Potty Training, Preschool, Staying at Home

[rainy day woman]

This is just sort of a vent but if anyone has any advice for me at all on pottytraining or handling my emotions please chime in; I don’t like feeling this way.

 

My son will be three at the end of February and I still haven’t been able to completely potty train him. I waited until he was two and a few months because I had a baby due and did not want him to regress. He has accidents but for the most part he is great at peeing in the toilet, goes standing up, can use a public toilet, and is even dry for most nights and naps. He is very independent when it comes to pulling down his pants, moving his stepstool, and washing his hands. He had an accident today and was able to clean it up and change his own pants and underwear—he didn’t even ask for my help. He just won’t poop in the toilet. I have a new system underway that involves heavier bribes (candy instead of stickers, rewards for just trying, and a toothbrush that plays music if he finally succeeds at pooping in the potty—I got it from the dollar store and he really wants it). I think it might work. He sat and tried to go twice today, but when he actually went he did go in his pants. Still, it was a little bit of progess.

 

As a consequence of not being trained he can’t go to preschool. I feel horrible about this. He was in daycare part-time (1-3 days per week) since he was twelve weeks old but I quit my job earlier this year when I had a second child and he now only goes one morning a week to the toddler room. I send him because he loves socializing with other children and enjoys the music class there. The thing is, almost every single kid from his toddler class that entered around the time he did is fully trained and has advanced to preschool! When I drop him off and pick him up it’s all new faces and my son seems enormous and very old compared to all of them.

 

Part of this I think is because the kids that have advanced are in daycare more; they have good teachers in the classroom who are experienced with potty-training and better at it than I am.

 

One particular friend that we have playdates with has advanced to preschool and I’ve taken this very hard—although I like this child and think he’s cute he is a month younger than my son chronologically, MUCH less verbal, doesn’t join in, doesn’t listen at all and throws tantrums like an early two year old instead of behaving like a boy who is almost three. He’s potty-trained so he gets to advance but my son, who is smart, verbal, polite, listens and participates well isn’t allowed to advance. I know I shouldn’t compare but I can’t help but be jealous. If that little mess of a boy can be trained and mine can’t what a complete screw-up I must be! I feel like a real failure as a mother.

 

At home we don’t watch television, we read a lot, and I give him plenty of free play time but we also have time dedicated to working with blocks and puzzles, creative activites, fine motor skills, and physical activities. Once a week we do tumbling with other children. In the spring and summer he helps my husband in the garden. We go to the playground all the time when the weather is warm and he knows everybody in the neighborhood. I shouldn’t be so upset about this—he’s learning a lot at home.

 

My mom is a nursery school teacher and she says this happens all the time and not to worry about it.

 

The problem is that I’m beginning to feel real, and maybe inappropriately intense, sadness and desperation when I think about it.

 

I think part of the problem is that I was a very lonely child—I was six years younger than two of my siblings and eight years younger than the other. I was also fat (although I’m thin as an adult), shy (I’m less shy as an adult), and had a hard time making friends as a child. My family wasn’t religious but we were of a different religion than most of the people I grew up around, so I had a number of things going against me. The idea of my child missing out or being lonely is unbearable for me. I’m just personalizing this way too much.

 

I know that another part of the problem is that I’m new to staying home and much lonelier than when I was working. I’ve tried a mother’s group but I didn’t have much in common with the women and it just wasn’t the kind of conversation I’d been craving. I might try to find a place to volunteer so I can meet people outside of the mommy context. I do go to the gym all the time so I get out every day for that. When I was working I could tell if I was doing a good job but watching children grow is such a long-range project that I can’t tell if I’m doing a good job or not and I feel like a failure every day.

 

My husband is really happy about me not working; for years we had opposite schedules to minimize time in daycare and he really likes seeing me more. He doesn't like to hear any of this stuff. I have two lifelong girlfriends but one was a single working mother whose kids are grown (having done both I now don't think working is harder but when you're working your schedule can be a real grind and you THINK staying home is easier, and in her case being a single mother was very hard) and the other lives far away, is in her mid-thirties has never been in a position financially or relationship-wise to have children. She keeps saying things like, "You're living the dream" so I don't feel comfortable talking to her about mommy issues. (Plus, I'm always happy to talk about something else if I get the chance.)

 

Thanks for reading this long post.

[Trimmer]

OK, well I don't have all the answers, but a couple of comments. First of all, you seem pretty intelligent, and even self-aware. As I was reading through, I was saying to myself, over and over, something that you finally hit on further down in your post:

 

I’m just personalizing this way too much.

I think if there's a key theme to your situation, this is it.

 

One thought is that the idea of potty "training" isn't really so much that. You think that you are causing this process to happen, through the "training" you are providing, and that it is therefore your failure that it hasn't happened on some arbitrary timetable relative to the preschool schedule and the "advancing" of other kids, etc.

 

It may help you to look at it as a process that your son really needs to own - yes, you can be an element of helpful support, but it's not your process.

 

Also, you are aware enough to recognize that you shouldn't compare your kid to others in this respect, but then you go on to do just that, relative to the other boy, who is " less verbal, doesn’t join in, doesn’t listen at all and throws tantrums like an early two year old instead of behaving like a boy who is almost three..." Look, this is just another example staring you in the face that each individual kid progresses in different developmental areas at different times from other kids. Don't treat this like wins and losses, as if everyone can be measured on exactly the same clock that your parenting book lays out as "normal".

 

Don't cast this as "failure" and certainly don't think that you're doing your son any favors, trying to shield him from it, by accepting it as your own personal failure, because for sure, if you are feeling "sad and desperate" about the situation, he is going to sense it, and feel the pressure, and he will start feeling like it's a failure, when he shouldn't.

 

You need to listen to your mom:

 

My mom is a nursery school teacher and she says this happens all the time and not to worry about it.

 

Finally, on the issues of loneliness - both current and in your past - boy, try not to mix up your feelings and fears with those of your child - "projecting." By all accounts, your son sounds like a pretty normal kid, with fulfilling social interactions, enriching activities. Yet, you live in fear of the possibility of him being lonely. You are projecting your own unresolved fears onto him, and in the long run, subtly, you may well contribute to the very thing you fear, or other issues.

 

I'm not intending to be too hard on you here, just honest. I have two kids of my own (both of whom we supported through figuring out their bodies and toilet activities along the way) and I fight my own demons. I may just be hoding a mirror up to things you already know: that you are personalizing the situation too much, that you are overemphasizing an increasing pressure behind the success/failure of his toilet activities on an arbitrary timetable, and that your loneliness issues are not necessarily his.

 

Relax - it will eventually work. You do not - and can not - have complete control over his potty learning, and his progress, which will be forward and backward at different times - is not a test of the quality of your parenting, nor is it a measure of the intelligence, the quality or the value of your child. It is a reflection of the fact that we are complex creatures and we all progress at different rates, at different times, and we all take different paths on our developemental journeys.

 

Finally - and maybe I should have done this earlier in my post - I want to acknowledge that these are very real feelings, and to compliment you on your being able to identify them in significant detail, and having the self-awareness to question them as you are. It's unfortunate that it seems you don't have a lot of close human contact with people that you can talk about this with - your husband doesn't want to hear about it, and so on...

 

If these feelings - the anxiety over not being able to control this process, the feeling of personal failure at your son taking longer than you think he should, and the overlaid issues around loneliness - continue in their intensity and interfere with your being able to relax in your parenting role, have you considered the possibility of talking with someone (e.g. a counselor) to kind of air them out a little? Don't think of this as a "failure" of some kind - think of it like taking your car to a mechanic when you need some advice about something you'd like to fix...

 

Well, this was going to be a quick couple of sentences, but it went on a little longer. Look, not many kids grow up failing to learn what they need to about how to use the toilet and listen to their bodies all on their own. Through all the different "methods" and styles from over-controlling to completely lassiez-faire, they all get there. In our case, we took a pretty hands-off approach - we educated them, we helped them out when they needed it, we celebrated progress, etc. But we avoided rewards, penalties, timetables, pressure. We just took the attitude that it would work eventually. I don't even remember when they officially "finished" or graduated, or whatever you would call it.

[rainy day woman]

Thanks for the reply--it was helpful. I feel like I can recognize what's wrong with my thinking but I'm having a hard time changing my thinking.

 

I don't want him to start feeling shame or pressure regarding potty training. He's doing well and becoming more independent so I really don't want to become controlling about it; it's not healthy or effective.

 

I might talk to someone about it--maybe a cognitive behavioral therapist.