Q: My 4-year-old grandson refuses to use the toilet to poop. He does it on purpose to get back at his parents. He has an 11-month-old sister. He has always been strong-willed toward his parents, and he fights them constantly in every request: eating, bedtime, cleanliness, etc. He is extremely bright and scores as an early learner on the age charts. He behaves for me because I will brook no argument from small children, but I live across the country.
He has been potty trained for a year now and will tell you that he must poop in the toilet, but five minutes later, he goes in his pants. He, unfortunately, seems to enjoy the negative attention. (He also fights, bites, pinches and kicks other kids to the point his parents can’t keep friends, and going to church is painful for all involved.)
Do you have any good suggestions? His mom gave up teaching to stay home with him but needs direction in curbing his behavior.
A: Parents frequently write to me about the topic of potty training, and I don’t really like to address it. Why? Many “training” solutions often turn into yet another problem to deal with, and I hate the thought of adding to parenting woes.
But I am answering this particular question for a couple of reasons. First, I want to dispel some of the worries you are communicating. Four-year-olds don’t mindfully refuse to use the toilet. I know, I know – it can sure seem this way, but young children simply do not have the maturity to build a complex revenge case against their parents. Also, a child does not really “enjoy” any negative attention he receives. Even when a child may be smiling, taunting and seemingly drawing negative attention to himself, he is not enjoying it.
If we trust only what we see, we will believe that this child wants to cause trouble. We would never assume that a baby who throws her spoon on the ground doesn’t want to eat again, right? The baby is testing boundaries and finding edges but has no notion of “being bad.”
This 4-year-old is in a similar mindset. We have to go deeper, past the obvious misbehavior, to understand what this child needs.
Does that mean that your grandson isn’t struggling? Oh, you bet he is. And from what you told me, he is struggling across many domains. The beauty of potty training is that it can reveal where a child is stuck. You mention that he is fighting his parents “at every request,” but where do they have absolutely no control? Where and how their son defecates.
Again: He is not making a plan to defecate in his pants. Instead, this is more of a reaction to heartache and whatever he is troubled by. Four-year-old children have few communication tools available to them to express all of their big emotions. These emotions come spilling out in all kinds of inconvenient ways, and one of those is through defecating in inconvenient places at inconvenient times.
Essentially, this kind of regression (coupled with his other behaviors) is a sign of stress.
The solution for helping children’s stress is not more of it (i.e., threats, punishments, bribes).
When a child is stressed, the question for the parents is: “What is the stress’ source, and how can we remove or mitigate that stressor in his life?”
For instance, if he is having a wretched time at church, can one parent stay home with him while the other goes with the other child?
Is this a sacrifice for the family? Yes. But it appears that the alternative is more misery. And stress.
Is this little boy having a difficult time with his sister? Can the parents find more positive time and space for the son, in which he feels special and loved separately from his sibling?
Another way to relieve stress in children is for the parents to find the best in the child. Yikes – that can be tough, huh? When a child is fighting his parents at every turn and is soiling himself, it is truly difficult to see a positive. But it is the obligation of every parent to find the good nature of the child, as well as to believe that the child wants to be good and cooperative. Parents often dismiss this idea, but it is relaxing for a child to feel as though his parent is on his side. When a child relaxes, his behavior improves.
Other tactics make potty training worse: talking about it. Constantly addressing it. Asking the child why he had an accident. This conversation ends up stressing the child more, because he doesn’t have any coherent answers. The more you talk, the more frustrated he becomes. The more frustrated the child becomes, the worse the behavior gets – and so on. Therefore, parents can try compassionate silence about potty-training issues. It will bring much-needed relief to this situation.
In terms of positive actions, the parent should carry pull-on diapers, wipes, a change of clothes and a travel potty. Assume he will have an accident, and when he does, smile and say, “Let’s clean it up! No problem.” Oh, sure, this is tiresome and gross, but that’s parenting.
Finally, I cannot say this enough: Reframe this issue so that you see a stressed-out child. He doesn’t want to be bad, he doesn’t want to soil his pants, he doesn’t want to fight with his parents. This is what he is doing as a default reaction to a lack of better communication tools. Bring ease, comfort and belief to him, and watch him grow.
Meghan Leahy is a Washington parenting coach.
