4 yr old has fear of different bathrooms

[littleveggiemom]

My 4 year old will only use our home bathrooms. He is not just afraid of public bathrooms, but bathrooms at other people's homes. He holds it or we go outside (thank goodness he'll go by a bush outside). He goes before preschool and he'll hold it until we get home.

At people's homes he'll look at the bathroom, maybe step inside. In public restrooms he panics and will have a meltdown if you try to make him go inside, even if he has to go really bad. I've tried twice to force him in one and its just a bad thing to do. Totally not helpful.

I currently try to calmly introduce him to public bathrooms, explaining the similarities to our home bathroom, but he will not even look inside.

How do I help him over come his fear of different bathrooms?

[One_Girl]

My dd went through this after a toilet at the mall flushed automatically while she was in the middle of going. She was two and it scared her very badly. I brought her into the bathroom with me so she could see that I wasn't scared and had her stand just outside the stall where I could see her feet. After a while she realized that it was safe and everyone was doing it so she was fine with it. I was very diligent about making sure the toilet didn't flush on her again like that for a long time afterward.

Talking to him ahead of time about needing to come in the bathroom so he is safe may help prevent tantrums if you tell him that he doesn't need to go when he is in there, he just needs to stay safe. If he starts to worry remind him that only you need to go and that he needs to stay close where you can hear him to be safe. I have also had success with other things by re-enacting the situation using toys and having the toys talk through the fear during the game and conquer it on a daily basis for a while.