New Year's Resolution: Potty Time!

The new year is upon us and, if you’re like me, your mind out of habit is gravitating toward “New Year’s Resolutions.” (It’s a given that two of mine will be to exercise more and eat less—and this year I mean it!)

But as I let my mind drift back, it returns to a New Years over 20 years ago—1988 to be exact--when my son, Kai, was 2 ½ and I was facing (no, dreading!) the challenge of potty training. I had been asked by my mother-in-law over Christmas why he wasn’t trained yet and I told her he “wasn’t ready” and that my pediatrician had assured me that Kai would let me know when the time was right. But darn it, he seemed perfectly content to let things continue as they were! The problem with this was that I needed to enroll him in a new child care program more convenient to the university where I taught and they wouldn’t let him in unless he was out of diapers.

So, I made a New Year’s Resolution to start in the Spring. Ready or not, here I come—with the potty! By that time he was closing in on 3 and really not interested in wasting time using the potty when he could be playing and just using his diaper as he had been doing for the past 30 months. Problem was that the child care enrollment deadline was looming and he simply had to get trained!

Fortunately, the passage of time has dimmed my memory of the struggles that ensued (and there were struggles)—with one exception. I remember vividly promising the director of the child care center that he was, indeed, trained—and then feigning surprise when they would inform me that he had had an accident again. “Oh, I’m sure it’s the stress of starting a new school,” I lied. I’m not proud of myself for lying to them, but, like many parents before and since, I was desperate!

Since that time I’ve learned a lot about potty training, enough in fact, to feel comfortable writing about a book about it and creating a whole program designed to make it easier for parent and child alike. In the next few postings I’ll talk about some of the most important lessons I’ve learned in the hope that it will help some of you out there to make good on your own New Year’s “Potty Time” Resolution.

Happy Signing!

Linda

Co-Founder, the Baby Signs Program

and

Professor Emeritus, UC Davis

Make Room for Dolls!

A few days ago I wrote about the “Truck” gene and how my 18-month-old grandson was totally “gaga” over trucks. Well, that’s still true, but there’s another side to the story that pleases me no end.

Before Christmas my daughter-in-law, Julie, decided to give Olivia, Nate’s twin sister, a baby stroller and baby doll. The more she thought about it, however, the more concerned she became over not doing the same for Nate. Her motivation was partly philosophical (not wanting to perpetuate gender stereotypes) and partly practical ( knowing how Nate and Olivia, fight over toys). Because of these concerns, and despite feeling a bit extravagant, she purchased an identical stroller and similar baby doll for Nate.

Turns out it was a good thing that she did. Although his two Christmas trucks still hold a special place in his heart, he is also enthusiastically tooling around the house with a baby doll (any will do) in his stroller! Not only that, but he was the first of the two children to put a doll to bed in the wooden toy cradle that my husband and I made for them and rock the cradle back and forth! Actually, it shouldn’t come as a complete surprise because the twins witness their dad, Jim, doing these kinds of things every single day with a smile on his face and obvious joy in his heart.

What lessons do I take from this? Here’s the first: Yes, both girls and boys may have a hierarchy for play, placing one type of toy at the very top (trucks for Nathan), but that doesn’t mean that they don’t also get pleasure out of others. Like adults, children are not one-dimensional. The second lesson is even more important: Especially if they see the males they love modeling such behavior, little boys who love trucks can also love nurturing children and see it as a natural activity than any girl or boy can truly enjoy.

Happy New Year!

Linda

Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.

Co-Founder, the Baby Signs Program

and

Professor Emeritus, UC Davis