Potty training got you stumped? 🚽 We're breaking down the basics in this episode! Learn to spot signs of readiness, explore different approaches (child-led vs. parent-led), and get tips for handling those inevitable bumps in the road. 🩲 Whether you're starting this summer or just gathering info, this episode is your go-to guide for potty training success!
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Potty training got you stumped? 🚽 We're breaking down the basics in this episode! Learn to spot signs of readiness, explore different approaches (child-led vs. parent-led), and get tips for handling those inevitable bumps in the road. 🩲 Whether you're starting this summer or just gathering info, this episode is your go-to guide for potty training success!
✨Join our Facebook Group for a community of like-minded individuals & to grab valuable FREE resources to save you time! ⬇️
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Caitlin Beltran: the family's like, Oh, he's not ready. He doesn't care about that when he's wet, he doesn't care about the bathroom. And in my mind, I'm like, that's a signal to me. We really have to start trying because those signs may never come.
Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorists Podcast. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Caitlin Beltran, here to bring you evidence based strategies with a student centered focus. Let's get started.
Caitlin Beltran: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Misfit Behaviorists. It's Caitlyn and Audra here. And just a reminder before we jump in to, if you haven't already, check us out on Instagram, same name, Misfit Behaviorist Podcast. And we also have a Facebook group where we pretty much, with every episode, drop a freebie or something cool in there for you.
So if you're looking for those freebies that we mentioned, that's where you can find it. But Audra, what are we talking about today?
Audra Jensen: We are going to do a two part episode on toilet training, which I know is everybody's favorite thing to talk about, especially as the beginning of the summer. And we were just talking before we started the recording that, we would probably do these two and then do a couple of other things throughout the summer and then maybe at the summer we would circle back and do another one before the school year because I know a lot of people have toilet training, potty training on the mind in the summer and all the times because it's such a big thing that we deal with both at home and at school and at clinic. So we are going to start to talk about toilet training today.
Caitlin Beltran: Totally. And I know we mentioned, I think in our last episode, when we talked about getting ready for summer, just like what a prime time it is to tackle toilet training or to start it just because you're wearing less clothing, your flexible schedule, potentially you're more flexible.So that's why we're saying we do have a lot of toileting goals coming up. I'm sure amongst all of ourselves.
Audra Jensen: Yeah. Toileting is kind of, it's kind of the bane of everybody's existence. I don't know why it's such a big thing, but it really is. it's the transition from this full dependence of somebody on everything that you do, this 100 percent dependence on somebody into some level of independence into, and it's also this amount of autonomy that we've talked about recently, right?
This amount of independence they have, this dignity that it gives to them. So this really is a big topic. It's also, you know getting out of the diaper stage is really nice and is so nice to be able to get out of that. And if you are in the clinical field or if you are a parent and you have to clean up the poopies of the older children, it changes from those cute little babies, especially when they're really little and they don't smell so bad and they're not so bad to clean up.
As they get older, it's not as fun and it's much more difficult to clean up and I have, over the years that I've been doing this, I have cleaned up some of the nastiest things you could ever imagine. And so the idea of being able to get somebody to be able to clean up after themselves, to be able to use the toilet on their own.
It's a big topic and it's an exciting topic. it's great for them. Like I said, it's a lot about dignity and autonomy and independence. And so it's a very exciting thing. And, and I had two kids that were very different. So I had one who's potty training was extensive. we, it was a, it was, yeah, I think it was about six years that it took to potty train him.
So it was a very long, extensive, battle at times, it's very difficult to get him to understand not only what to do, but to feel his body because he didn't have those sensations. It was hard for him to connect what was happening in his body because he didn't feel it. he didn't actually feel what was happening.
So that connection was difficult. And then the other one, she was two and a half and she's okay, I'm just going to do this from one day to the next. It was just like, it was really easy. So you're going to have kids who are very different. And so figuring out Each student, each child that you have at home is going to be very different.
So have you seen that in your own life? has it been different?
Caitlin Beltran: I think just for me, what came to mind was I had helped in toilet training so many kids for literally like 20 years. So when I had my own and he was of age, I was like, this is going to be no problem. like I am going to do all these things.
And I have to admit, even though I know, and I've told so many parents, like every child is different. What works for you might not work. I was like shocked when he was not fully toilet trained within 24 hours.But it just, it was such cool perspective to see it firsthand in addition to helping the families at school and the families I work with at home and really going through that process and we definitely started maybe a little too early because I was overconfident and then had to put a pause in it and then just like regroup a couple of weeks or months later and that second time was successful but
Audra Jensen: yeah. Yeah, I remember the one, we didn't start with him until he was at least three and a half or four because we knew not to start it too early because he, he just wasn't ready. He didn't have the language. He didn't have any understanding. But so we waited until three and a half or four.
And even then, I mean, we were going with the no pants and, you know, just, lots of liquid. Did the whole thing and I remember this one time and he was standing on a chair because he was still little standing on a chair doing something on a table and he started peeing right there and there was pee getting everywhere and he was just continuing to do his thing and he had no idea that it was even happening and I'm like dude there is pee coming out of you right now and it's everywhere he you just had no idea.
I mean, and it was just like this light bulb, like he can't even feel that it's coming out of his body. This was like this huge wake up call. And the thing for him, finally, it was, we started watching the videos of the thing that was interesting to him. I think it was Blues Clues at the time. He was super obsessed with Blues Clues or Bear in the Book, whatever it was.
And so he'd watched him obsessively cause that's what he did was and we had the little potties all over the house and we were doing the no pants thing and he was in the backyard and it'd been weeks or months. I don't know how long it'd been. I just had finally given up. It's never gonna happen. You know, I was going through it's never gonna happen. But he was outside and he had the little notebook and I remember he ran in And he sat down in one of the little potties, and I heard the sound, and he had the notebook, and it was like, da da da da da da da, or whatever the sound was, the Blue's Clue sound, and I was like, it happened, I couldn't believe it happened, it was like, and, you know, and from there, it still took, 4 years from there, but it still was like, it was huge.
And like I said, the other one, it was just like, we're going to Disneyland. And she was like, I don't want to wear diapers. And that was it. I was like, okay. Yeah.
Caitlin Beltran: It'd be nice if that was everybody.
Audra Jensen: No kidding.
Caitlin Beltran: Uh, I mean, that's it brings us into, I guess, our first topic of just those signs of readiness, and I know you hit on a couple like the sensation, but what do you think?
What do you share with families that are looking for okay, like, when are they ready? When is that magical time like they're ready?
Audra Jensen: Yeah, so all of the developmental milestones that we talk about are really, we talk about a lot of these with families and I always preface this with, we talk about these as like typically developing developmental milestones.
So all of these things we're going to talk about is like signs of readiness. I always caveat these with, in a perfect world, these are signs of readiness, because we've had to train lots of students who do not have any of these signs of readiness and sometimes we do have to do that so there's that caveat. Is we're gonna talk about quickly kind of these signs of readiness and there is that caveat that this may not be your child anyway. But signs of readiness typically are developmental milestones are like bladder control, that awareness that they're wet or they're dry. They don't like to be soiled. They don't like to have that wet diaper, that heavy filling in the diaper. They have the ability to pull up or down their pants, they have the ability to take off their own clothing.
they're longer. They can, sometimes they're dry in the mornings, you start to catch that so that longer periods in between those, so kind of those physical signs that they're able to hold it longer. And I've seen a lot of them, just that kind of discomfort of being, in wet pants.
So that's one of kind of those physical signs is the first thing that I look for.
Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, and then you mentioned it already, but just having that interest, right? Like I've seen a lot of times like more of the behavioral signs of oh what's going on in there? What's dad doing behind the door or something like that and just pointing to it or even saying peepee potty or anything if there's an older sibling in the house. Just observing and us observing them watching it and thinking I go some wheels are turning.
Audra Jensen: Yeah, Yeah, and when I see that I see Kids who are doing that. I really encourage families or, I mean you can't really do this at school, but I encourage families to not be shy in the bathroom. To really let those kids watch Dad go to the bathroom. It's really okay. Even girls watch Dad go to the bathroom and girls watch moms go to the, or boys watch moms go.
They need to see that it's really okay to see private parts and stuff and to watch the process.
Caitlin Beltran: It's like to take the shame out of it. Right? Please, like this is a natural thing.
Audra Jensen: Yes, watch animals go to the bathroom, everybody poops, really. Yeah. That's one of the best books, by the way, is Everybody Poops.
Caitlin Beltran: Yeah. and it's just, you know, it's scary for a child.
Audra Jensen: No kidding. And that is one of the things, and we talked to a lot of psychologists, is that there, there's a lot of, suppressed trauma and, and scare, you know, worry about what's coming out of your body with some of these little kids, there's like this anxiety and that's why we get a lot of these kids who hold back, especially poop for that reason, because you flush it in the toilet and it goes out of the toilet and where does it go?
And so there's all this fear about it. So take that all out of the way. Just be really open about it and relaxed. It's not a big deal. And fart, you know, it's okay. It's okay. It's one of those things. So that's one of the other things. So the emotional signs too, the emotional readiness, showing independence, a willingness to try new things, that feeling.
Again, that kind of autonomy, independence, they want to do things on their own. and remembering again that children do all develop on their own pace, some maybe two, some maybe two and a half.
Caitlin Beltran: That's so important, and I know you said it in the beginning, but that every child is different, but especially for a child with a disability, and especially if that disability is pretty severe, you might not see these signs when you think you're going to see them, and you don't want to start too early, but you don't want to wait until you see them.
if you have a child that's three, four, five. And I've had this happen where the family's like, Oh, he's not ready. He doesn't care about that when he's wet, he doesn't care about the bathroom. And in my mind, I'm like, that's a signal to me. We really have to start trying because those signs may never come.
And then we're going to be starting with somebody who's used to their routine and they've been in diapers for five to seven years. And it's just that much more of an uphill battle.
Audra Jensen: Right.
Caitlin Beltran: So it's just completely different when you're thinking about different variations and individuals. And you want to be aware it's not like a typical child where you're always going to see those readiness signs.
Um,
Audra Jensen: And we don't want to talk about this as if we're talking to a family thinking about their kid at home. I really do want to talk about this. If you have a child at school and you're seeing some of these readiness signs or you have a student, you're like, even if you're not seeing this readiness signs, you're like, I think they could do this.
I think they they learn things in such a way that we could train this, bring that family into the discussion and have that team working together. I wouldn't want any, either set of the team, either part of the team, either side of the table doing it on their own. So open up the discussion and working together and you may introduce this and I've had this happen.
We introduced the family and they're like, you really think that he could do this? And you're like, yeah, he totally could. And open it up and they're like, all right, let's do it. And you get them working together. And all of a sudden, two months later, you've got this kid that's going to the bathroom on their own.
It's amazing. And then you have this family so grateful because they had no idea that they'd be able to do that. that's huge.
Caitlin Beltran: Yeah. We always encourage our families. Like, you know, you may want to start at home even just for the weekend or something, just so you can gauge as a mom or dad or guardian, like your comfort level and how the child responded.
But after that. Like that first day back from the weekend, tell us exactly how you're doing it, what language you're using, time to go, time for bathroom, and also send in all those supplies, send in 10 pairs of underwear, 10 pants, extra slippers in case we, they get kicked off or soaked, send in double the amount of clothes you think you need, because you never want to get to that third day and then just be like, oh, we ran out of clothes, and then we kind of lost momentum.
Audra Jensen: Yeah, and making sure that the family knows that it's okay when they have accidents. That we're not going to judge them about the accident. It's going to be okay. The accidents happen. It's fine. That we don't want to go backwards once we start on this path as much as we can avoid having to go back to diapers.
We want to avoid that. That we're not going, because I think a lot of families worry that, Oh my gosh, I feel so bad. They made all these mistakes., you know, it's like, we don't care. We would much rather keep plowing through all of those mistakes and get to the end rather than go back and have to try again.
Caitlin Beltran: It's such a huge goal. Like we said in the beginning, the dignity, the celebration, the independence. I mean, if you have a child who's going on four, five, six, and the family is, or even the staff. I've had some resistance in the past with staff that it's like, well, taking away all this time from program or, I mean, how valuable are those skills that they're going to learn?
How could that possibly be more valuable than the dignity of being able to control going into the bathroom and going yourself?
Audra Jensen: Yeah. Forget about the letters and numbers for five months even. just forget it. It's so much. It's huge. So yeah, I love that.
Caitlin Beltran: So let's talk about, yeah, some specific, approaches that you have used.
Audra Jensen: Yep. So I thought about kind of categorized them into the child oriented approach and like the parent led approach. And so like the child oriented approach is kind of, kind of the softer approach where you're using the child's lead. There's some, there's like this, elimination communication, which is more kind of It's more, it's really typically developing, but it's very kind of infant centered from the very beginning.
You're responding to their communication overtures. It's very gentle focused on that child's lead. I never used it myself. This is, more kind of responding from a very, very young, young age and like putting them on the toilet, like all the time. So I have never used that. And that, that's kind of one extreme.
And then all the way to just the kind of the gentler, less pressure following the child's natural lead, readiness, cues,with this, you're kind of, You make it a very positive experience. This you're going to have less likely to cause power struggles, you're going to lead to more independent potty use, um, kind of the cons of using just this kind of child centered approach is it often takes a little bit longer because it's just following the child's lead.
It requires that patience and consistency from kind of the caregivers. It's less predictable and causes because of that kind of more accidents and which is harder to fix now, because of kind of that child approach often kids with disabilities don't do as well with this kind of just as a general rule.
That's not consistently, true. I mean, there's some kids with disabilities who do fine with just this child led approach. You know, that's just consistent. I mean, it's just individualized, right? Often we have to kind of go with a more structured approach, which is that parent or instructor led approach.
And there's a lot of, and I don't know what you've done, but I've mostly gone with more of the kind of structured parent led instructor led. Okay.
Caitlin Beltran: Same.
Audra Jensen: Yeah. And so, you know, and that, and that's, there's lots of different methods if you look out, there's, that's where you find the books, which is like the structure, there's The Three Day Potty Training, there's one called Oh Crap Potty Training, there's Potty Training in Less Than a Day, you're going to find all of these little different ones.
I've read so many of the different books, and each one kind of is along the same lines. And it's, you can find them all on Amazon, I pulled them up, I'm not going to pull them up right here, but you can find a bunch of them. The prose is it's quicker in kind of those initial stages because it's very structured.
You're gonna, you're gonna fill this, the child with lots of liquids. You're gonna have lots of opportunities to practice. You're gonna go in, in very structured times, and you're gonna have lots of those practice times, you're going to have lots of reinforcement. And then once you have those, the actual successes, you're going to reinforce them and then extend the time in between actually those successes.
And then extend that as success happens and so on and so forth.
Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, we've started with like really small intervals even so if we're using a structured approach at school for the first time I've had kids every five minutes for the first day we're just getting up going in the bathroom coming back Maybe 10 or 15 minutes by the end of the day.
We're not staying at that interval forever. Like you're saying, we're extending it, but only once we see success. So maybe the first day we're flooding them with a ton of opportunities. And then the second, third, fourth day, we're sticking to like a something reasonable, right?
Like within a school, if it's reasonable to take them every half hour or something, and then we're tracking that data, which we'll talk more about next week. But to see that sweet spot of how long they can go in between and then hoping to coast there for a little bit before we can stretch it out a little more as long as the child can go obviously, which is different for every person.
I go 3 times an hour. Sometimes. So much water. Um, I mean, if they're drinking a little Stanley cup, like they're going. But flooding them with liquids just so that we have those moments for success, because when they are going, we're celebrating that.
Audra Jensen: Right. And that's the advantage of kind of the structured approach is that you have all those opportunities, but you also have that data to know when to go, when not to go, when to extend that time in between taking them. And when not, because you're shaping that
Caitlin Beltran: we're going with a really dense interval. So like we're going every 25 minutes and then turns out like, you know First four visits to the potty that day they were dry and before you really take the diaper off it's really hard to gauge even if I know your learner really well just like their baseline of how often they go. Like I remember with my son he was fully potty trained and then at night I just didn't even think about it.
I was like, you're back in the Pull Up. I was like, we'll talk about that, in a couple months. I was like, never thinking of doing both. And then the next day he woke up dry and he was like, I don't think I need the Pull Up anymore. And I was like, what? And then he never wore a Pull Up overnight.
I just didn't know he was the kind of kid that could hold it for a long time from right away.
Audra Jensen: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of where that data, you know, hello, we like data. That's where that comes in. That's where that Where kind of that instructor led approach really does well. You know, the cons of that instructor led approach does some kids are stressed out by kind of that structure. So you have to be mindful of that. You have to be mindful of your learner. Is that that sort of, is that gonna cause anxiety? We have to be very mindful when we're talking about toilet training, potty training, that we're not causing anxiety because that is one of those things that we do need to watch.
Yes.
Caitlin Beltran: To address that, just I know we're going to go get into some obstacles, but just from right away, if you have a learner who's like, okay, I'm going to the bathroom and then a half hour later. And like you're saying, some kids are just going with the routine and other kids, it starts to become like, no, I don't want to go.
And then the staff is like, well, I want you to go because I don't want that accident to happen. And that's where sometimes that differential reinforcement comes in. Like maybe they're getting something just for going and trying, and then they're getting something even more for voiding. not that we want to stress them that they have to go, cause I've had learners just trying to squeeze out a drop to get that M& M or something.
Audra Jensen: No, I think that's that's wonderful. Yeah, and actually that brings us to that hybrid approach is where you are. Yeah. You're pulling from both of that child led and that instructor led approach. You're pulling from everything and you're building, and I think this is the perfect approach is you're building a program that's specific to what that child responds to.
So you may read this perfect book that's, oh crap, proddy training or whatever, and you're like, I'm going to do this approach, but you know what? You may need to do some sort of differential reinforcement that doesn't follow what they're telling you to do. That helps this child respond. And so just making sure that you're responding to what this specific student needs.
And I think that's really what we want to wrap up with right here is that all of these things, everything you're going to read, everything that you listen to, make sure that you're only doing what is right for your student, whatever that is.
Caitlin Beltran: Absolutely. I was thinking even of the reinforcer itself, like I've made so many different potty charts for some of our preschool learners, hanging them on the wall.
But I found like in our, autism and ABA classrooms, nothing beats that direct reinforcement. Like the potty chart is maybe too vague or too delayed for them. But with my own son, we used it. And with other preschool students, we use it like individual. I think everything is K. I also suggest when you're first starting out and you're not sure if you're using direct reinforcement Try and save that reinforcer just for the bathroom
Audra Jensen: Oh, yes,
Caitlin Beltran: so I mean, I know a lot of people just that's common sense But if it's not because
Audra Jensen: say it anyway
Caitlin Beltran: That's where that communication between home and school comes into play because you wouldn't believe how many times staff are like Oh, yeah, we withhold M& Ms now. They're only for potty. And then the child, you know is leaving with a bag of m& ms from dad's car or something just because we forgot to have that conversation.
Yep. In fact, one of the, I'm going to give in the giveaway this week, I've put a bunch of potty training stuff together, some, everybody has charts, you know, different things and stuff. Very cool.
Audra Jensen: So I put some in there some charts, some toileting, sticker charts and stuff like that. We'll put that in the Facebook group and some other things that you can pull, you can download as well. one of the other things I forgot to mention. Get creative, too. Some of the things that we use for my son and some other kids, we've done potty timer watches for some kids who want to get to be more independent.
You can, they're really cheap little watches that just, vibrate on a certain schedule for them to be independent on when to go. something to make sure you're talking to your doctor about if you consider, there was a time where we wanted him to be aware. Like I said, he wasn't aware of the body itself.
And we went to,bedwetting alarm that went into his underwear. And it was like this little wire that as soon as it got wet, it buzzed. There was no electric shock or anything weird like that. It only had to do it one time. And he was so freaked out by the, just the vibration that it, it made that connection that he needed.
it was only one time. And then all of a sudden he went. Oh, that's what that sensation is. Make sure you have a medical doctor on your team or, your BCBA or whoever is. So think outside of the box, talk to other people, make sure you are, ruling out if you have anybody who has encopresis or, And what is the other one?
And whatever, they're withholding, urine or a stool. Make sure you have medical doctors as part of that. For sure. I've had students who, did the digging and the smearing and the eating. Yeah. Make sure you have everybody on your team that needs to be for medical reasons too. So, watch for all of that as well.
So we're going to keep talking about this next week and probably at the summer, end of summer as well, in the Facebook group or email us or whatever. If you have other things you want to talk about, this is a great topic that can continue on forever with all the stuff that we could talk about. So feel free to jump in.
Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, next week we'll talk a little bit about writing goals, whether it's for your home programming or IEP goals, just to kind of monitor your success and how you're charting that data to make sure you're moving in the right direction.
Audra Jensen: Cool, thanks for tuning in everybody and we will see you next time.
Caitlin Beltran: Bye.
Audra Jensen: Bye.
Thanks for listening to the Misfit Behaviorists. And be sure to tune in next week for more tips and tricks. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.