POTTY TRAINING: What NOT to Say While Potty Training | Phrases to Avoid | The Mom Psychologist

0:00 did you know that around 80 percent of children experience setbacks during the potty training process so really what we consider as setbacks i think is just par for the course right it's just part of the process there's a lot of uh taking a step forward and then taking the couple steps backwards and then taking a couple steps forward throughout the potty training journey so in this video i'm gonna be talking about some of the phrases we want to avoid

0:30 while we are potty training now quick shout out if you're watching this video around the time that it comes out i will be teaching a live potty training class in a couple weeks very soon just check the description box for all of the details in this classic i'm going to be covering a wide range of topics as it relates to potty training including how to get ready how to know when your child is ready for potty training how to

0:59 mentally prepare ourselves for potty training to you know how to do the actual process how to prepare for setbacks how to handle accidents nighttime potty training i mean i'm going to cover it all and i'm also going to be taking questions live so that i can answer your particular situation so definitely be on the lookout for that class check the description box for all the details if you're watching it after the video hopefully i have something helpful for

1:24 you down in the description box that you can go to also quick shout out to my potty training book i have written an entire book about potty training so definitely check out this book if you're like i can't wait for the class i need some help now check it out available mostly where all books are sold so uh check the links in the description if you'd like to check out my potty training book and shout out to all the

1:49 wonderful people out there who have supported the book and left a honest rating and review on amazon is particularly i really really appreciate you it really helps me out so much so thank you thank you thank you all right let's dive into the things that we should never say wow potty training okay number one we should never say it's okay after they have an accident because well is it okay what we don't want to reinforce is the idea that accidents are

2:21 quote unquote okay now of course just like i led with this episode accidents are par for the course right accidents are part of the process because your child is learning a new skill and learning is not linear right learning we don't just you know start down at the bottom and then we shoot our way up at the top right we go through some dips and and things along the way some struggles and some mistakes and that's part of how

2:48 we learn right and so potty training is no different however right and we have to be mindful of our language as parents because it's powerful and so what we don't want to do is set the stage for oh it's okay like you know accidents are just okay because truth be told right we are working towards learning to put our pee and poop in the potty so how we handle accidents is really

3:18 really really important i actually have a whole video uh which i'll link right now on uh if you're watching this on on youtube and if you're watching it on the podcast go over to my youtube channel because i have a whole video on how do we handle potty accidents okay um and instead what we should be focusing on though in the moment is saying what you see without judgment right i see p on the floor oops i see

3:45 poo poo in your diaper or your which we shouldn't be having diapers by the way unless they're sleeping okay but you know this is what i see and this is where it goes right no pee pee and poo poo go in the potty let's go try again uh what what have you okay okay so this second phrase we should avoid saying while potty training is i'll clean it up don't worry i'll clean it up no no no no

4:13 no okay i don't care if you have a small toddler or a preschooler we should always always strive to involve them in the process of cleaning up right this is their accident this is their mess and it's not that we're mad or upset and that we're doing this in a punitive way it's more of like a cause and effect right and this is messes in general really but we're talking about potty training so we'll just keep it to the potty training

4:39 accidents if they have an accident they need to be involved in the cleanup process so you can say something like i'll grab the towels and you can help me clean it up right and you can you know whether you want to clean it up first and then have them come behind you or you want or you want them to clean it up first and then you come behind them or you know you do it then they do it then

5:03 you do it however you want to do it right and you know every accident is a little bit different in terms of what is it it takes to clean up the accident but you want to involve them in the process this is very very important it's very important for them to understand that one they they made a mistake they had an accident which you know is par for the course of course right and we're just gonna observe what

5:28 we see and then and they they have to be number two they have to be involved in the problem solving process right now they are going to clean it up it's a cause and effect thing okay and this is part of them learning this is part of them learning to put their pee and poop in the potty when there's a natural consequence that they have to clean up their mess or a logical consequence really um then they come to understand oh okay

5:56 okay okay i really understand i need to put the p in the poop in the potty that's way less one messy and you know involves less time and then i get more time to play okay but they have to be involved in the process alright the third phrase that we want to avoid saying is do you want to go to the potty do you have to go to the potty now i'm thinking more of the early potty

6:20 trainers in particular as our child gets older and they master the skill then of course we're gonna trust in them to listen to their body and to uh go to the restroom but i talk about this a lot in my book and i'll talk about this in my upcoming class that especially in the beginning what our child needs help with is developing a potty training routine right this is before potty training uh they had to they didn't have a routine right they

6:50 peed and pooped whenever they felt like it um and you know there was no consequence obviously because they had a diaper right and then we cleaned up their messes for them so when we start to the potty training journey what we have to develop with them is a routine around potty training and they need our help with this right we can't expect our child to take the lead on this because they don't know all right they're still

7:14 learning and so their job is to sit on the potty and try and our job is to help them get to the potty in the early days of thinking in particular right so when we ask though do you have to go to the potty often nine times out of ten they're gonna say no why is it not necessarily because they don't have to go potty but because they're doing something that's way funner than going potty right often they're eating a snack

7:39 they're playing with a toy i don't know they're watching the screen they're hanging out with you i don't know they're doing something else but nine times out of ten whatever they're doing is way funner than going to the potty right it is a hard skill to stop one thing to do something else right and to delay gratification and all of that so we have to lead them in this process by just saying hey it's time to go to the

8:06 potty okay and i talk about you know what we can do is use when then statements okay when we go to the potty then we can go back to playing when we go to the potty then we can head out the door to go to the store whatever it is but we have to set the stage and we're not asking them it's more of okay it's time to go potty now i'm thinking in a situation where they're like oh but i

8:28 don't have to go but i don't have to go oh i understand you don't have to go but let's try let's just sit on the potty now we're not making them sit for minutes on end a couple seconds is fine and then we praise that right we acknowledge that we encourage that thank you so much for trying you didn't have to go but i really appreciate that you tried because we're about to head out the door

8:50 right and um i would much rather you pee pee in the potty than if we have to you know for out and about right so just kind of teaching them you know i'm thinking ahead i understand and i trust that you are listening to your body and you know it's time to go potty at the same time especially when it's the early days it's the early weeks of potty training the fourth phrase we want to avoid saying

9:15 while potty training is tell me when you have to go okay this goes with the third phrase right just tell me right i'm trusting in you to tell me i'm thinking of the child too who's having accidents and then what what i see happen is the child is having accidents and but then at the same time the parent or the caregiver is trusting in the child to tell them when they have to go potty and if your child is showing you that they

9:43 are struggling in potty training whether that be with accidents or what have you it's on us again to set that routine and to get them on more of a schedule right they're showing with their behavior that they need more help that they need more guidance and no worries right again this is all par for the course nobody's in trouble but i'm gonna help you now right i'm not going to put this all on you to tell me when you have to go potty i'm

10:12 going to be that calm confident leader we're going to i'm going to keep you on this schedule and we're just gonna go it's just part of our routine okay the fifth phrase we wanna avoid saying well potty training is she's going to the potty or he's going to the potty why can't you right it's that flavor of comparison that i want us to avoid right or you went to the potty yesterday why can't you go today that's

10:43 also a comparison right you were doing so good the other day what happened to you now basically i'm unhappy with you now is is the flavor right is the energy that we are bringing to the table why do we want to avoid this well this puts pressure on our child right immediately they register this as a criticism because it is and then they start to feel bad about themselves then they start to beat themselves up it might not look like it

11:09 on the surface but it's very hard to change our behavior when we feel bad about ourselves um and i know where this comes from this comes from overwhelm this comes from frustration this comes from confusion right man your sister was so good at potty training what's going on what am i doing wrong what are you doing wrong how do we get back on track or you were doing so good yesterday and now you're not and what's going on right

11:36 there's a lot of confusion frustration overwhelm and so i get where it's coming from but we want to be very mindful not to put our feelings onto our child we don't want them to be all confused and overwhelmed and frustrated with themselves what we want to do is be as encouraging as possible during this potty training journey and not to negate that this is hard right it's a it's very hard for everybody involved right because it

12:04 again we're learning something new and this requires setbacks and accidents and that can be hard to deal with in the moment especially when we have so many other things on our plate right especially when we're trying to get out the house we're trying to go on an outing we got company over or you know they just peed on our rug and we're like oh my goodness right it's good the whole blade's gonna smell like pee i you know what have you right it's

12:29 hard it's it's it's this is not easy and we want to be mindful of the language that we're using so we want to be mindful not to compare our child whether it's the version of themselves yesterday or the day before or to another child right because that just moves us back even more and then the other the last phrase again going along with phrase number five number six is you know saying i'm so frustrated right or showing that

12:59 frustration again i know this is a lot easier said than done but i just want us to realize that the more impatient that we get the more frustrated that we get the more anger we bring to this situation the harder it is for our child to learn okay knowing that when our child registers that we are disappointed in them that we're angry at them or what have you right any negative emotion that uh they perceive it as

13:29 threat and then their uh frontal lobe literally goes offline their amygdala gets hijacked and now their emotional brain is on right and they're only thinking about protecting ourselves and this is what we all do when we register a threat and so we don't want to be our child's threat during this potty training experience right because it makes it harder for them to learn it actually just continues the cycle i actually talk about this in my discipline workshop as it relates to

13:58 discipline there's so many overlaps here when we think about quote-unquote discipline and behavior seeing better behavior seeing better cooperation and potty training i mean the two overlap in so many ways because what we're trying to teach our child is a new skill just similar i'm thinking if we're trying to teach our child how to use their use their words and communicate when they feel angry in potty training we're trying to teach our child how to listen to their body

14:27 and listen to those cues that they have to go potty and then put their pee and poop in the body right and so just like with any skill it's very hard for kids to learn when they're being hijacked in their fight or flight part of their brains right they are not going to be thinking their their memory is going to be really hard it's going to be hard for them to remember things it's going to be hard

14:53 for them to think rationally delay gratification i mean all of that higher order thinking that we that is required to learn new skills is just not going to be available to them when they are under stress okay this is why and i don't want to digress too much if your child is experiencing stress in a different area of their life it's not uncommon for them to regress in potty training right and start having more accidents

15:24 because learning is a lot harder right it's a lot harder to shore up all of those areas of their brain that's required for learning a new skill when they're under stress okay again check out my video on how to handle potty training accidents if that's something that you're struggling right now but i just want us to again be more mindful and you know be easy with ourselves offer ourselves grace when we mess up okay this is not an either or

15:51 thing this is not a perfection rant this is more of just being mindful of the energy that we bring while we are on this journey with our child right while we are guiding our child and teaching our child this new skill um and that we just want to avoid those phrases oh i'm so frustrated or even what we communicate in our non-verbal communication i think language is about what is it 70 non-verbal so it's not really always just about what we say

16:20 it's about the energy that we bring right it's about our mood and really being mindful of the overall mood and energy that we're bringing to this process of potty training okay not to say if your child's having accidents it's all on you right and you're messing up just you know just be mindful okay and i know it's it's hard right body training is a process um but you can do it okay and i believe in you and if you

16:46 are struggling or if you have a question for me and you want my feedback and input you want some more information about potty training check out my upcoming class i'm calling it the potty training boot camp okay um and i really hope to see you there and again uh thank you so much for watching or listening and i will see you in the next episode bye