(ARA) – When one day you look back on the biggest challenge you faced as the parent of a young child, what do you think it will be? Getting your kids to sleep through the night, teaching them how to eat properly or potty training?
“Potty training wins hands down,” says “Potty Pro” Teri Crane of Avon Lake, Ohio, and she should know. She started trying to train her son, Spencer, when he was two-and-a-half and met such stiff resistance she gave up and put him back in diapers.
“Nothing was working. In fact, he actually had become hostile towards the potty seat. We would ask if he had to go. He would shout, ‘No I don’t have to. I don’t want to,’” she says.
Spencer’s breakthrough finally came just before his third birthday. “I wanted to enroll him in preschool, but couldn’t find a program that would accept him until he was potty trained. So I decided it was time to try again,” says Crane.
Knowing that Spencer loves parties, she decided to throw one that would convince him using the potty is fun. Crane planned a Potty Party for Spencer in which he received the gift of a doll he would help train. “All morning, in between reading books and playing games, I taught Dolly how a big boy goes to the potty by himself and Spencer watched closely,” says Crane. “By lunchtime, he had grasped the most important aspects of potty training and was teaching Dolly himself.”
After lunch, for added incentive, she told Spencer that if he showed her that he could use the potty just like Dolly had he’d get to go to his favorite place, Chuck E. Cheese. “It worked like a charm,” says Crane.
Crane’s Potty Party technique was so successful, she decided to write a book on the subject. “Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day” is now in its 6th printing.
The book outlines how to throw a successful, themed Potty Party and teaches parents the keys to potty training success, including how to:
* Recognize the signs that the child is ready to be potty trained.
These include dancing, jumping up and down and grabbing their private parts when they have to go; pulling or tugging on their diaper after they have urinated or defecated in it; and being able to stay clean and dry for 3 to 5 hours at a time.
* Create incentive through consistent positive reinforcement.
Toddlers love to play and imagine, so Crane says parents should turn the process into a game. If you can make learning how to use the potty fun and magical, you are less likely to get resistance, she says. The Potty Party is a perfect way to create an imaginative and creative setting for potty training.
* Make the process easy and comfortable for the child.
Most toddlers are too small to safely use an adult toilet, and will be afraid to even try, so Crane recommends parents provide them with a training potty. When deciding which one to buy, she recommends parents put safety first by making sure the potty can’t be rocked or tipped when the child sits on it; the child can’t fall off backwards or sideways; there aren’t sharp or pointed pieces that can scrape or otherwise injure the child; and there aren’t parts that can fall off and be swallowed.
Crane recommends the Boon Potty Bench. It sits just seven inches high, the perfect height for a toddler’s comfort level, and features two enclosed side storage spaces for organizing potty training supplies. “The feature I like best is ease of clean-up,” says Crane. “The toilet ‘bowl’ is a small drawer that slides out quickly and easily, then once you dump it out and clean it, you just slide it back into place.”
Boon spokesperson Kate Benjamin points out another quality that parents appreciate -- multi-function. “The Potty Bench really helps save space in the bathroom since it easily converts to a sturdy bench or step stool while the side storage compartments are an added bonus for keeping the bathroom organized.”
The Boon Potty Bench is available at Babies ‘R Us, Toys ‘R Us and other retailers nationwide. To find the store nearest you, log on to www.booninc.com. If you have questions about potty training, you can contact Teri Crane at www.thepottypro.com.
Courtesy of ARA Content
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The New Dad: How the Role of Dad is Changing
(ARA) - What kind of a relationship do you have with your dad? Gone are the days of the traditional mentor relationship such as Ward Cleaver and his sons Wally and Beaver.
“Fathers are taking a more direct role than ever in raising their children,” says Karen Irvin, Ph.D., Program Chair for Marriage and Family Therapy at Argosy University and a licensed marriage and family therapist and psychologist.
“Dads are more aware from infancy, even from pregnancy, of their child’s development and are more interested and involved than ever,” says Dr. Irvin. In the past, fathers relied more on their children’s verbal skills to communicate with them. Fathers now appear more interested in forming attachments earlier in their children’s development. “Dads are no longer limited to teaching ‘manly skills’ such as survival, hunting, fishing and sports.”
Like it or not, Dr. Irvin says, this is partly due to the beginning of a major culture shift driven by necessity. “With moms less available, dad is making up the difference,” she says.
More often than not, the “traditional” mother no longer exists as she is employed either part time or full time. “The idea of a stay-at-home mom with a working dad is no longer the norm,” Dr. Irvin says, on a break from her teaching responsibilities and clinical practice.
Fathers are more directly involved in day-to-day child care, in communication with day care providers and schools, and with health care providers. They are more likely to attend doctor and dental appointments than in the past. Fathers previously relied on mom to attend to these details and give dad the updates,” says Irvin. Fathers’ direct involvement in the details of their children’s lives contributes to a greater feeling of closeness and empathy for the children, which increases the intimacy of father-child relationships.
“We are primarily seeing this as a middle class phenomenon right now,” she says. In the upper socio-economic level, there are still mothers who are able to be stay-at-home moms with the fathers working long hours outside the home. In the lower socio-economic levels, moms are still carrying the majority of the child rearing responsibilities, in some instances with minimal involvement from the father.
The range of subjects that fathers and their children are discussing and experiencing together is much broader today. Dads are teaching their children values, feelings and other things that were typically “assigned” to moms.
What’s driving this?
Through Dr. Irvin’s more than 30 years of clinical practice, she has seen more and more couples facing the challenges of divorce, and that the impact it has on a father‘s relationship with his children can be significant.
“Divorce has been a wake-up call for dads. When parents live together, they are accustomed to having access to their children day and night, weekend and weekday. Following separation or divorce, there is heightened awareness of missing the children and missing out on routines such as bedtime rituals. Fathers seem to be clearer about the need for time and intimacy with their children, and they are presenting those needs to mothers, mediators and the courts.
Today, dads are taking more time to learn how to be parents. “You used to have dads that got together and talked about sports or cars, and now they’re also talking about day care and nutrition,” says Irvin. Some fathers are attending classes with their young children, modifying their work schedules to be more flexible to accommodate children’s needs and schedules.
On the positive side of all of this, having a better relationship between father and child means that kids are going to feel more grounded. Recent literature on children of divorce indicates that one of the variables for children’s emotional recovery, social skill development and academic success is related to a consistent, stable relationship and time spent with fathers.
So are the days of Ward, Wally and the Beaver over? “Yes … for both the good and the bad. How fathers assume their new role and take on added responsibility in the coming years will be critical.”
Courtesy of ARAcontent
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