Potty Genius Blog
Potty Training with Consistency and Repetition
The first day of potty training did not go well. My wife and I told my then two-year-old daughter that we felt like she needed to walk over to the toilet, pull down her underwear and use the bathroom. For us adults, it seemed incredibly simple. To a toddler, not so much. Despite asking my daughter almost every five minutes if she needed to use the bathroom, she said she was okay. She would then pee on the floor. It was an imperfect process that showed its flaws.
by Dr. Chris Snellgrove
Dr. Chris Snellgrove is an English Professor and veteran freelance writer. However, his most difficult student has always been his own son! He struggled and eventually succeeded with potty training his son, and went on to apply those skills to training his nephews.
The first day of potty training did not go well. My wife and I told my then two-year-old daughter that we felt like she needed to walk over to the toilet, pull down her underwear and use the bathroom. For us adults, it seemed incredibly simple. To a toddler, not so much. Despite asking my daughter almost every five minutes if she needed to use the bathroom, she said she was okay. She would then pee on the floor. It was an imperfect process that showed its flaws. When we asked my daughter why she didn’t use the toilet she simply said, “I forgot.” In the early days of potty training, we found that she would become easily distracted. Sometimes she would be caught up in a television show, other times she played with a fun toy, while others the idea of using the potty simply slipped her mind. While using the bathroom has become commonplace for adults it is still new ground for children. They have never used a toilet before, so it is hard to imagine they would do it right the first time. The key to teaching her, and really how we teach her anything important, is to keep a calm and consistent message that she could easily remember. Hopefully, after enough repetition, the message would become so ingrained it would be impossible to forget.
