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? About Potty training at an older age and school issues



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 26th 04, 10:17 PM
Christine Chase
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Default ? About Potty training at an older age and school issues

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."

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...

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), 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).

Thanks for your replies,
Chris

  #2  
Old November 27th 04, 03:32 AM
Kevin Karplus
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In article , Christine Chase wrote:
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."


Not potty trained at 3.5 years is not unusual. Don't sweat it.

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...


Unless there is a physical disability or a serious mental problem, you
should be out of the diaper business before age 6, and probably before 5.
Most public schools do require kindergartners to be potty trained,
though the evidence at the school my son went to was that some of the
boys were trained to go to the bathroom, but not necessarily to go in
the toilet. In kindergarten, my son refused to use the toilets at
school and simply held his pee until he got home (an easy task for
him, since it was only a half-day kindergarten, and he'd gotten in
the habit of refusing to use the the toilet at the full-day preschool).

------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Senior member, IEEE Board of Directors, ISCB (starting Jan 2005)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.

  #3  
Old November 27th 04, 05:33 PM
Penny Gaines
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Default

Christine Chase wrote in :

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), 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).


Silly question, but aren't you planning on ever pushing it? Have you ever
mentioned underwear or whatever to her?

I do know one girl (now a teenager) whose mother only started potty
training when the child start changing her own diapers. I don't know
what age she was at the time.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three

  #4  
Old November 27th 04, 06:14 PM
dragonlady
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Default



Christine Chase wrote in :

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), 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 think you are borrowing trouble. I don't know of any kid who doesn't
have medical problems going beyond about 4-1/2 to decide to start using
the toilet.

And if I DID have a child who was 4-1/2 or so and still not using the
toilet, I'd probably find a way to force the issue -- like telling them
that kids that age have to handle their own diapers if they are still
using them.

She's probably old enough to have a conversation about using the toilet.
What does SHE say about it?
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

  #5  
Old November 27th 04, 09:21 PM
Christine Chase
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Default

We've had some good talks about the toilet. Basically, she is just scared
of the potty and not ready to use it. She sets goals for herself to be
ready, but they always pass and she is not ready yet. Her current goal is
"when sissy gets here" (I am 8 mos pregnant). We'll see...

At 2.5 she showed the typical signs of readiness, so we let her pick out and
decorate little potties for the bathrooms, as well as inserts and stepstools
for the big toilets, so she'd have a choice of either. We read her pottying
books, took her to pick out big girl Princess panties, bought a big
dollhouse that we made a star chart for her to "earn" playtime with, yada
yada yada... I wouldn't say we "pushed" toileting on her, but we definitely
presented it positively and as something fun and rewarding for her to start
doing.

Right from the start, she did not want to sit on either the potties or the
toilets - she was scared of both. I've always modeled toileting for her,
and we've also had her little friends model for her too, but she does not
transfer the positive experience that others have on the potty to something
that would be positive for her. She loves to run around naked, but only if
she can hold a diaper in her hand, and the second she gets that urge, on
goes the diaper (she knows how to put one on herself).

She has complete control over this, but I don't see that as a terrible
thing. A terrible thing would be to disallow her to wear diapers, or force
her to sit on the potty, when she is terrified of both. The last thing I
want to do is turn toileting into something traumatizing - it just shouldn't
be like that. For whatever reason, she is afraid, and I respect her fear.
She used to be afraid of slides... Now she loves them. She used to be
afraid of "bouncy houses"... Now she loves them. I would no sooner force a
crying, shaking 3 yr old onto a potty than I would force a crying, shaking 3
yr old down a slide or into a bouncy house - that is cruel. Eventually
she'll come around about the potty too, but in her own time.

The upside is that she does pretty much handle the diapers on her own, she
can do the pees all by herself, and only needs me for clean-up on the poops.
She even "pays" for the diapers ! She gets a quarter a day for chores,
which she used to save up to buy a new book every couple weeks, but we
explained how expensive diapers are and that she'd have to either help us
out with the cost or give diapers up. Needless to say, diapers beat out new
books. I must say, I admire her resolve !

Christine



On 11/27/04 9:14 AM, in article
, "dragonlady"
wrote:



Christine Chase wrote in :

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), 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 think you are borrowing trouble. I don't know of any kid who doesn't
have medical problems going beyond about 4-1/2 to decide to start using
the toilet.

And if I DID have a child who was 4-1/2 or so and still not using the
toilet, I'd probably find a way to force the issue -- like telling them
that kids that age have to handle their own diapers if they are still
using them.

She's probably old enough to have a conversation about using the toilet.
What does SHE say about it?


  #6  
Old November 29th 04, 07:06 PM
Claire Petersky
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Posts: n/a
Default

"Christine Chase" wrote in message
...
Among
our circle of contacts, I've never heard of any child older than 5

requiring
day diapers


On the potty training mailing list I used to belong to, there were plenty of
kids older than 5 -- but they generally had other, underlying issues.

My daughter was completely off of diapers the day she turned four, mainly
because we lowered the boom on her. It's really ok to do, if you're sick of
diapers. I certainly was.


--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
please substitute yahoo for mousepotato to reply
Home of the meditative cyclist:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cpetersky/Welcome.htm
Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

  #7  
Old November 29th 04, 09:30 PM
Beth Gallagher
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Default


"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

  #8  
Old December 1st 04, 10:32 PM
Mary Gordon
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I have three kids, and we never made them sit on the potty. A 3 1/2
year old is smart. You pick a date, circle it on the calendar, buy
them new underwear, and go cold turkey. They will figure it out. You
don't need to schedule potty sessions (total waste of time and way
more time and effort than this mom had patience for). Expect a fair
bit of laundry, but the very vast majority of kids your daughter's age
will "get" it within a few days.

That is not to say they will be dry at night, as that is a whole other
thing (its a function of physiological maturity and often takes much
longer than daytime dryness).

I would not let my kid be left behind in school or left out of
activities and play opportunities because of toileting issues. I think
you are confusing readiness and desire. There are lots of things kids
are quite capable of doing but don't necessarily WANT to do, including
picking up toys. Sometimes some low level parental direction is not
only needed, but a Good Thing for everyone in the bigger picture.

Mary G.

  #9  
Old December 2nd 04, 02:48 AM
Kevin Karplus
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Default

In article ,
Mary Gordon wrote:
That is not to say they will be dry at night, as that is a whole other
thing (its a function of physiological maturity and often takes much
longer than daytime dryness).


Don't assume that because a child is dry at night that they are
necessarily ready to give up diapers---my son had full control of his
bladder (including being dry at night) about a year before he stopped
having poop accidents.


------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Senior member, IEEE Board of Directors, ISCB (starting Jan 2005)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.

  #10  
Old December 3rd 04, 03:17 AM
Mary Gordon
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Default

Kevin Karplus wrote:

Don't assume that because a child is dry at night that they are
necessarily ready to give up diapers---my son had full control of his
bladder (including being dry at night) about a year before he stopped
having poop accidents.

Mary responds: Dunno how you got that out of what I said regarding
night time dryness. To recap what I said...night time dryness is
frequently a function of physiological maturity (i.e. the child making
sufficient vasopressin to dial down kidney function during the night,
so their bladder isn't filling to bursting while they are heavily
asleep).


Mary G.

 




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