Stay Curious About Behavior: A Potty Training Relapse
Something I always encourage is to STAY CURIOUS about behavior. Instead of judging it or saying, “what is their deal?“ we can question it. I wonder why ___. This is something at the very core of the thought, all behavior is communication. If we want to understand our child’s behavior we have to stay curious. This mom stayed curious about why her potty trained child started having accidents and came up with support to help him stop having them.
So in response to one of my online training, I had a mom reach out and share her experience.
The cliff notes version:
3 year old was completely potty trained
Started having accidents
Knew how to potty, but WHY was he having accidents?
Mother decided he must be missing the skills to be able to leave his play
Implemented a sign to put on his play to take a break and go potty!
Reduced accidents
Here’s what the mom said:
I love how you talked about finding the missing skill in challenging behavior. My 3 yr old son potty trained normally and was good with normal occasional accidents, but I'd say 99% potty trained. Then suddenly he just started going in his pants. He'd go a whole day in the toilet and then the next day have like 7 accidents then another week with no accidents, then a week where they were happening non-stop. Because nothing else changed (no trauma, we didn't move, or have a new baby or anything that you hear about where regression is expected) I came to the conclusion that sometimes he just didn't want to stop playing and go. So today, we made him a sign that says, "I'll be back" with a hand drawn picture of him walking to the toilet, and we talked about how sometimes it's hard to leave what your playing. I showed him how he can put the sign on his toys so the toys and his siblings know he will be right back to play.
A couple of things I observed from this comment.
She acknowledged some big traumas or changes that could potentially be a factor. Sometimes challenging behavior will amp up after a move or new sibling. While this wasn’t the case in her situation, I love that she did acknowledge it as a potential regression cause.
She stayed curious and came up with a hypothesis. Her thought process went, I wonder if he is having accidents because ___ and then she tried implementing support to test this hypothesis
Did it work?
“Worked like magic today!”
Thanks for helping me realize he was missing a skill. It took me a while, because I knew he knew the skill of how to go in the toilet. But he was missing the skill of how to leave play, when you just dont feel like it.
Did she automatically see his missing skills and take action? No! She struggled just like we all do as parents.
I feel so grateful for your account and your wisdom. Honestly I don't think I would have realized he was missing the skill unless I listened to your presentation. I was so incredibly frustrated with him and so sick of all the laundry and clean up and baths. I had kind of resorted to just putting him back in pull ups so I wouldn't go crazy. But then listening today I was like if he knows HOW to go in the toilet and he chooses to sometimes, why is he choosing not to at other times. I had kind of labeled him lazy in my mind, but had an epiphany today listening to you that he was missing the skill of not wanting to leave the activity
If you’re feeling stuck about your child’s difficult behavior, then STAY CURIOUS.
Ask yourself, “I wonder why they __“ and then hypothesize some potential reasons.
