Scale Back or Stick to My Word (rewards)?

ReeB83 · October 2013

So DS has been having a lot of potty accidents. A lot. The last three occasions were in the kitchen, at school, and--most embarrassing of all--Walmart. 2/3 of those times, he was told to go or asked if he had to go and he said no (or NO!) then proceeded to wet his pants during the struggle. I work at his school and I get 3 opportunities to take him to the bathroom personally, but that leaves two hours where he it's up to him and his teacher to make sure he stays dry. It also happens during or after a little nap in class or in the car, even if he went potty before dozing off. He has NEVER had an accident anywhere else, not even during an 8 hour day at Six Flags with 3 potty breaks

I have tried punishing, threats and verbal praise, with some scattered rewards. I started to think on the long stinky ride home that maybe I need to be more structured in my approach. I considered him done potty training in July, but maybe he's really not done. So I thought I should attack this phase of potty training--knowing when you have to go and making it on time--like I did the last phase. And I pushed his bedtime up half an hour to make sure he's not so tired at school.

I started printing up a star chart, just like the one I posted in the bathroom over the summer. That one worked very well; he's still asking for his reward jar long after the decorated frosting can was re-purposed into a cup for bobby pins. But in my zeal, I made a huge misstep.

Short on candy or fruit snacks, I searched for a small toy to offer up as a "dry prize". I reached into a bag of birthday toys that never made it to the party, grabbing for a $1 hot wheels car. Ooops! I pulled out the $3 monster truck instead. DS just.......LOST it! He was so excited to get his prize tomorrow. I thought: then what? Go buy another one? Heeeeeeellllllll naw!

So I think tomorrow I'll scale back: pick up a bag of Dum Dums and offer those for every day he stays dry, then give him the truck for staying dry for a week, just like 5 poops meant Chuck-E-Cheese back in the summer.

Does that make me dishonest to tell him he was going to get a monster truck, then not deliver? Should I just lie in the bed I made and stock up on monster trucks?

ss+el · October 2013

How old is he? Is it possible he'll forget about it?
I would probably attempt to stay away from the toys, but if it backfires, I would imagine you could get away with something cheaper. Just hype up the "awesomeness" of whatever you get.

DS was 2 1/2 before I finally got him on board with even trying to potty train. I had bought a few 10pks of Hot Wheels on super clearance for my gift stash, so I offered one car every time he peed in the potty. It amounted to maybe one a week and by the time he was going regularly, he forgot all about the cars and I had given out only 5 or 6 of them.

We started giving them out again when we were working on pooping but this time, every time he pooped his pants, one got taken away and he had to earn it back. For a while, I had a parking lot lined up at the top of one of our shelves where he could see but not reach his beloved cars.

FemShep · October 2013

I think you should keep your word. If YS is old enough to be potty training and has shown he remembers rewards, he'll remember you not keeping your word. Model the behavior you want to see in your kids, and how you'd like people to treat you-one monster truck isn't the end of the world, and just scale back future rewards accordingly.

emberlee3 · October 2013

FemShep said:

I think you should keep your word. If YS is old enough to be potty training and has shown he remembers rewards, he'll remember you not keeping your word. Model the behavior you want to see in your kids, and how you'd like people to treat you-one monster truck isn't the end of the world, and just scale back future rewards accordingly.

This.

jnnfrrose6 · October 2013

We're not at the potty training stage yet, but I don't understand why the prize needs to be the same thing every time. Awesome, he gets a monster truck this time for not having an accident, but why can't you change it to something different for the other days? I'd think a dum-dum everyday would eventually lose it's value anyways. As I said, we're not there yet, so please, correct me if your experience has been different, but it seems to me, if you had a bag of "prizes" part of the fun would be picking out something fun/special, so you'd want different options in there (he can pick the truck today, but tomorrow there's lollipops, or other small cars and toys he can get instead).

ReeB83 · October 2013

wife07mom09 said:

yes it does. give the truck
and never punish for accidents even if they are being deliberate. It will only make things more difficult.

why are you taking him to potty so much? cant his teachers handle it?

charts are good

and
if he has an accident explain to him he is not in trouble but he must clean it up. we had a few times when DD was being stubborn dnand I knew she could do it long after she was ptrained. 2 times of cleaning up the pee AND changing her own panties and pants without much help stopped that right in its tracks.

I ended up not giving him the truck....yet.

He knows it's there. It's in a brightly decorated ziploc bag labels "Dry Prize". Surrounded by lollipops and airheads. There is a chart attached with pictures. Lollipop-lollipop-TRUCK (on Friday)! He's very excited about it. Whenever he sees me, he says "I'm gonna get the lollipop today!"

I'd like to think the teacher could handle it, but she ASKS, or waits for him to. He's not gonna leave a room full of crayons and toys and friends if given a choice. But since I've started the chart, he's been asking more.

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