Toilet learning should be a positive experience for a child, and this phase should only take a short period if your child is ready. Toilet learning is as individual-centered as learning to walk. There is no right age by which all children have completed toilet learning. Problems in toilet learning usually arise because adults ignore the child’s lack of readiness; they pressure the child through weeks and months of failure rather than realizing the timing is wrong.
Bright Beginnings Preschool wants to reiterate that toilet learning differs from toilet training. While toilet training is something that an adult does to a child, toilet learning is when your child plays an active part in their own learning. Toilet learning begins with knowing the signs that tell your children are ready to use the toilet independently.
For many years, we have noticed that the average age for a child to be ready for toilet learning is 2 1/2 to 3 years for girls and 3 to 3 1/2 years for boys. We encourage your child to master “toilet training” at home for 14 days or more (evenings and weekends included) before bringing your child in underwear to preschool. Your child can begin to handle the toilet training at home first without distractions of daily activities at school and few reminders and ready for toilet learning when they wear their underwear here.
Suppose you find it difficult to manage too many accidents at home where your child is responsible for all that goes along with their learning; in that case, you will see how much more difficult it will be when we teach and monitor the other 15 children. For this reason, the preschool likes to plan and have only one child in toilet learning at a time. Doing so eliminates them from copying one another. It also prevents another child’s accidents from influencing others and lessens the time teachers spend with their pupils in the bathroom.
Please let your child learn dressing skills at home since this is something they will be responsible for when accidents happen. It will take approximately 15 min. or more of a teacher’s time to guide your child through the process of changing when accidents happen. This process involves getting out the new clothes, teaching your child how to take off their wet clothing, and guiding them to put their soiled clothing in the bag to go home (due to health regulations, we are not allowed to rinse out dirty clothing). We also encourage them to sit on the toilet again (in case more urine needs to come out) and guide them through the dressing process. We also may need to mop tile or clean carpet areas when either gets dirty during an accident. Bowel movements may take up to 20 or 30 minutes of a teacher’s time to complete the process. This is time spent away from the other children and is one of the main reasons other preschools prefer to take only toilet trained children.
Whenever parents want to have their child begin toilet training at school, we encourage them to discuss this matter at our parent/teacher meeting a month before. If your child is completely ready, this should take less than two weeks to form their routine here, allowing us to go on to the next child waiting in the wings.
What does mastering toilet learning imply? This means that your child will use the toilet without hesitation and manage their clothing without the parent or teacher’s help. If a boy has mastered the skill, he can stand up to urinate or hold his private part down himself to avoid clothing and floors getting wet. Once a child is out of diapers, teachers do not handle body parts for liability reasons. It is conducive if parents have instilled the proper toilet use in their child’s mind. We always have to consider your child’s will, not ours. When they are in the toilet learning stage, we let them take the lead.
Another thing we like to reiterate is to have your child wear loose-fitting clothing that is “user-friendly.” Too many ‘gadgets’ such as snaps, zippers, and buttons make it harder for your child to get to the toilet on time. They can manage their clothing more independently by wearing clothes such as elastic waist pants that are easy to pull up and down. Your child cannot afford to waste time unsnapping or zipping pants to avoid any accidents concerning not getting to the toilet on time. Your child will need to practice keeping their clothing on by pulling down their pants but not taking them off. They need to have mastered taking soiled clothing off and redressing themselves. They are still working on honing their fine motor skills (such as using their finger muscles), and hence, continued practice will prepare them for success. Do not send your child in overalls and T-shirts with snaps between the legs. Girls should not wear dresses or tights during the toilet learning experience. We want to create an atmosphere for success.
Sometimes your child may not have the same performance here as at home, so be prepared. Children are not trained at home to tell their parents they have to ask permission to use the restroom. Instead, they are allowed free access unsupervised to the bathroom in their home. Some children can have no clothes on or take clothes off entirely when using the bathroom at home. Therefore the routine is then set in their mind that this is how it should be— even at school. Thus, we need to supervise when first beginning toilet learning. Clothing needs to stay on at all times. Children need to use the toilet properly, not sit on it backward, etc. There are many more distractions at school with a larger group of children, toys, and bustling activities that can make a difference in their progress. When a child is ready on their own, there is not much difference between toilet learning at home and school.