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Home › Articles › Toilet Training › What's the Story on Withholding?

What's the Story on Withholding?

Working Through a Common Training Challenge

By Kelly Burgess

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This may seem easier said than done, but for Jennifer Wolf of Grand Rapids, Mich., it was the strategy that made her second round of potty training so much easier. When he was working on potty training four years ago, Wolf's oldest son, now 7, had a serious withholding issue caused by fear. Wolf's doctor recommended that she try putting him on the potty in his diaper and cutting progressively larger holes in the diaper. Eventually his poop "fell" into the toilet, he saw it was OK and it was smooth sailing after that.

Since then Wolf has worked on potty training with another child who also withheld. This time around she handled the problem with a lot more detachment and credits that with the fact that withholding didn't become the major issue it had with her first child.

"Potty training is one of those things that can cause parents a lot of frustration," says Wolf. "And yet, when we let the kids take the lead and show us when they're ready, they feel so much more confident and empowered. The first time Madelyn said to me, 'I did it!' with a big smile on her face, I thought to myself, 'Now why didn't I let Brian have that experience of feeling so proud of himself?' Seeing it from where I stand now, my experiences provide a poignant example of the contrast between training them because we want it done and training them because they're ready."

Helping Your Child Overcome Fear

Dr. Barton D. Schmitt, director of the after-hours call center at The Children's Hospital in Denver, Colo., and professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, offers the following advice for parents of children who withhold:

1. Clarify the goal with your child. Tell them "your body makes a poop every day" and "the poop wants to come out every day."

2. Ask your child's physician to recommend a laxative or stool softener if you suspect your child is suffering from encopresis.

3. Let your child decide when she needs to go to the bathroom.

4. Tell your child that you want sitting on the potty to be lots of fun. Ask if she would perhaps like a special book.

5. Give incentives for using the toilet, such as stars on a chart or a calendar.

6. Make the potty chair convenient. Be sure to keep the potty chair in the room she usually plays in. This gives your child a convenient visual reminder.

7. Allow your child to wear absorbent training pants to encourage releasing rather than holding back.

8. Help your child change her clothes if she soils herself, without comment or recrimination. Make it a quick, neutral activity.


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