A checklist for parents

Press, 3 December 1987, Page 12

A checklist for parents

Not only children but parents need to be ready for toilet training. Phyllis Brock suggests this checklist: • Is your child aged twenty months or over? •Is your child free from any physical abnormality that would prevent or delay toilet training? • Is your child receiving treatment for a chronic illness (for example, asthma, diabetes), and, if so, is the treatment sufficient for your child to be able to learn the tasks involved in toilet training? • Is your child eating an adequate diet so constipation or diarrhoea is not a problem? • Is your child drinking adequate amounts?

• Does your child know or understand the words for wet and dirty, and do you, as a family have special names for urine and faeces? 9 Is your child learning how to do things when told? • Does your child know when you are pleased with him or her? • Is your child beginning to try and learn to do things without your help? • Do you have a training plan? • Do you have all the information you need? • Do all the adults involved in the training agree that the child is ready to begin?

• Do you have means of handling all the "wellmeaning” advice you’ll receive on how to toilet train?

• Do you realise that training each child is different and that things may not go as you expect?