I’ve Potty Trained Four Kids. Here’s What I Wish I Knew Before I Started.

Potty training is back in the news. Apparently, in the U.K., fully one-quarter of kindergartners beginning school are unable to manage their toileting needs independently. The United States faces similar challenges. 

Some of this potty problem is part and parcel of today’s broader gentle parenting trend. Many of today’s kids are reaching all kinds of milestones later than they should, in large part because many of today’s parents have abdicated all authority to the whims of their overindulged offspring. Three-year-olds who get parental attention as a reward for tantrums and can’t sit still at dinner without a screen become five-year-olds who can’t sit still long enough to learn to read or endure discomfort long enough to learn to swim. Spoiled seven-year-olds who talk back to adults with impunity become fragile 10-year-olds who can’t be trusted to go anywhere unaccompanied. 

Inevitably, a parenting norm that eschews behavioral training of any kind in favor of passive coddling will render anything termed “potty training” somewhere between difficult and impossible. Rejecting gentle parenting overall is a necessary but wholly insufficient condition to potty train little ones with ease. 

Confession: Even as someone who never went in for gentle parenting of any kind, I still didn’t get potty training right my first time through. But, having just potty-trained my fourth kid, I do have some countercultural pro tips to offer that I wish I’d had when my first was a toddler. 

Don’t Wait For “Readiness”

When I started potty-training my firstborn, he was not yet “ready.” As in, he didn’t care when his diaper was wet or dirty, and he didn’t mind having it changed. But, since he was almost three, I decided to train him anyway. It turned out that, like all three-year-olds, he was actually past ready. He was not willing. That’s a different thing — and one a lot easier to overcome at two than at three. Not so long ago, all children were potty-trained by age two. Just like they could all do basic chores at age five and run simple errands at age eight. “Ready” is what you make it. That’s why you can and should just “arbitrarily” decide to potty-train at age two, regardless of any readiness indicators. 

Play To Win

The key to successful potty training is taking it to the extreme. Yes, the three-day bottomless method works. Yes, you should use it. But it’s also no joke. You have to be willing to suffer through some tears (and not just your child’s). If your two-year-old is habituated to basic obedience, such that she will sit on the potty as directed (even if she doesn’t want to, and even if she cries in protest), this is much easier. Toddler training in simple obedience is the only “readiness” prerequisite. 

Potty-training false starts cost a lot of stress with nothing to show for it. And sometimes, they happen due to circumstances beyond your control: Someone gets sick or has a crushing week at work, both of which are good reasons to wait a bit. But don’t let a potty-training false start happen because your child puts up a fight or isn’t interested. You’re in charge. You need both sufficient bandwidth and sufficient determination to see it through, regardless of your child’s response. 

Play The Player, Not The Game

When my first son was turning three and driving me crazy with his endless accidents, our wise (very old, and very old-school) pediatrician said to me: “His accidents aren’t costing him enough, which is why he’s willing to keep having them.” I protested. “But I’ve tried, like stickers … plus, I make him help clean up, and I take away whatever he was playing with, and I make him walk back and forth to the potty several times…” Come on, I’m no gentle parent. The pediatrician smiled: “He obviously doesn’t care about any of those things. What does he care about?” Point taken. 

By nature, my oldest son was (and is) intensely focused on what he’s interested in and totally spacey about what he isn’t. He was not interested in potty training. But he positively craved watching Barney reruns on YouTube (we didn’t do a lot of screen time). He also coveted M&M’s. So, I told him that for every potty success he could watch a Barney song and have a few M&M’s. In search of a “stick” to discourage accidents along with that “carrot” to encourage success, I also put a floating image of Barney on the television in our main living area, just as a screen saver. When my son had an accident, I turned the screen off and said, “Bye-bye, Barney.” Finally, the tears — and accompanying motivation — that I had been waiting for. Within a few days of this routine, his potty training was in the rearview mirror. 

And I had come through my training, too. I emerged from that less-than-ideal experience knowing that the way we conceive of “readiness” for potty training today is just infantilizing nonsense. The only one who had to be ready for potty training was me.

I potty-trained my second son one sunny late-winter day, just after his second birthday. And when I say one day, I mean one day. This kid was (and is) focused across the board — independent, capable, and intense. He decided on day two that he had conquered toilet training, was now over it, and would like his diaper back. When I refused, he threw an impressive hour-plus tantrum. I knew he wouldn’t have an accident; he was too much of a perfectionist for that. It was just a question of waiting him out. So, wait him out I did. While plying him with juice and milk in a nonchalant way, never mentioning the potty directly but refusing him things like fruit snacks, since “those are for big boys.” Subtle side eye at the potty. Eventually, after several hours of this standoff, throughout which my son screamed and stomped intermittently, he glared at me with all the anger he could muster and stalked over to his little potty. Victory. 

These old war stories might be difficult for me to remember now that these boys are 11 and 9, were it not for the fact that who your kid is when he’s potty-training is who your kid is. 

So, while potty training your little tyke, take notes. Seriously. You’re going to play this same player again and again. Reading. Swimming. Biking. Managing his own homework. Looking both ways when he crosses the street. Remembering his wallet. 

I knew what my second-born needed to get him over the hump in potty training: a perception of total independence and zero attention in response to tantrums. It was very different from what my firstborn had needed: enthusiastic encouragement and no accommodation for any lack of focus. (If you’re curious, number three was and is a less spacey version of number one, and number four was and is a less disagreeable version of number two.) 

But I wish I had known, back when I was in those trenches, that I’d meet these exact same learners in a host of other contexts over the years. I would have less gray hair if I’d realized a lot sooner that the game may change, but the player does not. 

What your child needs from you matures, sure. But it’s always a new version of the same thing he needed back when he learned — long before kindergarten — to use the potty. 

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Elizabeth Grace Matthew writes about books, education, and culture, including on Substack.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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