Potty Training Toddlers – Have You Tried Role Playing?
Kids learn fast by way of example and sometimes the best way to do that is to do some roleplaying. Here’s a neat roleplaying session you can have fun with when you think your child is ready to potty train. Grab one of your child’s favourite dolls or teddies and put a diaper on it. Call it by whatever name your child calls it. For this example we will call the doll Daisy. Now tell your child that you are going to teach Daisy to go to the potty and that she won’t need to wear diapers but will wear big person pants because she can do wees and poos like a big person. Then change the doll into some underpants.
Give Daisy lots of water. If you have a doll that can drink liquids this exericise will be much easier but if not just pretend that she’s drinking. Then jump around and tell your child that Daisy needs to go to the toilet and rush to the potty and teach Daisy to go potty (after you have removed the underpants of course). Again, if you don’t have a doll that simulates this then just use a syringe. Get excited about Daisy doing a pee in the potty and then make a big deal about the underpants being dry because Daisy used the potty.
Do the motions of cleaning the doll with toilet paper so your child knows that needs to be done as well. Then go to the toilet and flush the potty contents all the while congratulating Daisy on what a great job she did. Don’t forget to wash Daisy’s hands.
Do this a few times as children learn most by repetition. Your child can put a star on a chart for Daisy to congratulate her on her accomplishment. Make a real song and dance about Dolly being potty trained, your child will love it. To make the sessions more realistic occasionally let Dolly have an accident and get your child to touch the wet pants to show how it feels .
Do this exercise about three days before you start potty training your child. Once they have the routine down then it’s time to start teaching your child about using the potty themselves. Your role playing sessions have just re-inforced the required routines and they will feel more comfortable using the potty themselves.
Learn other tricks about when and how to potty train your child.