Bronwyn asks: Genevieve, I'm at my wits end. My 3.5 year old has decided to just keep wetting her pants. She says she's too busy to go to the toilet and just takes her pants off to continue playing. She's not experiencing any negative consequence for wetting herself so she just doesn't care. We ask her regularly and she says no she doesn't want to go and then promptly wets herself.
If I threatened her with nappies (which I haven't) she'd probably be okay with that because she knows she could keep playing without worrying about the toilet. She only ever asks to go to the toilet when it's poo. I guess it's just my frustration around her choosing consciously to go in her pants. She knows she won't get in trouble and can just go and get another pair of pants. She knows she's supposed to use the toilet. She'll ask to be taken to the toilet for wee if we're out and about but at home she just doesn't care. I'm over the washing and wet patches on my carpet. What am I missing?
Genevieve's response:
Bronwyn, I hear and get how frustrating this is! The most important goal (and probably the hardest thing to achieve!) is to prevent the build up of stress that she might come to associate with using the toilet. Easier said than done I know! That means working hard to maintain a happy go lucky positive attitude even though inside you're stressing about the carpet understandably! It's great that she's letting you know she needs to use the loo to do her poos and when she's out and about. You can be confident that she's going in the right direction and that wearing pull ups at home sometimes won't take her backwards. As hard as it can be, try to avoid comparing her progress with other kids as we parents can drive ourselves nuts when we do that (not saying that you do of course!).
When my daughter was going through the transition, it worked very well to ask her on a particular morning if she wanted to wear undies or a pull up on that day. That conversation seemed to help her both have more autonomy around it as well as increasing her awareness. She nearly always chose undies, but sometimes she chose the pull ups and I could mostly see that they were the days when she had a bit less energy, hadn't slept as well, was fighting a cold, had been out and about too much or whatever.
Once again, the big challenge is to avoid getting into a power struggle because that's when children can disconnect from their instincts and the stress response kicks in.
This isn't where you're at, but just for insight I'll share with you that I've had quite a few parents over the years who have contacted me seeking help because very big difficulties had arisen around toileting. Often there had been an ongoing battle with a huge amount of conflict for quite a long time. Sometimes, the child would run and hide behind the curtains or in the wardrobe and poo in their undies. Or in very extreme cases, the child would deliberately poo on the floor of their room and then smear the poo. And sometimes the battles have gone on for years. In every case (so far at least) I've been able to help the parents to turn the issue around and the strategies always always involve taking the charge and the conflicts out of the subject, bringing in more connection, more laughter (that's a biggie!), more lightness. Children can get stuck when a certain habit becomes associated with the parent becoming exasperated and the child gets stuck in the pattern of going straight into the stress response, they lose access to their higher thinking brain and their natural instincts can become thwarted.
Your situation is much more in the normal struggles relating to toileting at this age and stage. I'm hoping that in sharing something about the process of positive change in situations where the child has become very much stuck and the natural development has been thwarted that it will help you feel confident that your child's development will continue in a positive direction if you can work hard to maintain a very positive and light atmosphere around it.
As hard as it is to maintain, the perspective of assuming that our child is doing their best really does help us to stay in our adult and to take responsibility for our frustration. When that frustration starts seeping out, sadly we tend to make the situation much worse because we put our child into the stress response which disconnects them from those healthy instincts (to listen to their body re toilet, food, sleep etc etc).
Bronwyn responded: Gah crap you're right Genevieve (of course). I forgot to remember she's doing her best. Thanks for the reminder. I'll own my frustration. Thanks again.
This is a great little clip to help us remember that she just doesn't have enough wiring in the brain yet to get all those connections that we can't help but desperately want them to get - including empathy and consideration of sister's or parent's perspective;
This is a great little clip to help us remember that she just doesn't have enough wiring in the brain yet to get all those connections that we can't help but desperately want them to get - including empathy and consideration of sister's or parent's perspective;
Hi Genevieve
Would you suggest the same sort of approach for a 3yo that is still very attached to her comforter and pacifier – just a relaxed approach to talking about giving them up at some point but no stress or forced transition?
Natalie
Hi Natalie, definitely suggest applying very similar principles with her attachment to her pacifier. If you can find a way to bring some humour into it that can really help a lot. There’s more I’d like to add Natalie. Would you be ok to either copy your question into the main forum, or I can copy it in on your behalf?