Every dad going through potty training with his son or daughter would like to have an extra trick or two up his sleeve. Chances are that you know all about what your friends, family, and neighbors recommend... so why not cast your gaze a bit further? Other countries have potty training tricks and practices far different from our own. And in some cases, these clever ideas might completely change how you look at the potty training experience. Keep reading to discover the hottest potty training tricks from around the world!
Potty Training Trick #1: Early Training
While kids don’t all follow a potty training schedule, most children in America are potty trained by the age of three. However, children potty train much earlier in many different cultures and countries around the world. This potty training trick is especially easy to notice in places like Kenya. In Kenya, children start potty training before they are able to walk. This means a very “hands-on” approach, with parents holding children away from themselves while the kid does his business. This is usually correlated to a specific sound, like training a young boy to pee while the parent makes a hissing noise. As a result, these children are effectively trained by the time they are only four or five months old!
Potty Training Trick #2: Everyone Sits Down
When it comes to potty training, there are plenty of things that work well for little boys and little girls alike. However, many fathers soon notice that the training experience between
boys and girls is different, especially in one regard: boys are much, much messier. One of the reasons for this is that parents usually try to get young boys to pee standing up, as they will do when they get older. However, this leads to plenty of bathroom messes. The potty training trick in Germany is simply removing the option: boys are taught to sit down on the potty, even if they only have to pee. It makes sense when you think about it, as this lets the kid master the basics of potty use before adding an element of balance and “aim” to the experience!
Potty Training Trick #3: Special Clothing
Oddly enough, one of the biggest questions about potty training kids is what they should wear. No, we’re not talking fashion and style. Instead, there is constant debate about how long to keep kids in diapers, when to take diapers off while training, and what potty-training kids should wear in public while they are still learning. In China, they have this down to a science. Children there wear special split bottom pants that are exposed in the areas where they will need to pee or poop. In general, Westerners are quite surprised to see exposed children running around—and even more surprised when they see that these children are encouraged to do their business in public. As wild as it seems, though, it helps Chinese children get a handle on their bodily functions at a young age—by two years old at the absolute latest!
Potty Training Trick #4: Body Language
The main reason that there is so much debate over potty training in our country is that parents have trouble telling when children are ready. You don’t want to try to force a kid who isn’t ready, but you also don’t want to be the only parent in the neighborhood with a kid who isn’t potty trained. However, this is one area where other countries are really ahead of us. For instance, in Vietnam, parents have mastered reading the body language of their children. From the time the kids are born, parents are alert to the sights and sounds that signal when their kid has to do their business. As in other countries, parents hold the children over the potty when they have to go, and they make whistling noises as it happens. This potty training trick conditions the child by allowing the parents to get kids to do their business at specific times of the day before they reach nine months old. Eventually, the kids no longer need the whistling reminder and start taking care of business on their own!
Additional Potty Training Resources
How Other Countries Potty Train Their Children This is What Potty Training is Really Like Around the World
