Potty Training Power Struggle

Disclaimer: I am going to write this whole blog post about what is apparently a subject that is unmentionable in a public setting like this. But it's my blog, so I guess if a public discussion of potty training offends you, or bores you, stop reading now.

I am in the middle of a power struggle. It's a power struggle that I have pretty much avoided for nearly 17 years. And it's not my fault. (I don't think it is, anyway.)

Anna is attempting to potty train. Well, attempting if you mean wearing underwear and changing her clothes a lot. But if you mean actually going potty on the toilet, then she's hit and miss with the whole thing. Now that I think about it, maybe she's just making a fashion statement.

I am the mother of seven successfully potty-trained children (well, unless you count Jeffrey, who still struggles with accidents, but he is only 5 and he does have a bladder that gets about twice as big as it should and apparently doesn't feel that painful urge to go that the rest of us have. So I don't think that counts.)

My usual potty training approach is to wait until they beg me to wear underwear for a while. Then we only attempt it if they have some immediate success. Or we bribe them. One of those two approaches has worked every time all these years.

But Anna keeps changing her mind. She begs me to wear underwear, but when it comes time to actually go potty, she refuses to go and begs to have her diaper back about half the time at least. But it goes against my motherly instinct to have a daughter tell me she's going pee while she's wearing a diaper. Or, at the very least, it goes again my penny-pincher instincts.

To illustrate the struggle we are having, let me describe a situation that happened at a basketball game the other day. For some crazy reason, we let Anna wear underpants in public. (So basically we were asking for trouble.) Rich assured me that she had gone potty just before we left, and the game was only an hour or so, so I figured we were okay. But then Anna announced that she had to go potty during half-time.

My first mistake was letting her go into the stall alone. My second mistake was letting her go into the handicapped stall. She immediately locked the door. I told her to go potty on her own while I went in the stall next door. She proceeded to dance about the big open space while singing to herself.

After I had washed and dried my hands, she was still dancing around. I peeked under the door to encourage her to please go potty. She shouted "Don't look!" Just then, two women entered the bathroom. Anna was still shouting "Don't look! Don't look!" at the top of her lungs. One of the women gave me a shocked look.

"She wants her privacy," I told the woman sheepishly.

By the time both women finished washing and drying their hands, Anna was still dancing about and I was done waiting. I jimmied the lock, marched in and forced her to sit on the potty for about half a second until she announced, "I'm done." Grrrrrr......

I gave her a lecture as we washed her hands and went back in to the game, having missed half of the 3rd quarter.

I keep threatening to take away potty training rights. I keep threatening to keep her in diapers until she proves she is serious.

Of course, we have tried bribery--I have a whole pack of bubble gum stashed away and we have offered every prize we can think of--but that also only works when she's in the mood, and never long enough to actually earn the prize.

Yep, she's a tough one.

Over the years, the advice I would give a mother like me is to 'Wait until she is ready' and 'You can't rush these things.' But I'm not buying it now that I am the one that needs the advice. We are talking about being done with diapers! I can see the finish line. Can't we just sprint to the finish?!

No, you can't. Not when you're dealing with a stubborn 3-year-old.