[BOOK REVIEW] Oh Crap Potty Training

Full Title: Oh Crap Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right

Book Author: Jamie Glowacki, The Pied Piper of Poop

Page Count: 288

Does it stand to reason that the Oh Crap approach is worth a try if it’s worked for so many families? Yes. Was I inspired to use it personally? Not so far.

I would recommend the Oh Crap approach to households that are motivated to get potty training done quickly and have some time to dedicate to a sort of boot camp. Whether the motivation is the cost of diapers, the labor of cleaning up diapers, wanting to simplify errands, outings, and travel, or wanting to help your child graduate with this life skill promptly. Those are all legitimate reasons to try this, but you didn’t need me to start that list, because really, the benefits of a potty-friendly child are obvious. Later in this review, I’m going to talk about why I didn’t choose to integrate Glowacki’s method into my childcare practice. However, I can imagine many scenarios in which the pros outweigh the cons, so I support you if you want to give it a try.

Content warning for the book: There is overt sexism in the way she addresses fathers that could be harmful to readers of any gender identity.

Her Method:

It happens in “blocks,” so you can focus on one set of skills before moving on to the next block. For example, in the first block you encourage the child to be naked, give them plenty to drink, and offer verbal prompts for when it’s time to go sit on the potty. Once they master naked toileting, you know they understand their body’s cues and the general idea enough to move on to the next phase of potty training with loose clothes and no undies. It builds in that way, with night training in the final blocks. There is a summary page in the back of the book that lists all the steps in one place.

What I appreciate about the book:

I would like the blocks reframed as “competencies” to reference as a casual gauge for a child’s progress. The author’s expertise on the practical skills needed for toileting is undeniable and a list of competencies would be a great resource.

The thing I took away from this book and use all the time is her firm language about going to the potty. I used to throw around a lot of, “Do you need to go potty?” (And still do sometimes.) But with a toddler who doesn’t know what that feels like yet, it’s not a very helpful question. It could be a nice prompt to get them to think about what “needing to go potty” means. It’s not wrong to ask. It’s just not super effective if the idea is to get pee to go into a toilet instead of on the rug in that exact moment. I like her script to say, “It’s time to go to the potty now.” It’s nice to have a script to communicate to the child what’s the next thing we’re going to do.

I like that Glowacki normalizes poop and pee. It’s something that’s okay to talk to toddlers about and give them words for. I also like that she leaves it open to families to choose what words work for their household. I’m all for celebrating a diversity of family cultures. I like to teach anatomical language, imagining the child as a future adult that needs to do productive google searches and communicate with doctors when their bodies do weird things, but then I also use pee and poop, because urine and bowel movement can cross the line into too clinical. There’s a balance.

Probably not the last thing, but the last thing I wrote down as an appreciation, is Glowacki’s empathy for the child being potty trained. I had not thought about that fact having poop smooshed in a container attached to their butt could be a pleasant sensation to someone who’s never known otherwise. There’s a security that is lost with any change, and if the goal is to connect with the child and help them with that change, having compassion for their loss is essential.

Questions I asked as I read this, AKA what I’d like to see more of:

• Does this approach integrate into our routine? I’m skeptical of any practice for educating toddlers that asks me to deviate from our daily routine. To me, that feels dismissive of a really great toddler care tool. Routine has so many benefits for child-parent and child-caregiver relationships. It helps build security and trust within the relationship, but also in the child’s world broadly. They know that needs will be met. They know the who, what, where, when, how, and sometimes why of those needs being met. The world feels like a manageable size instead of the massive ball of chaos it actually is. When appropriate, I construct routines with the children’s input to support social skills and respect their individuality. Our routines are co-created and each moment is co-created. That’s not to say that breaks from routine are harmful, or anyone should be expected to stick to a set schedule strictly, every day, no matter what. Of course, I shuffle care tasks and events around as needed, am generally human, and apologize for none of that. However, I wouldn’t want to throw out the whole for one part. The Oh Crap method invites you to spend a lot of time in the bathroom. To be fair, that’s going to happen no matter what method you use, but with this it happens in a concentrated chunk of time. I have worked with a potty training child that was in danger of not being totally out of diapers in time for preschool, so I can empathize with the pressure that adds and why parents would want to offer more learning opportunities to the child to speed things up. Like many things, though, parents and caregivers make their jobs harder than they need to be. Little trips to the bathroom over time will accomplish the same thing this boot camp approach accomplishes in most cases.
  

• Is it child led? It could be...maybe? If a child really wanted to be done with diapers they might opt in. You could explain to them how it works and what you’re excited about and they might be excited too. I could see it working well in the summer, maybe, when little kids want to be naked in the backyard (if you have one) anyway, and you’re bringing out lots of drinks for them. “Summer” is kind of my potty training strategy anyway. [Insert chortle.] I appreciate the desire for an action plan and that there are a lot of challenges that come up around toileting. It might not sound very actionable, but my recommendation is to remember the powers of modeling, opportunities, and choices. If the parents are cool with it, the child can hang out with me when I go to the bathroom and ask questions. Eventually their interest lines up with their biology and they try the potty with increasing frequency. They get excited about undies. We have a conversation about when the diapers will be all done so that the child can see the event for the milestone that it is, maybe a birthday. Remember, also, that children learn in so many ways. You can bring in books, songs, videos (if the household is screens-friendly), puppets, and play. My approach is to let it start out “that simple” (as if modeling, consent conversations, play, and patience are simple) and most of the time, that’s enough, though the unpredictable timeline can be unsettling, and certainly, if you’re concerned your child may be experiencing developmental delays, please talk to a doctor or advocate.
  

• Is it respectful? Oh Crap Potty Training could do more to emphasize body autonomy or consent. I want lots of that, for everyone. I wouldn’t want someone to make me hang out naked, push me to drink more than normal, and make me focus on toileting when I’d rather be doing other things. I recognize that the author has children’s and families’ best interests at heart and has helped so many people overcome challenges. I’m not trying to take down some big evil (or take anyone down, at all here, I promise). If practiced in an overall respectful environment, I don’t think a child’s going to be scarred by these practices. As caregivers, we take some of the responsibility for another person’s person away from them sometimes to otherwise support them with boundaries, naps when needed, not letting them run into a busy street, blocking their hand from hitting a sibling, etc. This book considers the child’s perspective. I want a version of this book that focuses on that more.

[BOOK REVIEW] It's Not the Stork! (Children's Book Series)

Book Author: Robie H. Harris

Illustrator: Michael Emberley

Titles: It's Not the Stork (Age 4+) It’s So Amazing (Age 7+) It’s Perfectly Normal (Age 10+)

Genre: Children's, Non-Fiction

General Note: I’ve read all three books but explored It’s Not the Stork the most, so that will be the focus of this review.

Content Warning: Child Sexual Abuse Gender Identity

Review:

Did you know sex education starts in early childhood? In the United States we have this collective idea that sex ed is a birds-and-the-bees lecture that happens once in adolescence in pairing with a classroom lecture about abstinence and all the diseases we’ll get if we don’t practice it. It’s been vulnerable for me to share these books with children. It’s so ingrained in me that we don’t talk about sex in “polite company,” which includes everyone except our sexual partners, apparently, and sometimes not even them. The thing is, I don’t want to be “polite company” as a nanny or parent. I want to be someone with whom the child feels safe around any conversation topic.

I’ve done my best to keep a neutral tone while reading these books to children. I want to present them with the same normalcy I’d present a book about dinosaurs or how a house is built. It’s been a self-development journey as much as a journey as an educator, to see where my social conditioning is, how I brace myself to read the sentence about how a person with a penis gets an erection and puts it into the person with a vagina’s vagina. Reading that section, I’m ready for the 4-year-old to have a big reaction and...there isn’t one. It’s not a big deal unless it’s made to be a big deal. Children love the truth, and I believe they have a right to it.

The young children I’ve read It's Not the Stork with have been especially interested in the anatomy pages of the sex identity they associate with. The song “Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” is great, but not exactly comprehensive. Children also seem to love the pages about babies and specifically how a fetus grows. They’re processing having just grown out of being a baby themselves and love having context for their existence. Don’t we all? Meanwhile, while children are typically most excited about those sections, I’m most excited about the “Good Touches, Bad Touches” chapter. (In It’s Not the Stork, adorably, chapters are a 2-page spread.) That chapter defines what are okay touches: self-touch (yay--such a good message) and doctor’s exam touches, for example. It also explains what are not-okay touches: any touch you don’t want, especially in areas typically covered by a diaper or underwear. It also empowers the child with permission to say, “No,” “Stop,” or “Don’t,” if they don’t like a touch, and the part that always makes me tear up: If you experience not-okay touches, tell a grown-up. If that grown-up doesn’t believe you, tell another grown-up until someone believes you.

What I Hope to See in Future Editions:

• "The clitoris is for good feelings." Simple, accurate. The clitoris is labeled on the female anatomy page, and this all I say when asked what it does. Credit to Rebecca Scritchfield of the Body Kindness podcast for suggesting that language. It may have been a different episode in which she mentions that line about the clitoris, but I was able to confirm that I learned about the It's Not the Stork series in Episode 31, “Intimate Justice with Bestselling Author Peggy Orenstein, Girls and Sex.”

• More inclusion of intersex, non-binary, and other LGBTQ+ identities and bodies. Current editions offer a refreshing amount of representation of diverse families in the “All Families Are Different” chapter. The book talks about adoption and in-vitro fertilization, families with two mommies or two daddies or just one mommy or one daddy or grandparents, nannies (represent!), etc. Overall, though, the book still presents a binary. I know children can understand many complexities of gender. I’ve seen that the author of this series has quite a bibliography, and I’m keeping my eye out for more books for children on gender identity. The world is more beautiful with an understanding that difference is normal. I want my kiddos to have that.

TL;DR: These books were created in collaboration with and reviewed by a panel of child development experts. They’re so well done. Overall, I can’t recommend them enough. Sharing them with the children in your care sets you up to be someone they can talk to about sex, relationships, families, and gender, and gives you the language to do so in an age-appropriate way.

#bookreviews #challengingconversations #childrensbooks #sexandgender

[BOOK REVIEW] Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting

Book Author: Janet Lansbury Page Count: 150

Summary: Elevating Child Care is a book made from a compilation of blog articles by educator Janet Lansbury, who practices Respectful Infant Education (RIE), created by Magda Gerber. I first heard of RIE out to lunch with another attendee of the Positive Discipline Parent Educator training. RIE and Positive Discipline pair very well because they’re both founded in empathy and connection. I recommend RIE for anyone caring for infants. Respectful parenting means that children are valued as individuals, which is modeled through the use of consent language, consistent boundaries, and notice of upcoming changes to routine, behavior expectation, or setting.

RIE principles I’ve adopted into my childcare practice:

1. I tell infants what I’m going to do before I do it, especially when it involves touching their body. For example, “I’m going to pick you up to put you in your bed.” A simple, “Up you go!” and offering arms works great in a hurry.
   

2. I use my normal speaking voice and vocabulary. I recall from a college linguistics class that there are benefits to baby talk, such as demonstrating the inflection of a sentence like, “Look at the pretty birdy!” If your “normal” voice comes out as a baby voice sometimes, that’s perfectly okay. Just know your infant is learning from and connecting with you when you speak to them without that special inflection or tone too. I’ll admit I haven’t totally broken the habit of speaking in a cutesy voice to young children (partly because I don’t think it’s harmful) but I notice when I make an effort to stay in my normal speaking voice, it anchors me in a “speak the way you’d like to be spoken to” kind of way. It also encourages me to model modulations that I might do with other adults, such as softening my tone when making a correction or request. As for not simplifying the content of speech, a moment of validation came for me when an infant in my care sat in the hallway one day. I needed to open the door wider so I asked, “Can you move your leg please?” And she did. It’s easy to assume because they can’t speak, they don’t understand, but when given the opportunity to show what they know, they’ll show you a lot.
   

3. I try not to interrupt when they’re engaged with something. This one’s really cool because it challenges the caregiver to notice what the infant in their care is interested in and respect it in the same way we’d be careful not to interrupt a partner working from home. When interruptions are necessary, empathy might sound like, “It’s beautiful the way the light’s making a shadow on your toy bear. You’ve been looking at that for a while. I bet you noticed the light change. It’s time to put the bear back in the toy basket.” With children that are able to respond verbally, I may ask if it’s okay for me to interrupt (if I’m okay with their answer being “no” --that’s essential) or say, “Please excuse the interruption,” and get right to the point of what I need to say.
   

4. I let them explore physical movement without assistance. It’s a huge cultural shift to not put infants on their tummy to teach them to crawl or to hold their hands while they’re learning to walk. To be honest, I feel a loss there. I did those things earlier in my career and it felt rewarding to be a part of. The thing is, most babies will figure out how to move on their own and, when allowed to develop on an unassisted timeline, do so with grace, fluidity, and an observable sense of pride in accomplishment. Part of this is letting them take risks. I remember watching an early climber stand on a stool. He was looking out the window and about to take a side step into nothing. My instincts told me to wait, that there wasn’t a need to jump up to catch him, and my instincts were right. He felt that there wasn’t footing there and steadied himself. Let the babies surprise you with just how aware they are.

Some of the above practices came into my life from working with RIE-practicing parents, more than from the book itself, though it does go into detail about each of those ideas. The number one thing I took from the Elevating Child Care book specifically, though:

It’s been enormously helpful to me to read what Janet Lansbury wrote about boundaries. Her analogy goes, when you’re turning the corner on a steep cliff, the guard rail isn’t harsh or oppressive. You feel safer with it there. [Insert mind blown emoji.] Making space for others is necessary for connection. Setting boundaries is not the opposite of that. It offers a feeling of being grounded. As someone who’s felt mean setting boundaries in the past, this has really, (ironically), opened up my world.

Such a good analogy.

As one of my nanny moms likes to say: we love Janet.

#RIE #respectfulparenting #bookreviews