Sometimes you just have to admit when you're wrong.I really wanted to do the potty training boot camp last week for a couple of different reasons. First, because Barb sent that video she mentioned and it all made so much sense; second due to the increasing cost of diapers; but third because I got some disapproving comments from another parent at the park last week about Gwen still wearing the diapers. I'm ashamed now to admit it, but it is that last reason that really drove it.
So, I decided that, starting on last Thursday morning we would get up and put Gwen in underwear instead of diapers. Then, if she messed in her pants she would have to do the following all by herself:
- Take paper towel, get down on her hands and knees and clean up the pee/poop (depositing poop in the toilet herself if needed)
- Go into the bathroom, remove her soiled clothes and clean her self off
- Go to her bedroom and put on clean clothes
- Come back out and do it all again in 15 minutes
It didn't work on Thursday so we tried again on Friday. Both days she peed all over our house. Upstairs and downstairs. On hardwood floors and on rugs. 15-20 times a day.
By the end of each day I was experiencing Hulk-like rages. I totally lost my mind. Each day when Barb got home from work I left immediately to either go to the movies or to game at Steve's. I like to think that I'm normally a fairly laid back person, but on these days I didn't even recognize myself.
And how was Gwen? Exactly the same as always. She didn't react to the potty training routine and she didn't react to my hugely increased level of frustration. She took it all in with zen-like grace. But she refused to pee on the toilet. I told Steve about this on Friday night and he said: "Damn, Gwen's a bad ass!" And he's right. She is a bad ass!
In the end it stopped seeming like I was trying to potty training her and more like I was trying to break her will, or her spirit. In the end I had to admit that it not only wasn't working, but also that this whole thing was violating every principle of parenting I hold dear. And the process was turning me into a horrible father so on Friday night we put the diapers back on. Gwen actually seemed a bit disappointed by that. She wanted to keep wearing her underwear, even if it meant scrubbing her own piss off the floor.
What can I say? My little girl is a f@$%ing bad ass!
5 comments:
Have you tried bribery? =) I used M&M's, it worked like a charm. By the way, I think this is a very typical age at which to potty train and I know kids who were close to 4 before they used the toilet. But if you want to get it over with, my suggestion is (with apologies to Alfie Kohn): use candy!
Candy ended up working for Simon, but he was almost 4 when it took.
We've tried bribing Gwen with candy, money and even toys. We've promised her a "big girl princess bicycle" when she learns to use the toilet. She talks about that bike all the time and how she can't wait to get it. But, when I ask her if she wants to use the potty now so she can get her bike, she says "no".
Apparently we've been talking about the subject too much. Yesterday we asked her if she wanted to go on the potty and she said: "ask me again in three days."
Some day.... some day... :)
Haha!
I laughed so much when I read this, tears came to my eyes. Good for Gwen! She knows when the time is ripe, and it is not now!
When I was a kid, we lived on the edge of town, right next to a farm. It seemed every day, the farmer would be riding that wonderful tractor up and down, and I would stand by the fence watching him.
One day, he stopped, and asked me if I wanted to ride on his tractor. I can still FEEL how much I wanted to. BUT, he said, I could only ride if he could call me Sandra (I am of the male persuasion). Nope, I said. No Sandra. Several times he stopped to ask me. NO. GO.
I was about four and a half at the time.
I still wonder what it would have felt like to ride on that tractor!
LOL... that's very strange. A man you didn't know offered you a ride on his tractor, but only if you let him call you "Sandra".
I think you're very lucky you didn't get on that tractor! :)
But, you're right... Gwen's just not ready yet. She keeps teasing me, though. The last few days, whenever I change her diaper she says: "I'm getting too big for this." AARRRGGGHHH!!!
That's funny. I never thought of the light my comment would cast him in. It does make him look a little weird, given today's "every kindness spells probable perversion" cultural climate. I guess I should have explained a little more: The farmer was not a stranger, but an acquaintance/neighbour of my parents. He had heard them tell how I would have been called Sandra if I was a boy. (This was before ultrasound use in prenatal care).
If anything, I think it was his way of getting out of having to deal with a squirmy kid on a tractor, which was quite dangerous.
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