Potty “Training”

So, A has reached her third birthday. We’ve made it that far! ;-) j/k And we’re several months past the new baby’s arrival, so I’m thinkin’, “Ummm…time to crank the potty thing into a higher gear”. The potty has been an informal member of our house since A was 15 or so months old. Very informal, cool, whatever, lets be friends, sit on it to read, clothed/unclothed, we’re cool. She’s occasionally shown mild interest but nothing beyond it being any more than a toy. We’ve gotten the cool Elmo Panties from Target. They are oh-so-cool, but I think A considers them a ‘big girl diaper’. Anytime she wears them, she wets or poops in them. Even though we just got a ‘catch’ earlier.
I’m desperate. Well, not really desperate, but I’d like to nudge this process along a bit. So, even though I didn’t really want to, I finally broke down, got some m&m’s when Publix had them on sale: BOGO, and BRIBED. “A! You can have an M&M if you put tinkle in the potty!” I highly encourage her to drink a whole cup of non-watered-down juice just to make sure this is all possible. Plop her in front of the TV, on the potty, sans-diaper, and hope. Success!
Fast forward one week to her 3 year well visit with the pediatrician and my thought that bribery should NOT be the way, is confirmed by our ped. Her recommendation, since A has NO interest so far, is to give her a choice every morning of panties or a diaper. (This gives her a choice, and the power. Scary, huh?) If/when she has an accident, say, “That’s ok, you’re not ready yet. We’ll try again tomorrow.”, and put her in a diaper for the rest of the day. Sounds good enough. Simple enough. No power struggles. Great. We get home. Next morning, she chooses panties. Great. A bit later, and accident. I go through the prescribed phrase, but she insists on continuing to wear panties. Ok. Panties. A little later, another accident. OK. The girl is obviously thinking that these cool Elmo panties are just another diaper. Not cool. So we put away the panties for awhile while mom regroups. I then decide that the new “choice” will be a diaper, or “nothing, so you can practice using the potty”.
This approach has seemed the best so far, for A. I’m finishing typing this on a Monday afternoon. This is our third day of successful potty catches and no accidents; day 1 & 2 being Thursday and Friday of last week. (As long as I’m comfortable with A running around naked all day!) This weekend just didn’t work since daddy was home and our routine was a little off. We’ll get there eventually though. I’ve given in on not using M&M’s for rewards, I’m just not bribing with them or mentioning them beforehand. Since I started out with those as a bribe, she remembers that, (smart cookie!), and once she has placed her contents in the potty her next words are “I wanna M-eh-N!”. Oh well, we’ll roll with it.
The best part of this laid back approach? I’m not continually enforcing ‘potty-sits’, no power struggles, no stressing about it, and the “victory” is hers to claim. ☺
We’re not there yet though. Not even close. I’m sure there’ll be more bumps along the way, but so far, I’m pretty satisfied with the no-pressure approach.
My initial thoughts going forward, once she masters the potty at home while naked is to next add panties, then the rest of her clothes. After that, we’ll take a few practice runs outside the house to my grandparents house, or Target, or the grocery store for awhile and hopefully we’ll have success and have built confidence. From there, I’m not sure. We’ll take it one day / trip at a time. ☺

Life Learning

Whenever I get around to getting all three of us out the door and to the library, we have a little routine. First we stop by the book drop to return books that we are finished with or are due. (If there’s a huge stack, I go through the drive-through return so I don’t have to lug a whole armload or bagful of books into the building along with L in the carrier and A pulling at my arm and trying to run off every which way.) Then, if I’m up to it, go by 2 or 3 certain sections, browse quickly, and pick a couple before A runs around to another aisle on the other side and peeks at me inbetween the books, giggling and squealing at her own little game of hide & seek, in the quiet library, no less. (A new ‘rule’ I instated is that she has to stay by mom if we’re going to stay and play with toys in the children’s dept.) Anyways, one of the sections I usually visit is the section with Education and Homeschooling books, usually around Dewey # 371, and last week I checked out “Homeschooling and the Voyage of Self-Discovery” by David Albert , which seems so far, (I’m on page 40 out of 253) to be a collection of essays that he’s written as a homeschooling dad, which has me thinking on education in general and my education and whatnot. I’ve also come across a couple email group posts in the past couple weeks on the same subject recently. A couple years ago while perusing this same section in the library I picked up a couple books by John Holt who seems to be ‘the guy’ in this “school” (ha!) of thought called Unschooling, which says that children are programmed to naturally learn, and that putting them in a structured school situation is not always the best way for them to learn. Children learn an unimaginable amount of information before they even set foot in a structured classroom, and that rate of learning often comes to a screeching halt once they do. Understandably, ‘unschooling’ is not always the answer for every child or every family. Some kids will need the structure, some families can’t afford for a parent to stay home, etc. And I don’t know that it will be the right answer for our family either. However, what I love about the families I’ve read about is their love of learning, modeled by the parents, for the kids, and learning becomes life. Life is learning. Things and situations that are encountered every day, like a trip to the grocery store can be incredible learning experiences. No, subjects are not broken down into nice neat little compartments, but ‘subjects’ overlap in real life.

So, I guess what I’m pondering now, is that “homeschool” doesn’t have to mean “school-at-home”, but homeschooling can give the freedom for kids to live a life that is all about learning.