Oh Crap! Potty Training

trick is to get your child sitting for a poop and all of sudden think of
something you need to do in the other room. Tell him to sit tight,
you’ll be right back. Nine times out of ten, the child will poop when
you are gone for a minute. In fact, a huge telltale sign that it’s time to
potty train right now is when your child goes somewhere specifically
to poop. Don’t miss that window of opportunity!
The goal is to take that glaring spotlight off your kid and off this
process. No one wants to poop with all eyes on them. Of course, a
nice high five and a yahoo once the deed is done is perfectly fine!
If your child isn’t pooping in those first few days, relax. This isn’t willful
and it’s not manipulation: it’s a normal process of wanting to keep what’s
theirs, theirs.
Ina May Gaskin ends her discussion of sphincter muscles with
this: “ . . . if someone is afraid or feels violated, the sphincter will
slam shut.” Of course, she’s referring to the cervix and birth, and I’m
referring to the anus and poop. Same difference. A sphincter by any
other name is still a sphincter.
Now, that brings us to the next logical point. Why on earth would
a child feel afraid or violated during potty training? Well, for a lot of
reasons, actually, none of which have to do with “readiness.” I already
mentioned the privacy issue: putting a glaring spotlight on a private
function can feel violating. Of course, I’m not talking about the kinds
of horrible violations that you sometimes see on the news—I’m
talking more the embarrassing kind of violation—but nonetheless, on
a primal level, it can feel violating. The same kind of embarrassing
feeling of violation that makes us not want to blow a bunch of farts
when we’re in a public restroom and someone’s in the next stall. I