ABSTRACT
Discussion of the process of toilet training presents two major difficulties. In the first place, as we pointed out in our earlier study, 1 the development of reliable continence in a child does not occur on a precise date (as is true, for instance, of the first step, the first word or the sighting of the first tooth): for most children, the first occasion of urination into the proper receptacle, which the mother greets with such delight, will be followed by a prolonged period of rather haphazard performance, sometimes proceeding by definite stages of improvement, but often including phases of inertia or real negativism. An understanding of what is meant by saying that a child is ‘reliable’ 2 is itself rather difficult to arrive at in practice. A child may be so described, but inquiry reveals that this is only true provided that he is reminded from time to time that a visit to the lavatory is due: without these reminders, which do indeed keep his pants dry and his mother content, he may be quite undependable. Another child may use his potty for urination as a matter of course, but may absolutely refuse to sit on it in order to defecate. A third child reverses this: willing to sit on his potty once or twice a day, his bladder’s urgency habitually takes him by surprise. Other children may be entirely dependable so long as they may use the potty, but terrified of the lavatory seat; or they may be ‘trained’ while they remain in their own home surroundings, but afraid to use the lavatory in other people’s homes. Toilet training thus tends to be achieved gradually by the attainment of a number of distinct sub-goals: it is similar to weaning in this respect, that a series of recognizable stages or transitions occur, which at the same time do not make up an invariable sequence for all children, and which for particular children may be in part omitted. In practical terms of communication, this means that the mother may be unsure what stage we are going to count as ‘trained’; and, even if we are able to make this clear to her, the long-drawn-out complexity of the process will make it difficult for her to pinpoint any particular stage in relation to the child’s age.
