Advice from a Mental Health Professional: How to Potty Train Your Child!

Does potty training leave you feeling frustrated? Just as with using a spoon or drinking from a cup, using the toilet is simply a “skill behavior”- nothing more and nothing less. However, because of the unpleasant aspects that go along with toileting, teaching this particular skill-behavior is often steeped with emotion, and as such, teaching can digress into a relationship damaging interaction.

When teaching a child a new skill it is important to keep a couple of things in mind. Firstly, one of the most powerful ways that all living organisms learn is through the use of reinforcers. Organisms tend to obey the law of “what’s in it for me?” What this means for the parent is that any behavior you want to occur more often, in this case using the toilet, needs to be reinforced with something that the child considers valuable- a reward. Reinforcers can take many different forms such as praise, a sticker, or a special treat. Often times, parents in my therapy office confuse a reinforcer with a bribe. Reinforcers are not bribes. A reinforce is something that is earned-much like an adult earns a paycheck for going to work. Furthermore, a reinforcer is offered up front, proactively, as something that can be earned. A bribe on the other hand is usually offered during the course of bad behavior (e.g., “I’ll give you this candy if you stop crying.”).

Secondly, parents will do well to keep in mind that children grow from their strengths, not their weaknesses. This means that intense praise and reinforcement needs to be given to a child who makes even a basic attempt at using the toilet, whereas less intensity needs to be applied when the child fails to apply appropriate toileting behavior. I know, this seems counterintuitive, but hey folks, it’s science! Therefore, a basic “potty intervention” would look something like the following:

Mommy will make a sticker chart with twenty to thirty 2X2 inch squares on it, draw or paste a picture of the potty chair on the chart, and hang the chart on the wall behind the child’s potty chair. Mommy will then explain, upfront, that each time the child goes potty in the potty chair, he or she will get a sticker in one of the squares on the chart. The parent can then watch the child throughout the day and take the child to the potty chair every hour or so to attempt to potty. Eventually the child will have success! At this point, mommy can become intensely excited, praise the child, call relatives and brag, and even save the “product” to show daddy when he comes home from work. All of this adds up to big-time reinforcing for the child! It should also be noted that when the child fails to fulfill the expectation of using the potty chair, it is important that the parent react with low intensity. Teach the child that their personal power lies in doing the “right” thing! Good luck!