Oh Crap! Potty Training

nothing overboard. As I said, this is a pretty quick, noninvasive way
of figuring out if your struggles are due to behavior or something else.
It’s helpful to separate out potty training from behavior. If your
child won’t sit when you ask him, that’s behavior. If you know your
child can use the potty because he’s done so in the past, though at
other times he can’t be bothered, that’s behavior. Behavior always
needs a consequence. Often, clients tell me that it sounds wrong to
give a consequence when dealing with elimination issues. What I like
to do (as I’ve recommended in a previous chapter), and I encourage
you to do as well, is to put the behavior into another context. If your
child doesn’t want to eat to dinner, and he takes his plate and dumps
it on the floor, what do you do? An older child who cannot be
bothered to sit and put his poop on the potty is doing just that. “Nah.
I’m good. I’ll just poop in my pants, and you can clean it up.”
It’s been my experience that you can feel when you need to use a
consequence. You will feel like a game is being played and you are the
sucker. You will feel like you are being “abused.”
Now, if you are still having accidents, but it doesn’t feel like
behavior, here’s the most recent deal: many, many children—
especially kids over three—are actually constipated. Listen up: this
can be true even if your child is pooping three times a day. There can
be backed-up poop that could be creating difficulties across the
board. I know how crazy this sounds, but it’s true. What many parents
have learned is that the easiest way to figure this out is to get an x-
ray done. Your doctor will be able to tell you. Your doctor might also
recommend a prescription laxative. This is by far the most common
protocol. I certainly don’t want to alarm you, but this situation is
becoming more and more common and I’m not sure why.