"Christine Chase"
Hello,

With Thanksgiving being yesterday, somehow the BIG TOPIC of the day among
all our relatives was why our 3.5 yr old daughter isn't potty trained, and
my what a travesty it is that we are such lazy parents, how she "runs the
show" in our house, and boy, aren't we going to have fun with her when she
is 15. Blah, blah blah... My and DH's response to all this is simply
"MYOB, she'll use the potty when she feels like it." Another comment we
tend to throw out is that, "Nobody graduates highschool in diapers."


How obnoxious of your relatives.

However, we did get some mouthy relations asking us, "well, just how long
DO
you intend to change her diapers? 3rd grade, 6th grade, 9th grade?"
Among
our circle of contacts, I've never heard of any child older than 5
requiring
day diapers (I have a few friends of 2nd/3rd graders that still wear night
diapers). If I have to change her diapers til she's 5 or 6, I don't care.
The only concern I have is that her future public elementary school won't
change her diapers in kindergarten, so she may not be able to start that
school with her friends, but would hopefully be able to join them in 1st
or
2nd grade...

OK, now I shift to the side of the mouthy relation. I think "before K"
should be a sort of hard-and-fast potty training rule. My oldest was pretty
old when he "trained" -- and that's in quotes because when you wait until
they're as old as he was (just about 4), they don't need to "train," they
just need to do it.

For me, it became a discipline issue. I knew he could use the toilet and
that he chose not to and I felt he should. At 9, the attitude of "don't
interrupt me for ANY reason; I'm too busy doing my own thing" still reigns.
I decided I would not have a 4 YO in diapers and I warned him about that
fact for a few months, and then one Friday afternoon about 2 months before
his 4th birthday (with much pre-warning), when he came home from preschool,
I made him (yes, I made him) put on undies. He peed in them. He peed in the
next pair. He pooped in another pair that night. He saw my shock and horror;
he shared in it by helping me clean the poop off the undies. And that was
that (for daytime): end of diapers.

I would have issues changing the diapers of a big 5 YO kid. Why should I? We
use toilets in our culture. 5 YO poops are too big and gross for diapers,
IMO, unless the poor person has an impairment preventing him/her from using
the toilet system that our forebears were good enough to invent for us. And
what will happen on playdates? You wouldn't expect a friend's parent to
change the diaper of a 5 YO, would you?

It's never occurred to us that we may be changing diapers for a child
older
than 6, but I'd thought I'd ask if that has been anyone's experience, and
if
so, how did you handle the school situation? I know of several private
Pre-K programs and even one 1st-3rd grade program that will change diapers
(it is rather expensive, unfortunately),

REALLY?! Are you sure this isn't done only for kids who *cannot* manage the
toilet?

but no programs for 4th grade and
up that will change diapers. My assumption is that by 4th grade, non PT
kids are pretty unheard of (kids without physical/mental challenges, let
me
clarify).

I suspect it's more like 1st grade. I bet there's regularly a small number
of K'ers in any school who will sometimes wear diapers -- just to catch
accidents or because of the fairly common "poop withholding" problem that
results not so much in actually using diapers for pooping but in messy
half-accidents that are easier to clean up if they happen in a diaper. Beth