What happened there ? (Toilet training question).

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We have been toilet training our son since March of this year. We have minimum accidents on a strict schedule, but he was not making requests to go or going independently. Well, two evenings ago, hubby & I found him naked in the restroom, with the lights on, and sitting quietly on top of the potty. Since neither of us had put him on, we were thrilled to realize that he had done this on his own ! We found his underwear wet, so we began to celebrate, thinking he has FINALLY - at almost 5 - made the connection that peeing happens in the potty, not in his underwear. Not only that, but he had opened the bathroom door, turned on the lights himself, opened the toilet lid, undressed and plonked himself down on it, all on his own. Probably not a big deal at all to someone with a high functioning child but this was HUGE for us.

Well, we celebrated too early because we have had NOTHING but accidents yesterday & today, and a refusal to sit on the potty ! !! I just don't get it. How can this kid suddenly have a complete reversal ? I have been racking my brains to wonder what it was he ate or what we did on Monday that caused that independent attempt at peeing, and what could possibly have now set us right back to early March ?

Help ! What could this be ? SERVES US RIGHT to have celebrated early, I guess. But we have had so few successes that we really and truly thought that potty training was almost done !

Even with NT kids, just b/c they do it right once, doesn't mean it is a learned skill. He's going to have to have repeated success, and even then sometimes they backslide if their world gets disrupted by something you cannot help, or they get upset.

It does not take a way from his success. He did it! You are closer to the end of the tunnel than you were before b/c he has a success he can internally reference.

Thank you, ASDMommy. But nothing has changed drastically in our home from Monday evening to this evening. I know that there will be some failures along the way before consistent success, but the dramatic reversal has me in doldrums, especially since we have struggled to help him gain every.little.skill that he currently has (which aren't many, actually).

Just one more thing to obsess over, I guess. But thank you for your very kind words. It was just so wonderful to see him on the toilet by himself that even my normally stoic husband couldn't help but celebrate !

I don't think anything major *needs* to have precipitated the successful event or caused future misses.

Sometimes thinking through these things with such detail is useful, because changes to the approach need to be made and they are most successful when we watch really closely and think a lot.

A few people seem to have stories of potty training their little ones in a very short time, but that's rare. 6 months is an average time to expect for a neurotypical kid in the best of circumstances. Even for that NT kid, progress will rarely be linear.

My AS child took over 4 years to potty train (starting at age 2). If I knew then what I know now about his potty training story, I would have told my younger self,

"celebrate successes, but don't get hung up on results. Choose a solid plan that fits your family and then RELAX and follow it. It will take as long as it takes."

I really hated hearing this when I was desperately searching for help, but the honest best way to go about it is to not make it that big of a deal. I think I hated hearing that because 1) it *felt* like a big deal and 2) I didn't have a clue how to actually implement "not caring so much". I think I understand now what others mean by this and perhaps I can explain it better now that I've experienced it more. I would compare a useful potty training mindset to that of the way most of us teach our children to brush their teeth. Our dentist said to brush our children's teeth for/with them until they are 7 years old. Parents everywhere do this with their children. We don't frustrate over the fact that the child still cannot do it independently, we simply schedule the time to be present to help until the day arrives that we are no longer needed actively.

I'd make the same suggestion for toileting happily. Make sure you have the correct supplies (which you probably do since it's still early in the process), but that can be very frustrating to not be prepared. Make the process a smooth machine--find ways to eliminate any frustrating aspect for you. Then, schedule the time. Plan on being there indefinitely and then just let your focus find something else more interesting. We don't obsess about tooth brushing. Don't obsess about this.

I hope that communicated the hope and care I intended it to.

Even with my NT son, he has gone backwards in potty training and I know how frustrating it is and I can understand now why some parents would actually *gasp* literally beat their child or why that one mother super glued her toddler's hand to the wall and beat her for wetting her pants. I am not saying this to justify their abuse and saying it's okay, I am saying I understand why they would do it. I have felt that way too but I never beat my kid for it or super glued his hand to the wall. I experienced the frustration and I would feel like crying at times when he would poop his pants or wet himself after refusing to sit on the potty. He knew how to use it but chose not to. Then after I had my daughter, bam he went forward again and also started pooping in the potty. Even with our washer not being in order, our son used the potty because I told him if he wet his pants, he wouldn't have any clean underwear to wear or any pants and he wouldn't be able to go bye bye or be able to wear his big boy pants so bam he was using the potty well for peeing and not having any skid marks in his underwear or any poop in his butt and then the plumbing in the basement got fixed and the washing machine was back in use again and bam he went backwards again. I decided to make a star chart and if he wets or poops himself, he has to earn his underwear back by using the potty and after four stars he gets his big boy pants back and he has to earn an extra star every time he wets or messes himself to get his under wear back and he loses a star if he goes in his pants and has to earn it back again. But with our daughter here, he has been doing good but I kept the chart up on my wall just in case. I do believe he knew how to use the potty for pee but chose not to. He was using it fine with rewards and when we weren't using the washer due to the plumbing being clogged in the basement and it was getting fixed and my mom decided no one does laundry until the plumber fixes it but then he would go backwards when we stopped using the rewards because he knew how to go and got the hang of it and also the fact he didn't want to run out of clean clothes and then when he knew the washer was in use again, he went backwards knowing he will keep getting clean clothes.

I don't remember my mother ever brushing my teeth--I think I would have suffered sensory overload if that happened. I hated it when she brushed my hair; she did it so roughly.

My mother claims I was toilet-trained in "one go" at the age of 2 1/2. She, apparently, just decided she had had enough of diapers.

she introduced me to the toilet--and myself and the toilet have been friends ever since, apparently.

Thank you, screen_name. I think I should probably chill, but I feel enormously stressed because my son has such few skills that having him toilet trained would mean one milestone that he did achieve.

My real problem is not being able to make peace with the fact that he is going to hit milestones later, but that does not mean that he won't ever get there. As ASDMommy says, he has shown that he is capable of independently using the bathroom so that is a ++.

League Girl, how old was your son when he did eventually start to use the bathroom on his own ??

patience is important. In my work as a therapist (and in my own life) progress is often accompanied by some regress. The worst thing to do in those moments is to lose hope and abandon the approach that bought you the progress. The fact that the skill was demonstrated at some point means you're farther along than you were a month ago. He's had a success, and maybe if you reinforced it and the situation is just right, he'll have another one. It may be worth trying to recreate the situation that led him there. But each situation brings separate challenges, getting out of bed to pee may be easy, while walking away from a favorite tv show may be hard. As he gets better, the skill will generalize, and mistakes will be rarer....but they still may happen on occasion. That just means he hasn't mastered it yet. Give him time, and go easy on yourselves, you're doing good work.

Thank you for the gentle reminder. I am just praying that this skill of using a potty independently will show itself again. That would be one less thing to worry about.

BTW, Emile, I did not realize that you are a therapist ! I assumed that you are "just" another parent ! Are you a BCBA ? What sort of intervention do you specialize in ? I am asking because I am currently involved in a PECS-ASL dispute with his current agency (posted about it in the general forum, hoping that adults with autism would respond) and would love your personal opinion on the great ASL / PECS debate !

Thanks !

Last edited by HisMom on 22 May 2014, 8:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

Maybe he doesn't like people watching him use the toilet.
Maybe he likes to use the toilet naked.

I'm in the process of getting my Ph.D. in clinical psychology, specializing in ASDs...I should be done by August. I don't think I can help in your debate They're both methods of communication with their own advantages and disadvantages. They're both better than nothing, and I think it really comes down to the child's preference or ability....If your child is completely non-verbal, there's no harm in trying to teach both simultaneously and seeing which one s/he gravitates to. Also no need to go broke buying the official PECS stuff, you can just as easily make your own, or even turn a cell-phone/ipad into an augmentative communication device.

If you go that route with pecs or communication devices, it's important to always make sure to have those with the child. I've seen too many parents with semi-verbal children insist on using PECS or devices, but then going on errands and leaving the devices at home or limiting the child's access because they don't want to deal with excessive requests. That's the child's language, and it becomes your responsibility to make sure it stays with him/her.

If I remember correctly, EmileMulder is not a parent.

The bolded portion of your comment (portability) is why I was open to the idea of trying ASL first as a communication modality, since he showed no signs of "talking". But it has been more than a year since we started and he has gained only a few prompted mands, signs that are modified for him to such an extent (due to the dyspraxia) that even a community of ASL users won't understand him. I just don't want to spend yet another year in vain hope that he will "eventually" get ASL. And PECS seems to be evidence based practice, so I don't know why they are against it, even though I am aware of the disadvantages with PECS / AAC.

I notice that you state that both ASL and PECS are better than nothing. I am sure most parents & professionals would much rather that their child talked, but my son lacks the pre-req social and cognition skills that will eventually lead to verbal communication. I don't mean to say that my son has no cognition (as he has shown great improvements across the board in the past several months in multiple domains), but there have been minimal developments in the areas of communication / socialization.

I know that these are the subject of yet another thread, but could you share (especially on the classical autism sticky thread above) how to help kids with significant delays develop these skills ? I ask if you would post in that thread as that will also help any other parent looking for this information / advise now & in the future as well.

Thanks !

yes indeed...I am not a parent. I started posted on here recruiting for my dissertation and have been hanging around occasionally offering little tidbits of advice.

I'm just amused because HisMom recently demanded to know whether I was a parent, and implied that if I wasn't I should go away. She seems to have no such problem with you. I guess it's on a case-by-case basis.

I was talking to my friend on Friday about toilet training my ASD son who is nearly 8, and he said they have just finally finished toilet training their 8 year old boy who is NT! He said he would still have accidents when heavily engrossed in Lego or something like that.
Come to think of it I had a few toilet accidents at school myself in the first year.