What are Things That Should be Included in a School Policy Regarding Potty Training?

Question

Answer

1. List of developmental signs/behaviors
2. Child leads
3. Potty vocabulary
4. Parent readiness and child readiness - eagerness and resistance
5. Address non-readiness factors – convenience, peer pressure or parent stress
6. Food rewards – rewards in general
7. Diaper free weekends at home – first?
8. Routines – Reminders - Frequency
9. Accidents are ok – how many?
10. Back-up plans – what-ifs
11. Last word? Can teachers say “not ready”?

I believe that you need a list of developmental signs and behaviors. You are welcome to use the ones that are in this course, but if you just Google it online you could get a shortlist that's all very succinct. Pick the one that works for you.

I do believe that potty policy might want to say that it is child-led. For me, that's absolutely essential, but that matches my developmental philosophy. What I know is that it can't be parent-led because the schools that allowed it to be parent-led found chaos and confusion and the teachers were completely overwhelmed because they had 20 personalized and customized potty plans in those classrooms. I don't want potty training to create stress for you, for those children, or for the families. It also can't be teacher-led because we're going to go into a collaborative model of parent communication so it can't just be our way.

I need it to be specific about potty vocabulary. I need it to acknowledge parent readiness and child readiness. I want you to be able to talk about both eagerness and resistance because both exist. I want you to be able to identify the non-readiness factors that get in the way of success, such as convenience, peer pressure, and parent stress. You might have to hold parent hands because we're not just scaffolding for children skills, we're scaffolding for parent understanding, skills, and partnerships.

I wanted to address food rewards because your parents are Googling everything there is out there and they have their favorite parent bible and some of those recommendations are using M&Ms. Some of them are to use skills and strategies that may work at home, but that may never fly in your school or your classroom. You need to be reflective and clear.

Diaper free weekends at home first. Do you need the parents to make a commitment to having done something before you allow a child to go diaper-free? Now the only thing about that is yes, we know that parents may be less truthful or more hopeful than reality, and that's where collaboration and communication are going to be essential.

I want you to be able to talk about routines, reminders, and frequencies. Be specific in the commitment you are prepared to make to the child and to the parent. Are accidents okay? You don't have to say how many, but parents are going to want to know because there's enormous parent stress out there. Are they going to throw me out?  If so, when?

Let’s talk about back-up plans and what-ifs. What if this is a child that's still having accidents, that has a new sibling, that's just moved, or that has developmental issues? How will you handle those contingencies? Does someone have the last word? Is it okay if a teacher says the child is not ready to potty train? Say that upfront so that a parent isn't confused at the end.

This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Potty Training at School, by Karen Deerwester, MA, EdS.