I'm really hitting that point of being at wit's end. My son just doesn't want to use the toilet. We've done everything for him. We've bought him special underwear. We got him a seat for the toilet with a special step stool and everything. We've even tried to bribe him to use the toilet instead of a diaper! He was making so much progress, then all of the sudden he doesn't want to do it anymore. It's too much work. He'd rather be lazy, or that's what it seems.
This whole thing with having accidents, I know some people would say he's deliberately soiling or peeing in his underwear to rebel against us. I've been told he's being willful. I've been told he's doing it deliberately to stand against me, his own little act of rebellion. I don't think that's so much the case at all. He looks shocked when he has an accident and gets all upset. I honestly think he doesn't mean to do it, he's just not paying enough attention to when he needs to use the toilet.
I've been told more times than I can count that I should shame him into using the toilet. I should make him feel so bad about himself that he won't want to do anything else. I'm really tired of this shame based world that we live in. Yes, shame works, but shame could also lead him to hiding his dirty underwear or his blankets because he had an accident and is too afraid to admit it. There is always the possibility that there's some deeper reason why he doesn't want to use the toilet. With how much we have to fight him to change his diaper, I wouldn't be surprised. That would explain why he goes through phases of doing incredibly well and then phases of not wanting to try at all.
Of course, it's also going to be harder for him right now. We've got a lot going on right now. Summer is a chaotic, crazy time. We had someone move in with us in May, which always changes the routine. Then both our new room mate and my partner got jobs about the same time, so we really had a lot of change go on. Sleep schedules were disturbed. Chaos ensued. In truth, we're really not back to normal yet. We'll probably be settling in somewhere around September, not for a lack of trying, but because things keep changing. Things always move so rapidly in the summer.
I'm not really looking for advice. I'm not looking to have anyone help me out on getting it done. I'm really just kind of frustrated and venting. My older son is four and still doesn't want to use the toilet. My daughter was the same way, refused to use anything but her diaper until she was four and a half. I just don't know if I can do that again for my littlest. I don't think we can afford to have another one in diapers until after age four. I really hope my youngest doesn't follow the trend.
Maybe some of this is just coming out of my own exhaustion. I'm trying to juggle a lot of things right now, from settling into a new routine to writing jobs to an attempt at my first novel for Camp NaNoWriMo to managing finances and catching up on bills to organizing and trying to get back into greener trends. I think I just need to take a break, step back, and realize that it's all going to work out in time.
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