Parent-Babble by John Rosemond

Author:John Rosemond
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC
Published: 2012-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

Unfortunately, by introducing a list of readiness indicators, Spock began to soil the waters of toilet training, and the matter of readiness became more and more confusing. It is interesting that Spock rightly observes that using or not using diapers is a strong statement by itself, and he recommends the latter:

To continue to put diapers on a child who is gaining control is an expression of lack of confidence. A diaper invites wetting and soiling.

I couldn’t agree more. In fact, having the child run naked during training is central to my “Naked and $75” method, which I fully explained in Toilet Training Without Tantrums (Andrews McMeel, 2012). The method is a slightly Westernized version of the very simple, straightforward approach used by mothers worldwide for hundreds if not thousands of years and still widely used in many developing cultures.

Interestingly, Spock also recognized that parents who tend to be avid consumers of parent education materials may be putting themselves at a distinct disadvantage. He noted that in one of the clinics in the medical school in which he taught, the parents who had the greatest success with toilet training were those without college degrees or interest in psychology. He observed that their children tended to be trained before their second birthdays, without struggle or harm to their personalities. Along the same lines, I’ve made numerous public statements to the effect that parents who think and read too much tend to create unnecessary problems for themselves and their children (that cringe you hear is coming from my publisher).

Spock did not intend that his five readiness indicators would be anything more than general markers for parents who needed more than intuition to know when to start training. He had no idea that the next significant potty pundit, whose star was already ascending in 1968, would eventually extend readiness to mean that a parent should do exactly what Spock recommended against: stop at every sign of resistance and put the child back in diapers.

T. Berry Brazelton and Child-Centered Toilet Training

In 1962, the influential medical journal Pediatrics published “A Child-Oriented Approach to Toilet Training,” by T. Berry Brazelton. In it, Brazelton summarized what is properly called field research he had carried out in his Cambridge, Massachusetts pediatric clinic between 1951 and 1961. In this influential article, Brazelton took the position that toilet training should be postponed until after the second birthday, his premise being that the pre-two child’s nervous system was not sufficiently mature and that a child’s interest in bladder and bowel control would increase during his third year of life, as did his general desire for independence and mastery.

Brazelton’s article became the springboard for his ever-expanding notions about readiness. He likened toilet training to learning to walk. When a child’s nervous system and muscle control have matured to a certain level, a child will walk. No one has to teach him to walk. All parents have to do is provide the opportunity (uncluttered space and sturdy objects the child can use to pull himself to a standing position), and walking will begin around a child’s first birthday.

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