down the lists on several websites, one reason stood out over and over again:

"Most children who are resistant to toilet training are enmeshed in a power struggle with their parents. The cause of the power struggle is usually reminder resistance – an oppositional response to excessive reminders to sit on the toilet. In addition, most resistant children have been held on the toilet against their will. Many children have also been lectured too much, and some have been spanked or punished in other ways for not cooperating. Many parents make these mistakes, especially if they have a strong-willed child. Most children who are delayed in toilet training have a difficult, strong-willed temperament." (Quoted text taken from a pediatrician's website)

All of this sounded familiar.  Yes, we had constantly reminded Chaela to go to the potty, we had lectured her, forced her to sit on the potty against her will (in our defense, it was because she was dancing and holding herself, and she DID go), and yes, she'd been spanked for accidents.  The last part sounded especially familiar: "Most children who are delayed in toilet training have a difficult, strong-willed temperament."

"Holy crap, that's us!" I thought.  I eagerly scrolled down, excited that this was a real problem other people were having, and with high expectations for the solution.  Imagine my shock when every website I looked at basically said that the solution to potty-training a strong willed child was to stop potty-training them.

What?

I laughed out loud at the first site that told me that, but then the next place I looked said the same thing.  Then the next, and the next, and the next.  Stop.  Stop bothering your child.  Stop reminding them to go.  Stop asking them.  Stop reacting when they had an accident.  And absolutely under no circumstances should they be punished.

So we stopped.  I had one last, very brief talk with Chaela.

"Ok, honey.  We're done.  Mommy and daddy are done telling you to go to the potty.  If you need to go potty, you're in charge.  And you're in charge of changing your own panties.  And if you have an accident, we'll help you clean up, but you'll have to do that, too."

The first thing that happened surprised me.  I felt a change.  I felt like a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders.  No, she wasn't potty trained, but it was no longer my problem, or my fault.  It was her issue to deal with (and in my opinion, Chaela is both old enough and smart enough to do so, so while I did feel some guilt initially, it didn't last).  The best thing that came of this was that I was no longer angry when she had an accident.  If she came to me with wet pants, I could just shrug and tell her to go put them in the laundry basket and put on clean ones.  This was a huge deal, because sometimes I scared myself with how angry I would get at her for having accidents.  Now I wasn't angry, because it wasn't my fault.

Then something else happened that surprised me.  IT WORKED.  After only about a week of Chaela being in charge of her own potty-training, she's pretty much stopped having wet panties.  It used to be that even when her pants were dry, her panties were a little bit wet.  Not anymore.  For the past two days, she's had almost completely dry panties.  Hallelujah.

Anyway, this is a huge long blog post about something most other people probably won't care about, but I wanted to post it, just in case anyone else goes through something similar in the future (I know a lot of my friends have kids that will be potty training soon).  But I also wanted to get this out there because talking, or writing, as the case may be, allows me to crystallize my thoughts, and this taught me something important about Chaela, and about motherhood.

I can't control her.  Even now, Chaela is not a complacent, obedient child.  I can only assume that as she gets older, her stubbornness will grow.  I can't punish it out of her, and I can't positively reinforce it out of her.  If Chaela ever does anything, it is expressly because she decided it was a good idea.  I'm so worried about dealing with her as a teenager, and I'm glad I had this experience, because I think it will help me. 

I have to teach her correct principles, and then (the hardest thing I'll ever have to do) let her govern herself.  I have to trust her, and I need her to trust me.  She won't ever trust me if all I ever do is punish her, so I have to back off on the unimportant things and choose my battles wisely.  I have to let her do her own thing, even when it seems completely counter intuitive (like with potty training, where my instinct was to force her to sit on the potty more often, remind her more often, etc.).  I have to trust that she's smart enough to do things on her own.  All this, of course, taking into account her age and her safety.  I am a control freak when it comes to my kids, so this is going to be difficult for me.

Parenting is hard.

Weight Loss 2011: Weeks 11 and 12

Well, I'll be honest... I didn't post last week because I totally fell off the wagon.  I regained a pound.  However, this week I am down 1.5 pounds, bringing my total weight loss to 12 pounds.  I'm right where I'm supposed to be, but my "safety" pounds are gone.  Scary, because from this point on I'll actually have to work to meet my goals.  Sigh.  Effort is hard.

Weight Loss 2011: Weeks 5-10

So, I haven't posted a weight loss update since I started work, but now that I'm finished, I have no excuse.  I'm happy to report that I have managed to lose 4 more pounds.  It's not as good as it should be, but it's not as bad as I'd feared.  I'm still just barely managing to stay ahead of my goal, with my 11th week starting on Monday and my total weight loss at 11.5 pounds.

I'm pretty excited.  I think when I reach my half-way mark (21 pounds lost) I'm going to do something special for myself, like by a new shirt or something.  Hopefully now that I'm not working, controlling my eating habits will be easier again.

Pants-on-the-ground: A Chaela Story

A funny thing happened a week or two ago when our home teachers came for their monthly visit (home teachers are just guys who go to our church who are assigned to check in with our family once a month, visit, make sure we're doing good, etc.). 

We were sitting there, talking (as Mormons do... a lot) when Chaela ran in with one of her dolls, a Cabbage Patch knock-off in a purple outfit.

"Is this your doll?" Ben, one of our home teachers, asked.
"Yeah!" Chaela screaked (a scream/squeak, I just now invented the word).
"What's her name?"
"PANTS-ON-THE-GROUND!"
All the adults in the room looked at each other.
"Pants on the ground?"
"YEAH!" Chaela screaked again, then started to sing, "Pants on the ground, pants on the ground!  You look like a fool with your pants on the ground!"

That doll is still called Pants-on-the-ground.  It's the first thing she's ever named.

That really happened.  The end.

A Learning Experience

Only seven days of OGT tutoring left, thank goodness.  I have to say that this time I've learned a lot more from the kids I tutor than they did from me... the question is: did I really want to know?

I know a lot of this stuff was going on when I was in high school, too, but not in my world.  Does every generation freak out this much about the upcoming youth?  This is the first time I've been old enough to worry about it.

There's a lot I'd like to say that I don't really feel is right to put on a blog.  Most of the kids I like and/or worry about, but some of them...  ajk;laldifjaoirenf!  That's how frustrated I am; there are not even words.

Anyways, this is part of the reason my plan to be an author/hermit is so important; authors don't have to interact with other people on a regular basis.

: P