TDLC Blog

Potty Parties - Part 3 of a 5-part guide to toilet training your children.

Some parents are ambitious and want to knock out the whole toilet training thing as quickly as possible. Well, if you are that committed, know that toilet training can be done in a single weekend. This method, known as the “potty party”, can be quite useful as a primary crash course or as a refresher course if your child’s toilet training skills regress at some point in the future. It requires your intensive efforts for 2 to 3 days, so be prepared to devote your weekend to this procedure.

First blog of the year, and I start with this? No it's not a typo, and I haven't fallen off my rocker just yet. We'll get to the subject quickly, but here are some behaviors that little kids are able to perform:

A guide to traveling with your children.

Family vacations when I was a child meant fitting two adults, three children, a 130 lb Rottweiler and a whole lot of camping gear into a Jeep. Once everyone was crammed in, there was the drive into the mountains or to the beach, which was inevitably punctuated by the dog getting carsick, copious bickering over the lack of space in the back seat and people usurping more than their share, and threats to pull the car over or turn it around. Eventually, we would make it to the campsite and spend a week or so exploring and enjoying the outdoors.

 

How Super Mario Brothers may actually help your child.

When I was a kid, the coolest house on the block was the one that had a Nintendo system. When it was too cold to play outside, all the neighborhood kids would gather in someone’s living room and take turns trying to beat Super Mario Brothers. I was hopeless at it; I don’t think I ever made it past the second or third level. But that was irrelevant; Nintendo afternoons were about more than just conquering the castle and saving Princess Peach from Bowser. They were about having fun and making friends.

Increasing attending skills.

We're going to do our next few blogs slightly differently, as we're going to do a multipart series. We'll focus on what people want to talk about most: COMMUNICATION!!! The truth is that communication is what sets humans apart, as we have the ability to describe internal events (hunger, happiness), future events, and past events. We are going to look at all the concepts needed for fluent communication. Notice when I say communication, I did not say verbal communication. You can be a fluent communicator with PECS or with signs, although verbal is our first goal.

Dos and Don'ts of potty training - Part 1 of a 5-part guide to toilet training your children.

A couple months back my friend’s almost-2-year-old son began shouting “I go!” and yanking at his diaper every time he soiled himself. My friend found it a bit embarrassing in public, but I encouraged her to look at the bright side: her son was ready to start toilet training. I call that a bright side only on the basis of the end result because, let’s be honest, toilet training is not fun. I have toilet trained at least 50 kids over the years and I have learned enough to know that when it comes time to toilet train my own children I will pawn that duty off on someone else (that’s what husbands are for, right?) All joking aside, toilet training can be a complicated skill to teach, it requires a huge time investment, and it is messy. But the end result is totally worth it. In the next few blogs we will discuss toilet training basics, as well as a couple different methods to go about it, and how to manage some common issues.

To begin with, here are a few dos and don’ts with regards to toilet training:

Creating and attaining goals for your child.

As usual, I digress. However, this blog is about having a game plan for you child. No, I am not talking about your IEP goals, or what the consultant or therapists wrote down for you. I am talking about analyzing what you want to change, how to go about changing it, and then measuring your progress. I think the reason people get too scared to set goals for their family and children is that they feel like a failure if that goal is not achieved.

Big thank yous, and community outings.

This is the last blog before Thanksgiving, I want to say thank you to all the people who help make this blog and company possible.

First and foremost I would like to thank Darren at Woodlands Ad Agency for building a FANTASTIC site and giving me the opportunity to blog every two weeks. If you want to build a great website check out his web page http://www.woodlandsadagency.com/.

Behavior history.

Sorry for taking so long on the blog this time. I got wrapped up working on a pro ject which I am excited about - evaluating therapy. I think if you are not currently evaluating how you do therapy, then you are not doing the kids justice.