How in the World are We Supposed to Find our Way?

I've started putting Vin on the potty and we've had a few success's here and there but mostly a lot of messes. So what? I don't care about the messes because I figure the earlier we start the better.

Maybe he won't train for six months or longer. It doesn't matter. There's no pressure. Just a little white potty chair, lots of book reading, and talk of pee pee and the like. So far he digs it. He "goes" on the potty several times a day and last week he communicated twice he had to go and then went on the potty. Today I picked up a few books from the library to get an idea on what the next steps of training should be. I got through the intro of two books and was bombarded by more child led parenting philosophy stuff. Then I looked on the Internet - more of the same.

Those of you who were potty trained under 28 months did you know you have deep psychological wounds from you parents training you before you are ready? Did you know you harbor deep seated embarrassment and negative feelings regarding the potty and all the related functions? Well, you do and in order to avoid passing these horrible wounds on to your children you should wait until they are fully ready to potty train.

I was trained by 18 months and I guess it's a miracle I can "go" today without crying from all the horrible potty training memories. I think it's all hooey. I personally don't care if a parent wants to wait until their child walks up and taps them on the shoulder and says "Excuse me Mom/Dad but I would like to be potty trained now." But please stop telling me I'm an insensitive parent because I place my 17 month on the potty chair.

I attended a seminar a few months ago on Child Led Parenting. In a nutshell the theory is, is that we need to be empathetic when our children throw tantrums or disobey. When they throw a tantrum the procedure is to get down on their level and speak in Toddlerease until they understand that we understand their frustration. Once they realize we are on their side they tantrum will stop and all will be well in toddler world.

The speaker at the seminar actually demonstrated the procedure for us on a toddler size doll. "YOU WANT CANDY!" "YOU WANT CANDY NOW!" "YOU WANT!" "YOU WANT!"
YOU WANT CANDY!" She went on and on hollering at the doll demonstrating her superb empathy and understanding of toddler behavior. She gave example after example of how our timeouts and discipline of tantrums and other poor behavior is squishing our children and ruining them for years to come. And spanking? Well, that's just outright abuse.

I don't know much about parenting with so little experience behind me but something just doesn't seem right about that, though I did try it once and Vin just screamed louder. So yes, we used the horrible "cry-it-out" method to teach Vin how to teach himself to fall asleep, we took away his paci at eight months, his bottle at eleven, we use timeouts and in cases of egregious disobedience we spank. Now we further our torture with potty training. At least Vin will have plenty to talk to his therapist about.