Potty Training for life

The whole of life is one big beautiful potty training exercise!  My kids taught me this when they were little.

I am rather prone to high expectations which can often lead me to disappointment.  Once I spot something that needs to shift, I want to change it instantly.  We might be pottering along perfectly happily when all of a sudden I realise that something is awry: I am doing too much of other people’s housework; or bedtimes have slipped later and later; or our mealtimes are no longer synchronising and we’re eating in shifts; or the paperwork pile has become a mountain threatening to avalanche across the kitchen bench.  Once identified I seek to fix the problem – and I easily forget that this can be a process and not a single act.  I feel impatient with myself when having identified the issue, I cannot seem to make the necessary shift to remedy it immediately.

Then I recall what I learned while watching my children potty training:-

that change comes in stages

(actually we went straight from nappy to toilet as my kids liked the idea of copying the grown-ups and I didn’t like the idea of dealing with a potty)

1. First the child needs to understand what the nappy is for.
2. Then they need to see that not everyone uses a nappy; that the toilet is another option.
3. Then they need to want to use the toilet rather than their nappy.
4. Then they need to recognise when they are wetting their nappy.
5. Next they start to know when they are just about to wet.
6. This extends to having a five second warning.
7. This elongates into having a few minutes warning.
8. And finally a child has a sense of their need to use the toilet in plenty of time.

In this eight step process, it is only on step eight, and if you are lucky maybe step seven, that the goal of using the toilet is achieved.  And yet each step must be taken from one to eight to achieve mastery of this new skill.

So, applying this to any problem in life:

1. The first step is to become aware of what I am doing.
2. The next step is to work out alternatives.
3. Then I have to want to pick one of these alternatives
4. Then I need to recognise when I am in the middle of doing that which I want to change.
5. Next I may become aware when I am about to do it, but I still do it.
6. Then when I realise that I am in this situation again, I now know that I could do something else, but still I may fall back on old habits.
7. Then I have a period when I start to try something else, sometimes I succeed, sometimes I forget or can’t.
8. Finally, I have developed a different strategy which I use most times.

So often I seem to want to jump from step three, of choosing an alternative, to step eight, of using it.  I would do well to graciously allow myself the intervening steps.  My children need that grace too – time to learn, rather than an expectation of instant change.

Also true to both potty training and life:

• If you pick the right time it can be effortless and quick.
• If you push too soon, it can be a struggle and dispiriting.
• It’s much easier if someone is there to help and support.

I am reminded of a poem by Portia Nelson (1920 – 2001) and quoted in “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying”.

Autobiography in Five Chapters

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost… I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
§
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I’m in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
§
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in… it’s a habit
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
§
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
§
I walk down another street.

Photo: Creative Commons by Manish Bansal