Parenting Resources

Common Potty-Training Methods

1. Baby Track (Timer) Method
This method introduces one “potty practice” time each day to help your child get comfortable with the idea. It’s low-pressure and builds awareness over time.

2. Fast Track Method
Use a teaching doll or play-based approach to make learning fun! Keep things upbeat—practice with a doll, use a toy potty, and even play “accident games” to help children understand what happens when they need to go.

3. “Potties Without Pressure” Method
Recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, this method focuses on waiting for true readiness and avoiding pressure or punishment. It emphasizes encouragement, patience, and respect for your child’s pace.

When Do Most Children Train?

The average age for successful potty training is around 3 years old (plus or minus 6 months).
“Early training” often sounds appealing, but experts agree it’s usually overrated. Children learn best when they’re ready—emotionally and physically.

What You Can Do Early

Even before potty training starts, you can help prepare your child by:

• Observing their bathroom habits

• Talking about what the potty is for

• Labeling body parts appropriately

• Reading storybooks or watching short videos about potty training

These small steps help normalize the process and make it less intimidating later.

Early Development and Readiness Signs

Before true readiness, you may notice early indicators like:

• Understanding and following 2–3 step directions

• Saying and meaning “no”

• Starting to imitate others’ behaviors

• Having longer dry periods

• Becoming more aware of their body and routines

⚠️ Keep in mind: Early 2s can be a challenging time! Tantrums and testing limits are normal—so if your child resists, it’s okay to pause and try again later.

Real Readiness Signs

Your child is likely ready for potty training when they:

• Talk or show interest in using the potty

• Pretend play about going potty

• Can dress and undress independently

• Understand what the potty is for

• Stay dry for several hours

• Are becoming more independent

Not True Readiness Signs

• Hiding to poop

• Standing nearby during accidents

• Showing strong resistance to training

These often mean your child isn’t quite ready yet.

Gentle Potty-Training Tips

• Make potty time exciting—take your child to pick out a potty or decorate it together.

• Start small: Let them sit fully dressed first, then gradually try without clothes.

• Use real-life learning: Empty diapers into the potty to show where waste goes.

• Try “naked days” to help them recognize the urge.

• When success happens—notice and describe (“You went potty!”) instead of throwing a big party.

• Offer descriptive praise (“You listened to your body!”) and use positive, ownership-based language (“You did it yourself!”).

• If using rewards, keep them small and consistent.

Potty Training in Preschool or Childcare Settings

• Teachers can support through role play, stories, and group potty times.

• Children often learn from watching peers.

• Staff and parents should coordinate approaches and language to ensure consistency.

• The goal is to encourage, not pressure.

Bedwetting Facts

• About 20% of 5-year-olds still wet the bed occasionally.

• Pediatricians often recommend using sleep diapers until ages 7–8, as nighttime dryness takes longer.

• Bedwetting can be influenced by:

  • Sleep maturity

  • Hormone development

  • Bladder size

  • Family history

Tips to support nighttime dryness:

• Encourage your child to use the potty before bed.

• Use rubber sheets for easy cleanup.

• Limit drinks after dinner (but not completely).

• Practice holding urine for short periods during the day.

• Some families use bedwetting alarms or medications if needed—ask your pediatrician for guidance.

Kindergarten Readiness and Learning through Play
By Rene Hackney, PhD.

I am firmly in the learning through play camp when it comes to preschoolers, early academics and getting ready for Kindergarten. Done in a good way, this doesn’t mean just let them play and they’ll be ready. It means thoughtfully providing academic experiences in fun, engaging and play based ways. Here are several play-based ideas to help get them ready for Kindergarten.

Early Literacy Skills to Keep in Mind – Early literacy is focused on the experiences we can provide children to later become successful readers.

Vocabulary – There are so many ways to build a young child’s vocabulary; read aloud everyday, talk about all the things they are seeing and doing, take them on outings and highlight the new vocabulary of that place and aim to teach one new word in context every few days.

Print Motivation – This is a child’s interest in and awareness of books. Motivation can be encouraged by having books available on every level of the house and in the car. You might offer reading as a reward, “You can stay up late if you are reading,” or “You can skip a chore if you are reading.” You might also offer extended learning activities, if you read Blueberries for Sal then make blueberry muffins. There are several great Story Stretchers by Raines idea books that provide extended learning activities based on books in preschool through the elementary years. Attending library and bookstore activities with read alouds and reading related activities and checking out library books also builds motivation.

Print Awareness – This is the child’s understanding about how books go cover to cover, and the words go top to bottom and left to right. It is a gradual understanding of word spacing and later sentence structure. This comes from a child’s shared and independent experiences with books. Reading aloud everyday and occasionally following along with your finger is a good ways to call attention to the print. Pointing out words that match pictures in books may help. Listening and looking at books on tape together is beneficial.

Narrative Skills – Narrative skills include being able to retell a story, understand the order and be able to eventually sequence events. Answering questions about what’s been read and recalling specific details of a story is a good place to start. Occasionally discussing what happened at the beginning, middle and end of a story is helpful. Calling grandma each Monday and retelling a story about something that happened over the weekend is a good way to practice this. There are also games like 4-Scene Sequencing Cards by Lakeshore that encourage narrative skills.

Letter Knowledge – This is the child learning the shapes, names and sounds of each of the letters. It’s tempting here to go more old school academic with flashcards and worksheets, I’d still err on the side of play. Have a letter of the week and collect small objects in the house that start with that sound. Go on letter hunts in the grocery store to find as many individual letters as you can and cross them off on a list, have a B shopping trip to buy bagels and butter, blueberries and beans and go home to a B lunch. Paint and sculpt the letters. Play matching games, bingo, memory and go fish with the letters. Peaceable

Kingdom offers an Alphabet Bingo and Alphabet Go Fish Game. These games can all start with just upper case, then upper and lower case. In the car you might play the license plate game where you make up silly phrases from the starting letters on the plate. You might play the alphabet game where everyone works together at first and competitively later to spot each letter of the alphabet in order on cars and road signs. You might read Dr. Seuss’s ABCs, The Construction Alphabet Book by Pallotta, Eric Carle’s ABC or use more activity books including Preschool Workbooks ABC Dot to Dot and Crayola’s Alphabet ABC. There are also board games including Arizona Alphabet Slap Jack,Super Why’s ABC Letter Game, and Bizzy Brainz Magnet’s and Matching A – Z Objects.

Phonics – This is being able to put the individual sounds together to make words, pull individual sounds out of words, recognize beginning, ending and eventually middle sounds of words and later learn the common patterns of sound blends. It is helpful to play rhyming games, have listening challenges and sing nursery rhymes. It can be helpful to read aloud books that have basic rhyming patterns such as Dr. Seuss and Mother Goose books. You might provide refrigerator magnet letters and bath letters for making words.

READ ALOUD EVERYDAY – The Department of Education cites reading aloud as the most important activity to build the knowledge and interest for children to become successful readers. There are many ways to enjoy reading aloud with young children and with children as they get older. The main idea is to start on day one and continue to build the love of books and reading together as long as they will listen. For younger children just enjoying books together, looking at and talking about the pictures, making up stories, finding details in pictures all count as time with books. For older children you might alternate who reads, read their homework aloud or read separately and have book club talks.

Early Math Language to Keep in Mind – There are four areas of math language that can be built in to all the play and activities you are doing in the regular flow of the day. This language builds the foundation for understanding basic math concepts.

Numbers and Counting – Count napkins when you set the table and apples as you put them in the bag at the grocery store. Count often and challenge children to gradually count larger groups of things. Estimation language is a piece of this. Once children are versed at basic counting, estimating how many cookies in a jar or marbles in a bag helps with later math skills.

Position – Position language includes in, on, over, under, near, far, above, below, next to, in front of and behind. You might hide toys and give clues to finding them using this language. You might build an obstacle course and narrate or have people narrate themselves moving through. You might play Simon Says or Follow the Leader using this language.

Measurement – Measurement language is talking about how big or small, short or tall, heavy or light things are. For younger children this might be sequencing big, bigger, biggest. For older children this might be measuring things in inches or feet and then comparing.

Amount – Amount includes some, more, a little, a lot, more than and less than language. This also includes actual amounts like a quarter cup, half cup and whole cup. Baking and cooking activities are an easy way to build in actual amount.

Motor Skills to Keep in Mind – There are many fine and gross motor skills that are important for later academics, particularly for handwriting which is important across academic areas.

Pincer grasp, in-hand manipulation and hand strength are important for eventual pencil grip and pencil pressure. Pincer grasp is practiced by putting pennies in a bank, using tweezers to move cotton balls, eyedroppers to move water, Original Colorforms and putting together puzzles with gradually smaller pieces. In-hand manipulation is practiced playing with small manipulatives including Duplos and Legos, Bristle Blocks, Ello, Lincoln Logs, playing with Jacks, marbles and tinker toys. Hand strength can be built by using clay and model magic, hole punches, scissors, spray bottles and clothes pins.

Bilateral integration is important for eventual coordination for handwriting. Bilateral integration is using both sides of your body and in this case both hands in a coordinated way. For using your whole body this includes crawling, skipping, and swimming. For your hands this includes most craft activities such as lacing and sewing cards, weaving looms and latch-hook rugs. Midline activities and crossing midline activities include songs with clapping and simple motions like The Wheels on the Bus and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. This also includes popping bubbles and throwing or rolling and catching balls on one side of your body and the other.

Offer a wide range of art supplies – There is a different pencil grip and pressure to using thick and thin markers, different crayons, pens, pencils, dot art, roller art and pebble, sidewalk chalk and ball crayons. The wider range of experience the better. Once they are comfortable provide a wide range of writing activities. This includes scratch paper, invisible books, dot to dots and mazes. You might use Lakeshore’s Write and Wipe Alphabet Cards or just a large dry erase board.

Offer in range of postures – Think of the different postures for art and writing at a table versus on the floor, or in a bean bag versus at an easel, or laying on your back with paper taped to the underside of a table. All of this benefits handwriting.

Mealtimes

Overarching rule

• Caregivers are in charge of what (when, where) is offered, children are in charge of how much and what of that they eat
  • Toddlers are supposed to be picky
    • Don’t overreact
    • Don’t underreact
  • If already picky
    • Eat when they are hungry, stop when they are full
    • No short-order cooking
      • Separate meals (eat together and eat the same)
      • Everyone sits and 1 refuses
      • A parent eats with children
• No bribery
• No pressure
• No Micro-managing
• No dessert monsters
  • Held out for eating behaviors (contingent)
  • Too much “ta-dah”
  • If already dessert monsters

Overall

• More fun and creative!
• Less discussion
• Hide foods
• Contribution

Milk rule

Juice Rule

Too fast or Too slow

Eat as many meals together as possible:

Keeping them at the table during meals – continue high chair or booster seat with strap, place cards to pick seats, fun place mats, fun place settings, serve food in fun ways, child focused conversation, question boxes, small toys, small activities, word games, just once (tickets), box them in, choices, challenges, contribution, read aloud (not screens), start where you are and gradually increase, plan meals, when they are hungry, up and dinner is through (or smaller variation)

3 types of cookbooks – hiding ingredients, cooking for children and cooking with children

Dr. Elbirt’s guide:

• Food is not love
• Food is not to control behavior
• They don’t need as much as we tend to think
• Think 5 meals rather than 3 w/snacks
• Good fat v. bad fat Not just calories – nutrition

Encouraging new foods: 

Help with shopping and prep, offer new foods when hungry, lots of colors and textures (fruits and vegetables), smoothies and hide ingredients, food art, build on foods they like, teach about food, teach nutrition, new food containers or containers they can hold, new ways to offer

Portion Size

Chart – healthychildren.org

About ½ an adult serving

Total varies daily and weekly

In general, allow eating by appetite

Keep check on amount of milk

Regular times

Encourage nutrition:

Not much room for junk food, fast food, take out focus on healthy

Body needs good nutrition for growth and energy and healthy function

Nutrition habits now impact health and nutrition habits for a lifetime

Think at snacks and meals

Read and understand food labels

Breakfast so important

Eat when hungry, stop when full

Eat together, at table, no screens

In Infants:

Breast feeding - Bottle window

Start solids

Follow their lead (eat when they are hungry, stop when they are full)

Spoons, Self-feeding, Cups

Toddlers:

Less pressure - Eating declines per body weight

Offer new taste and texture

Model good habits - Eat what you want them to eat, eat together

Food jags common

Don’t think meal by meal - Chart over a week:

Expect fussy and give but not to the point of being ridiculous

Calcium (milk)

Highchair struggles

Choking Hazards:

Anything w/ pits or large seeds, popcorn, grapes, doughy bread, chewing gum, candy, wedges (cheese or fruit), stringy vegetables (celery), hard nuts, raisins, raw carrots, (too much) peanut butter, *marshmallows, hotdogs (cut in circles)

Preschoolers

Talk about food

Eating continuing to decline

Breakfast everyday

No distractions

Limit fast-food

Child Friendly restaurants

Managing meals at restaurants – kid friendly, kid menus, things to do, things to look at, kid's areas, kid trinkets, go for walks, activity bags, conversations with them, contribution during, box them in booth, sit outside, dinner on the early side, order drinks and appetizer as you sit, okay kids' menu, okay extra plate

Childhood Obesity - Junk food/nutrition, TV/screentime, sedentary lifestyle/movement and exercise

Age guidelines

Difference from expressing negative emotions

Prevention

Coach emotion language

Coach to calm

Look at triggers

Situational triggers

Social triggers – coach how to be appropriate

Parent stress triggers

Developmental triggers

Look at cues - blog

-       Empathy

-       Positive intent

-       Choices

Look at how child escalates and calms

Chart behaviors

STAY CALM – both camps and resources

Give choice or something else to think about on way out - both

Camp A – ignore during, neutral after

Camp B – empathy, offer consistent help, Camp A

Choose a camp, be consistent

Seigel says B when it is genuine, A when for attention or control

Offer choice or distraction on the way out

Intermittent reinforcement

Strongest reinforcement pattern

Out of the moment

Coach triggers, emotions and ways to calm

Whining and Back Talk

Whining - blog

Ignoring alone will not lessen whining

Fix situational conditions

The trap when children are young

Identify triggers

Respond more promptly

Don’t allow escalation

Don’t label

Never reinforce – role of intermittent reinforcement

Steps to lessen whining:

Allow them to fix the voice

“I can’t hear that, try again in a nicer way”

Gradually increase the cost

“Try again in a nicer way in a few minutes” - delay

“What are two nice ways” - repetition

“With that voice the answer is no.”

Back Talk

Parents feel disrespected

Children feel they are not heard

Step out of exchange – more powerful than you think

Reflective listening- “I heard you……”

Restate both (theirs first)

Draw conclusion

Don’t have to compromise

                                                Can end with choices or consequence

Helping a Child Learn to Calm Down

Does your child get anxious or angry often or frustrated easily? In the moment it’s often best to err on the side of support rather than challenging or giving logic and reason as an answer to their emotion. It’s often helpful to acknowledge the emotion and provide empathy and give time and space to let a child calm down. It can also be beneficial to spend some other time teaching them ways to settle. Many of these techniques offer the child a distraction from the upset or anger which can be enough to help them start to calm.

Best to teach these things out of the moment – Don’t wait until your child is freaking out to try teaching them how to take deep breaths. When people are angry or upset, they aren’t in a good place to learn something new. It’s far more effective to teach new skills or introduce new ideas when they are calm, when all is well.

Make a calm down spot, an alone zone, a content apartment – In our house this was a corner of the living room stacked with a few bean bags, pillows and favorite stuffed animals. A mom said her son liked a cardboard box with a door cutout and flashlights inside. The idea is to make a space that is inviting for your child and is known to be a good place to go to calm down. This space shouldn’t also be tied to discipline or used for time-outs.

Make a few calm down boxes – Fill a few empty shoe boxes with small, quiet toys. This might include lacing boards, invisible ink books, or matchbox cars. We had a few boxes filled with felt board story pieces. You might hand your child a box when they need to calm down or keep a stack of boxes by your calm down spot.

Art, drawing even scribbling – In addition to calm down boxes, you might provide art supplies. Many people find painting or drawing or even making things a calming thing to do. If your child finds this helpful, good to openly provide supplies and encourage their use.

Build a calm down library – It can be helpful to read and discuss children books related to any expected skill. Good books for children on calming down include:

• Calm Down Time by Verdick
• Cool Down and Work Through Anger by Meiners
• A Boy and A Bear by Lite
• Sea Otter Cove by Lite
• Cool Cats, Calm Kids by Williams
• Peaceful Piggy Meditation by MacLean
• Mermaids and Fairy Dust by Kerr
• Enchanted Meditations for Kids by Kerr
• Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook for Kids by Shapiro

Deep breathing – This is the simple one and can be so helpful if your child buys in. In our house this was counting five slow, deep breaths and then focus on breathing in a regular way for a few minutes, then another five slow, deep breaths and regular again repeating until you feel calm. For a younger child, you might provide breathing shapes. This would be cutting out construction paper stars and putting a dot in one corner. Teach your child to start with the dot and take one deep breath for each corner. Others suggest it may help to describe deep breathes with a flower and candle. This is taking a deep breath in through your nose like you are smelling a flower and then out through your mouth like you are blowing out a candle.

Counting – Counting can be enough of a distraction task to give your child a chance to calm down. This might be counting slowly to 10 or counting backwards from 20 or counting as high as they can by 3s or 6s. The idea is to either slow them down or give them a slight challenge to get them thinking. As an alternative, it can be helpful to inventory something. This might be counting ceiling tiles or number of people in a crowded area.

Visual counting -This one can take several practices before it’s useful in the moment. First, help your child pick a favorite activity or sport. Let’s say it’s soccer. Then instruct your child to close their eyes and imagine themselves kicking the soccer ball down the field and into the goal. Have them keep their eyes closed and picture it once for as many years as they are old. For a six year old, they’d picture making six goals. After a few practice rounds, let your child know that when they are getting angry or frustrated it can be helpful to close their eyes an count their soccer goals.

Think of a favorite time or place – An easier visualization task may be to have them close their eyes and think about a favorite vacation or time at their favorite playground. Again, practice a few times and then recall this in the moment.

Mantras – My own mantra is “breathe, breathe, breathe…”Whenever I am stressed just reminding myself to breathe and focusing on each breath is helpful. A parenting mantra might be “No one goes to college NOT potty trained,” for that difficult stretch of time. A child’s mantra might be as simple as “I’m okay, I’m okay…” or “I can do this, I can do this…” A mantra might follow one of the other suggestions like “Let’s just count, let’s just count…” until they can get themselves started.

Get physical, run or swing or dance – Movement is calming for lots of people. This may be repetitive movement like swinging or more physical exercise like running or climbing. It’s great to give kids movement opportunities often and movement outlets for their negative emotions when needed.

Yoga (gymnastics, karate, ice skating) – If a child enjoys these activities, good to encourage them to continue. While the movement itself can be relaxing, there’s also the long term benefit of children learning to control their bodies and be disciplined to practice.

Fully describe something – Describing something is another way to distract from an upset. This means looking around the room and finding something to fully describe to yourself for a minute. This might be a painting or a toy.

Focus on solutions – Focusing on solutions can be calming to anyone. If I am frustrated by how messy my house is and I continue to focus on the mess and who made it or how they don’t help, I am just upsetting myself. It can be calming to make a plan for cleaning and decisions about how it should look in the end. For a child who is angry about how a game is going, this is getting him to focus on the solution, how to best resolve it. Even better if he can brainstorm and come up with a few options for solving.

Music – Listening to a favorite song or happy music can be a way to help children calm. It may be useful to have them build a playlist and keep it handy.

Muscle relaxation – There are a few mucle relaxation videos for children on Youtube. Once you get the hang of it, this is something you can walk your child through or they can do by themselves. In our social skills groups we play a few related games including Melting Snowman and Tin Soldier. We start off as ice-cold, frozen snowmen. Then the sun comes out and ever so slowly the snowmen melt until they are just puddles on the floor. For tin soldiers we sit as upright as we can with our arms and legs and back held straight out. Then we turn into ragdolls and flop on the floor. The idea in both is to end up relaxing your whole body.

Mindfulness – This is teaching children to stay present and to let go of worries about the past or anxieties about the future. It’s slowing down and being aware of your feelings. There are many videos on Youtube, search ‘mindfulness for children’ or ‘meditation for children.’

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