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As your child learns to use the potty by herself, she’ll undoubtedly experience accidents. You need to be encouraging but mildly disappointed throughout the training process when encouraging your child to correct bathroom errors.
Children want to do things more and more on their own as they grow older. They want to eat on their own, they want to walk and talk on their own, and they want to go to the bathroom on their own.
Learning to use the potty is not always an easy concept to master. Some children catch on quickly, but plenty others take months to learn that EVERY time they need to go to the bathroom, they need to do that IN the bathroom. There undoubtedly will be mistakes that happen.
When your child goes to the bathroom in her pants during the training process, the best thing you can do is to disappointedly say, “Oh, that’s too bad. We’ll have to get it right next time.” Don’t scold your child for not going to the bathroom in the right place. That adds unnecessary stress that can do more harm than good. You want to be disappointed but encouraging to your son or daughter.
You then need to perhaps show your son and daughter the proper place they should have gone. Take them to the bathroom and again show them that they should have gone in the commode rather than in their pants. Many parents also get training stools, shorter, smaller chairs where babies and toddlers can go to the bathroom. This gets them used to sitting on a seat when going to the bathroom, which often eases the transition to the adult toilet within a few weeks.
The best thing you can do when your child has a bathroom accident is to be supportive. Don’t yell or sound overly upset, this won’t help your child learn where to do it right, it will only make her feel as if she has done something seriously wrong.
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