IT'S TOILET LEARNING, NOT POTTY TRAINING!
From birth, the child has been working non-stop to not only adapt to the world in which she finds herself, but also to gain control of her body and her mind and the integration of the two in order to achieve wholeness. She has mastered language and movement--she can talk and walk and feed herself. Most importantly, she can give consent by saying yes or no. Now, the last step in this process is gaining control of the bodily function of elimination. Using the toilet is a natural part of life, and just like with movement and language, the young child has to learn how to do it. We want the child to be able to use the toilet in the way that it is used in their culture, and just as we do. We think of it not so much as “training” or “teaching” the child, but rather, we want to increase the child’s awareness about their bodily functions and how they relate to the toilet because our goal is independence. We must understand that increasing the child’s toilet awareness is a process, a
