PROVIDING PERSONAL CARE : TOILET TRAINING
A teacher of children with severe disabilities gave me this advice, "I love what I do but I was not prepared for it. Please, as a professor, when you teach people about caring for children with severe disabilities, tell them about all the gross parts of the job. Let them know that they may still be wiping a child's bottom when he's eight, that they may have to use a q-tip to clean out the nose of a six-year-old who doesn't understand what I mean when I say, 'Blow!' while holding a tissue to her nose.
So, here is one not very fun part, making the move from diapers. Questions to ask to save you and your child frustration:
- Is your child ready? Does he have control over his own body functions?
- Is your child motivated? At a certain age, children want to be a 'big girl' or 'wear big boy pants' or simply be praised by their parents. Other children, for example, children with autism have no interest at all in toilet training.
- Does your child understand what you want him to do?
Assuming your child is ready, some common methods used for children with disabilities include:
- Positive reinforcement - checking that the child has dry pants on a regular basis, usually every half-hour at the beginning, and reiforcing the child with a sticker, piece of gum or other reward that the child likes. (HINT: This needs to be something that is not too expensive to buy in large quantity. You need to reward the child frequently until he understands the difference between 'wet' and 'dry' pants and what you want him to do. Giving your child a stuffed animal every half hour is going to get pretty expensive.
- Scheduled method - Determine about how often your child uses the toilet. Usually children will use the bathroom around the same time each day. Begin taking your child to the bathroom twice as often they usually go. So, if the child usually wets his diaper once every two hours, take him to the bathroom every hour. When he does use the toilet, make a big deal out of it, telling him how great he is, hugging him. For more on this method, click here for a short article called "Toilet training made semi-easy"
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