Abusive Potty Training!?

[Mama Mia]

The main problem with Head Start IMO, and one of my kids went, is that the hours are not at all conducive to working. It's usually 3 hours a day 4 days a week, so very difficult to utilize if you have a job. They do have some full day programs aimed at specific populations, but mostly it's an awkward slice of time. Otherwise it's generally great. A little bit of the usual condescension towards anyone low-income, but a good pre-school experience, and with lots of added resources if the family needs them.

[Hane]

My baby sister (12 years younger than I am, 7 years younger than our middle sister) self-potty-trained herself completely by the time she was 14 months old--not that anyone was pushing her to, but because she just imitated her big sisters. I once babysat another tot that age who had already trained herself.

My poor little sister caught a bad strep throat at about 18 months and was too weak to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. She was MORTIFIED when my mother put a diaper on her.

Kids are essentially all over the continuum when it comes to toilet training--most of them will start when they're ready.

[dawbs]

The main problem with Head Start IMO, and one of my kids went, is that the hours are not at all conducive to working. It's usually 3 hours a day 4 days a week, so very difficult to utilize if you have a job. They do have some full day programs aimed at specific populations, but mostly it's an awkward slice of time. Otherwise it's generally great. A little bit of the usual condescension towards anyone low-income, but a good pre-school experience, and with lots of added resources if the family needs them.

Ain't that the truth?

There isn't a SINGLE school-system answer for young 5's, preschool/headstart/ ANYTHING in the 3 counties I can get my child into that isn't absurdly awful for people with things like *jobs*

(hence why, as of next week, we're paying through the nose for private preschool)

[Jilli]

Ain't that the truth?

There isn't a SINGLE school-system answer for young 5's, preschool/headstart/ ANYTHING in the 3 counties I can get my child into that isn't absurdly awful for people with things like *jobs*

(hence why, as of next week, we're paying through the nose for private preschool)

Oh that sucks. I remember even when I went it had really bad hours if you didn't have a stay at home parent or a daycare provider.

[nomoxian]

I don't think shaming the kid is a good way to teach/train them, but the other points - praise for success, repetition and creating muscle memory - are great tools. If a kid makes a mess, they should take responsibility and clean it up, with help from Mommy if necessary; and I'd say this would be the kind of mess Mom should help out with!

Like some other people said, I was expecting something to do with plumbing line when I read the "ABUSIVE potty training" bit. Other than telling the kid off for pissing their pants, I would totally use this method (Maybe it's better that I'm not having kids?!)

[momof2treasures]

They are making the kid repeatedly pull up and down wet pants. Making them run to the potty back and forth. Shaming them the whole time. The pulling up of wet cold pants x 10 is purely to make them uncomfortable. It's so negative and it makes me feel so sad to picture them doing this to a kid with Down's syndrome. A kid who is struggling along developmentally and physically. Potty training can be a long, complicated process for kids with delays so I'd imagine this would be going on for awhile. A typical kid maybe faster but it's still so negative and cruel for any kid imo.

[ariel9]

Oh my are people really so bored they have to haze their kids?

[FJismyheadship]

I'm still totally against forcing a child under 2 to stand at a potty for an hour. In also completely against giving one soda. My aunt gave my daughter diet coke. She kept doing it even after I told her to stop. My daughter wasn't even a year old yet. Then later while I ran a bath, she put diet coke in her sippy cup. She said "She was just so thirsty!" Umm so give her juice or water! Guess who didn't stay up all night with the baby. Yep, my aunt. Mu grandmother and I did everything we could to get that poor child to sleep.

[LeopardLady]

Sorry, I don't explain it well :/

This is a class (Toute Petite Section) which is not available in all kindergartens (most start at 2 and a half years / 3 years with the Petite Section). It has a LOT of requests. Children whose both parents do not speak French and are not in a daycare have priority to help them to learn French (there is a lot of immigrants in this part of the city) . There is two class of 30 children, but more of 100 requets. So, to choose wich children will be accepted or not, the teacher ask the children to be out of diapers the day (it's okay for the nap). School begins at 8h30 and finish at 4h30, but the children can go from 7h00 to 6h30 (for the parents who works). School the afternoon is optionnal. The school also proposed a free meeting with a psychologist, a speech therapist, and a teacher specialist in disability. There's one social assistance who work full time in the school. The goal is to help children who would have been disadvantaged later in school by poverty, parental illiteracy, disability, etc. ...

I'm just wondering if their keeping out exactly the kind of students they are trying to help by insisting on potty training as a requirement. Children with developmental disabilities or parents that don't have time to spend educating their child at home would both be less likely to be potty trained, right?

[Feberin]

I find this topic very timely since I'm currently potty training my daughter. She's only just turned two but clearly ready since she has been requesting to use the potty frequently with several successes. We haven't dropped diapers yet but I'm planning on focusing on it the week my son is at camp, which is just over a week away and this morning we've had her underwear with no accidents so far.

I think the shaming is very wrong but I'm not sure the making them sit for awhile is necessarily abusive. My daughter spent over an hour a couple days ago sitting on the potty looking at books and rolling a ball back and forth with me. I offered several times for her to get up and put a diaper on but she refused. I don't think it's abusive to let my daughter do what she chooses to do even if that means sitting on her potty for a really long time. In the end I forced her off because it was naptime and put a diaper on her while she screamed. That was probably more abusive then the hour leading up to it. But the shaming, that's just so wrong. We praise for successes and more or less ignore failures.

[FJismyheadship]

I don't think the child staying on the potty if thats their choice is abusive either. I thought it was abusive to fill the child up with DR. PEPPER and juice and then FORCE the child to stand in front of the toilet for an hour was abusive.

If my daughter wants to sit ont he potty and read a book, I let her. But I would never fill her up with sugar and caffiene and then expect her to stay put.

I ignore the failures and praise successes too. She hasn't quite got timing down yet. My babysitter (who isn't my babysitter anymore) would SPANK my daughter for peeing in the diaper as soon as she came off the potty, after making her sit on the potty without a seat for the child or anything for thirty minutes. She wanted to get off, and she made her sit there until she went potty.

[Micah]

My son wasn't 'trained' until he was about 3 1/2. I got heaps of flack from the inlaws about it, but I refused to push the issue. I brought him a potty, told him what it was for and left it at that, beyond a gentle, "Do you want to use the potty?" every now and then. He ignored it for months. Then, one day, he just pulled off his pullup, used the potty and didn't look back. He was still in night nappies for about a year, but completely dry during the day.

On the other end, a girl at my Mum's group wanted her son trained by two because she was "sick of dealing with nappies." She put heaps of pressure on him, some borderline abusive IMO. Everyone, including the social worker who ran the group, told her she was asking for trouble. In the end the poor kid became so stressed he started going to the toilet behind couches, the curtains, in his toybox, etc. When he got in trouble for THAT, he started becoming hysterical every time he needed to go. He's turning five now and she STILL has trouble with him. I only have sympathy for the kid.

[Mama Mia]

I don't think the child staying on the potty if thats their choice is abusive either. I thought it was abusive to fill the child up with DR. PEPPER and juice and then FORCE the child to stand in front of the toilet for an hour was abusive.

If my daughter wants to sit ont he potty and read a book, I let her. But I would never fill her up with sugar and caffiene and then expect her to stay put.

I ignore the failures and praise successes too. She hasn't quite got timing down yet. My babysitter (who isn't my babysitter anymore) would SPANK my daughter for peeing in the diaper as soon as she came off the potty, after making her sit on the potty without a seat for the child or anything for thirty minutes. She wanted to get off, and she made her sit there until she went potty.

I don't know about the laws in your state, or if your sitter is just a casual hire, but if she runs a family day care home in my state her behavior would be illegal. You might want to look into it.

It's funny, my daughter was just telling me today that her 2 year old has realized that saying he has to go potty is the magic ticket for getting out of anything he doesn't want to do. She realized every time she'd tell him it was time for bed, or to put away his toys or stop watching t.v. Or hitting his sister -- or anything he didn't like at that moment, he'd run in to the bathroom cause he suddenly had to pee and everyone would tell him how great it was :lol: kids are funny.

[FJismyheadship]

She does watch several other kids, but most of them are pro spanking and are okay with it. She doesnt watch enough kids at any given time to be considered a day care and have licenses and stuff. I'm the only one who doesn't want my kids butt tore up every time she does something deemed ON PURPOSE. She just basically watches relatives and one other kid that isn't bioloigically hers. I know her from church, and when my daughter was younger I was okay with her. Now as my daughter gets older, we continue to disagree on how to handle the discipline. She says my daughter won't listen to me if I don't spank her. Honestly, my daughter gets her feelings hurt being told No. Her dad is pro spanking, but right now all he has to do is say NO and she will stop. She will cry, but she stops whatever it was she wasn't supposed to do.