Number one challenge potty training by far!

                The last three weeks we have been working towards potty training. We began with an intense fear of sitting on the potty. Once we jumped that obstacle we were on to the next challenge of actually sitting on that potty for more than five seconds at a time. If you read my blog often you know I had my potty invention idea which I will say was completely effective at teaching him he can sit on the potty for long periods of time or at least enough time to make the magic happen.

                What have I learned about potty training an autistic toddler verses a non autistic toddler in the last three weeks? There is a world of difference. Many people aren’t able to potty train a child with autism at all and some take years to master it. It is in fact one of the most complicated challenges we have faced and I knew it was going to be but I based that on lack of communication not what I have actually discovered.

                When you think of potty training you think it’s time to teach my child to recognize when it is time. It is time to teach them being wet is uncomfortable and once you are able to show a child these two things it starts to take off. The child learns that feeling and slowly begins to master it. Not always so easily but we all know how it works.

                Here is our challenge and it’s one I am still trying to figure out. You see my son has full control of his system when it comes to going potty. He will actually hold it sometimes to the point of pain, not just number two but he can hold number one way to long as well. He knows the feeling of being wet and he hates it. He also knows what the potty is for and I have no doubt he understands how it is used. So, what is the problem at this point? It’s a tricky one that’s for sure. The routine of going potty in a diaper for nearly three years is not so easy to break. You might think if he just relaxes and does it once in the potty he will understand. When a child with autism is set on routine it is nearly concrete. In his mind this concrete routine will not be broken.

                The moment I realized this is not a physical training issue or a matter of getting him to understand a potty was a very clear signal from him routine has a firm grip on why this is so difficult.

 He was running around in the buff once again. I had a couple of diapers still tucked away in a travel bag in my living room. We hadn’t used the bag in a very long time but he remembered the diapers being in the bag. He walked over pulled one out and held in front of himself to go potty. That’s right, his mind was telling him you have peed in a diaper your whole life and this is where it goes. He didn’t even have to put it on just the simple visual of what he is used to. I stopped him and placed him on the potty where we blew bubbles for nearly a half hour and he would not go potty….it’s not where it belongs in his mind.

                When you hear of someone struggling to potty train a child with autism or maybe a caregiver who is giving a parent a difficult time on the issue consider how the mind of autism works before judging if the parent is doing all they can. It may not be a matter of not knowing how or some might even think a lazy parent who isn’t trying hard enough. Changing that routine is much harder than you can ever imagine. Not impossible and I now have a new approach to this challenge. Three years of a routine for him is not going to change so quickly. Every day we are working towards a change in that routine actually becoming the new routine he is used to. Eventually his mind will let go, I hope.  Everything else he needs to know and understand is already there to potty train.