Potty Training a Three Year Old

Potty training. There are few more frustrating (or humorous) times in parental history. During the potty training period, parents are more susceptible to resentment; anger and feelings of inadequacy than at possibly any other childhood milestone, and yet potty training jokes are common enough to deserve a permanent chapter next to the 'a guy walks into this bar' jokes. Kittens learn to use litter boxes in droves without comment, but teach a human child to flush more than toys down the porcelain pool and suddenly everyone he knows is either laughing or shouting.

In my own experience I can claim to have potty trained successfully three times. Well, okay. That's actually a lie. I messed up really bad the first time, let the first one teach the second one - to my credit I did hang a picture of two kids on their pots next to our own - and am still working on the third... sort of.

With the third one, Aaron, I have taken the 'if it ain't broken don't fix it' approach. That is to say, I've been avoiding the issue, hoping that Trainer #1 would intervene once again. As my present trainer approaches 3 ½, though, I've begun to think that perhaps it's time that I broach the topic myself. I began with a dialogue on economics.

"Aaron, did you know how much a diaper costs? Each diaper costs around .16! That's .16 worth of candy and toys I can't buy for you. Do you understand?" Aaron looked back at me, his big blue eyes very serious, and nodded. As a grown up, however, I have to drive a subject into the ground -" otherwise known as elaborating.

"That means if I have to buy diapers for you, I can't buy candy. If you start going in the potty, though, you save diapers and I can buy you candy. Got it?" Again, Aaron nodded.

"Got it, Mom." He replied, and ran off to find something more interesting to do than discuss diaper prices with a thirty something SAHM that needed to be doing dishes. Rather than follow him, I turned to the above-mentioned dishes and pondered how I could be potty training someone that answered me with "Got it, Mom".