Can someone explain the difference... - Page 2

[queenofchaos]

Here's my take, potty learning is more about the child learning the skills/info needed regarding using the potty. Being able to take clothes on and off, what it feels like when you need to go, what goes in the potty, proper toileting hygeine, etc. To me that's all learning about the potty. Then the child takes the skills/info and under their own initiative starts using the toilet when they are ready. I am not much for semantics, but this is how I handle toilet learning and prefer the term only because training implies that somehow I am controlling the process, when I am letting the child lead the way. That's my $0.02.

[St. Margaret]

Originally Posted by JL83

I don't think it's fair to list candy and shaming in the same sentence.

We used candy. It was a very easy way to eliminate any fights or power struggles about using the potty. It was basically the opposite of shaming.

I didn't say they were the same thing, except that I had seen both used for potty training. Sharing a sentence doesn't imply an equal value judgment about both. I've seen parents use candy to get a kid to sit on the toilet when the kid is otherwise totally uninterested, and that just seems to embody the label "training" more to me. And for me, using external rewards at all, and especially candy, isn't part of how we parent. I understand that not everyone feels the same. But I certainly did not mean to imply that using candy to encourage an interested kid to remember to sit on the potty is the same as shaming.