Conflicting Messages
Lola has been in the potty-training stage of development for quite a while now. Daycare conquered any resistance to peeing on the potty, but we've been mired on the BM front for months. All of the attachment parenting blogs had suggestions of a gentle nature: slowly convince her to move all BMs to the bathroom, then to stand next to the potty, then to sit on the potty with a pull-up on, then to use the potty straight. Bribes, rewards, and sticker charts were also highly touted as fail-safe mechanisms. I'm not above bribing my kids, but Lola had not seemed interested in any of the options we had suggested. So there we were, slowly making progress.
Then I took Lola to her three year check-up and her pediatrician laid into me quite severely about her potty training status. It's quite a shock to be labeled an "enabler" and "like the wife of an alcoholic, hoping that things will change on their own" but we chose our doctor because he doesn't mince words. I appreciated the bluntness. He listed out a full-scale plan for us that featured sticker charts and a reward system. I admit, I was a little disappointed in the suggestions. I mean, really, sticker charts? Hadn't he read Drive or Nurture Shock? All the research made it clear; external motivation does not lead to internal motivation. No one wants the kid to stop using the potty just because she realizes the reward isn't good enough anymore. Ugh.
But what the hell, right? So we instituted the sticker chart and, of course, it worked. Really, we think it was the gradual build-up which made her developmentally ready, but whatever. We're ecstatically overjoyed.
Then I took Lola to her three year check-up and her pediatrician laid into me quite severely about her potty training status. It's quite a shock to be labeled an "enabler" and "like the wife of an alcoholic, hoping that things will change on their own" but we chose our doctor because he doesn't mince words. I appreciated the bluntness. He listed out a full-scale plan for us that featured sticker charts and a reward system. I admit, I was a little disappointed in the suggestions. I mean, really, sticker charts? Hadn't he read Drive or Nurture Shock? All the research made it clear; external motivation does not lead to internal motivation. No one wants the kid to stop using the potty just because she realizes the reward isn't good enough anymore. Ugh.
But what the hell, right? So we instituted the sticker chart and, of course, it worked. Really, we think it was the gradual build-up which made her developmentally ready, but whatever. We're ecstatically overjoyed.
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