Toilet Training Made Easy

A common struggle for parents is to teach their child to use the bathroom independently. Mary Barbera in “The Verbal Behavior Approach,” discusses steps that she has found over the years to successfully train a child to use the bathroom consistently and independently.

Ensure that your child is ready to be toilet trained

It is important to make sure that the timing for training your child is right. Do not begin toilet training if your child has just been diagnosed, mands are weak, your family will be moving soon, or another big change will be happening. It is important to establish a system in which they can learn to mand first and positive behavior programs are in place. A few important questions to ask are: Does your child seem to notice or indicate when diapers are soiled? Does your child move away from you or hide to have a bowel movement? Does your child have regular bowel movements with no soiling overnight? These may be signs that your child is ready to begin training.

Before you begin toilet training

·         Begin pairing the toilet with reinforcement

o   Have the child sit on the toilet and provide reinforcement for simply sitting there. This will begin to pair the toilet with reinforcement and after pairings, the child may start to feel more comfortable with the toilet and even use it! This may happen by accident, but if it does, reinforce heavily!

·         Choose the words you will use to talk about the behaviors and make sure that everyone that the child will interact with is consistent

·         Notice any patterns in your child’s bathroom schedule

o   Keep in mind when they eat or wake up/nap because this can often affect their bathroom schedule

Daytime training

·         Make a toilet schedule that everyone is aware of. Place the child on the toilet consistently and reinforce with a treat that get exclusively for a successful bathroom trip.

·         Teach your child the separate steps that are involved in using the bathroom; for example, how to pull pants up and down, how to wash hands, and how to wipe themselves.

·         Give your child extra drinks so there is strong motivation and opportunity for bathroom trips

·         Do dry pants checks

o   Reinforce whenever their pants are dry and run a check immediately if you notice that they have had an accident

·         Use positive practice for accidents

o   Take your child quickly from the spot of the accident to the toilet and back again five to ten times in a row.

·         Keep a record of successful trips to the bathroom and accidents.

For more information regarding toilet training tips, refer to “The Verbal Behavior Approach” by Mary Barbera.