today sucks, to be blunt. its isaac's first day of potty training with his aba instructors and he is in his own little personal hell. they go every ten minutes and have him sit on the toilet for 5 minutes i think is what that plan is to try and catch him before he wets out. so i get to sit here and listen to him scream and cry while he is on the potty and try to ignore it as best as possible. not easy when he is calling for me. i hate this. so i am trying to stay out of the way as much as possible because if i go out there i will want to pick him up and i know that he always gets through things better if you dont give into his tears. as soon as he is off then he is fine so i know its only difiant tears but it still stinks. argh! i hate having my hands tied. :(

Good Luck And Keep Going You Will Get There X

Is there anyway you can go out for walk while all of this is going on??? My son was and is the same way as far as manipulating me and my need to comfort him. I found out very early in the EI game that he is much more responsive to his therapies when I'm not there. It's super tough to have to listen to your child struggle through this stuff and scream while their at it.

Try stepping out into the back yard if you have one and just take deep breaths and remember your doing this to help him have the skills to get by in this world. What your doing is for the best. If it helps any I'm having a tough one too I'm trying desparately to quit smoking and today is day one AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!

its a rainy cold day and i have a 3 month old so i am stuck inside with him:) things are getting a little better but at the moment he is tantruming because he isnt being able to leave the table in between potty breaks (table time work is being done in between times, easy fun stuff though). i am not even going out there if i can help it:)

i dont know if this will even work in the long run is the thing that gets me most you know. it would be one thing if you knew it was going to take:) but isaac has an autistic step cousin who is at the same severity as he is and is 11 and still in pull-ups. i hope it works but i am not putting all of my eggs into that basket:) i feel bad for my cousins, their son will be hitting puberty soon!:)

i am hoping he has lost some of his willingness to fight before the instructors leave or i will be in trouble this evening! early bed time right?:)

oh! and liamsmom good luck to you!! not a fun job i hear. you will just have to tell everyone that if they want to live they will have to placate you with sacrafices of chocolate and housework!:)

My son was being potty trained at school and they was takeing him every 15 minets and he was not ready for this and he went to biting and slapping so watch out dont stand back while therapist is doing their job stay in touch in what they are doing. your children need you to see that they are doing their jobs right just because they are specialists does not always know what is best for our children.

isaac is being potty trained around the clock so the therapist trained me. but he is actually doing fair at it:) he had a hard go round when he first had to have a BM and would not do it for his therapist and later that night he was able to with me with no problem and last he did too. i was told that the BM would be harder to train and isaac actually does better about staying on the potty for that than he his morning #1. go figure:) he never does what people expect:)

Potty training my son for #1 was cake!!! #2 is not happening. It's been a good two years and no #2 desire in the potty. I've tried it all. I wish to God someone would come into my home and train him for me. I'd pay someone to do it. I say (sorry to sound harsh) let him cry and scream. He is not being killed he is being potty trained. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

ARGH!:) i spoke too soon:)

i am totally stressed out because isaac didnt go at all for me on the potty today. he is still going to the bathroom when scheduled but he is just trying to annoy me the whole time he is on the potty. i am doing my best to try to redirect and ignore any behavior but its getting very hard and the brat KNOWS what bugs mom worst:) i think the first day he tried tears and then day two he tried cute now on day three he thinks "uh-oh, they arent giving up! i better step it up a notch and bring out my favorite weapon... annoyance!" yeah he is getting on my nerves:)

and to top it off, my husband can no participate as of yet. he is helping with tristan though but even that is driving me crazy because mark is no good at calming him down when he is upset so i have to be annoyed by isaac while we sit on the potty and listen to mark not be able to stop the baby from crying. my husband does well with lots of things but the patience it takes to out wait and redirect all of isaac's potty tricks and ignore those that arent unsafe or interfering is patience mark doesnt have yet:)

so its going:) atleast he is still sitting on the potty:) hopefully tomorrow will bring a better day:)

ARGH!:) i spoke too soon:)

i am totally stressed out because isaac didnt go at all for me on the potty today. he is still going to the bathroom when scheduled but he is just trying to annoy me the whole time he is on the potty. i am doing my best to try to redirect and ignore any behavior but its getting very hard and the brat KNOWS what bugs mom worst:) i think the first day he tried tears and then day two he tried cute now on day three he thinks "uh-oh, they arent giving up! i better step it up a notch and bring out my favorite weapon... annoyance!" yeah he is getting on my nerves:)

and to top it off, my husband can no participate as of yet. he is helping with tristan though but even that is driving me crazy because mark is no good at calming him down when he is upset so i have to be annoyed by isaac while we sit on the potty and listen to mark not be able to stop the baby from crying. my husband does well with lots of things but the patience it takes to out wait and redirect all of isaac's potty tricks and ignore those that arent unsafe or interfering is patience mark doesnt have yet:)

so its going:) atleast he is still sitting on the potty:) hopefully tomorrow will bring a better day:)


I want to know where all the Dad's are on this board. My husband will ask me "What's wrong with him?" Like I have all the answers. Please husband, go on the internet and get the answer. I'm tired of telling you he has Autism.
But he is a great Dad and plays a lot, but he can not potty train. For goodness sakes the dog won't even go potty for him. I've got to walk him too. With all the stuff women can do, I believe it's time for a women president. Hang in there. I have hope for you.

Kolby........Amen!!!!!!!!!! to that last statement.

I want to know where all the Dad's are on this board. My husband will ask me "What's wrong with him?" Like I have all the answers. Please husband, go on the internet and get the answer. I'm tired of telling you he has Autism.
But he is a great Dad and plays a lot, but he can not potty train. For goodness sakes the dog won't even go potty for him. I've got to walk him too. With all the stuff women can do, I believe it's time for a women president. Hang in there. I have hope for you.

actually my husband read this and woke me up to tell me about it because he was upset:) we have talked about get mark trained to potty train isaac but not until isaac is less adversarial about it. mark realizes his limitations with his patience and in order for the potty training to work it can not be a negative experience and isaac is too good at pushing mark's buttons:) he wanted me to let you know that (and he is right:)) that he is very involved with dealing with all of isaac's issues. he goes to all of the meetings, support groups, educational seminars and so forth:) he does OT stuff with isaac at home helps out with mealtime programming. but he just doesnt have the patience for bathroom programs and never has. since isaac was young before he was diagnosed he didnt even have the patience to bath him with out cutting it short so right now while its taking isaac upwards of a half an hour sometimes to finish a number two its just best that mark does what he has been doing... everything else around that house!:) he has been taking care of our three month old son, cooking supper, dealing with after hours phone calls (from isaac's team members) and meetings so he is very involved:)

oh and he reads the board daily, its just that the board is set up to only allow one account per computer:)

I guess I could set up a diffrent account... Just didn't spend the time to do so in early in the morning while getting ready for work.

I tried my first stint of getting him to potty this afternoon. A more clear cut piece of evidence that he knows exactly how to push my buttons couldn't have been produced. Perhaps I'll try again tomorrow... will have to see how brave I really am. :)

ymerej: Sorry to see an involved dad feel slighted. The fact that you READ the boards impresses me! Of course, the fact that my husband LISTENS when I read the boards to him also impresses me, so I guess I'm very "impressionable"! Keep up the TEAM work. My son is 8 and is fully trained (don't ask me how, I just got lucky and around 4 he got it). But that doesn't mean we don't have potty issues. He HATES unfamiliar bathrooms/restrooms. I have had to DRAG him into the stall on shopping trips, but if he needed to go he would. On the other hand, just 2 weeks ago he refused to go to the potty at Vacation Bible School and subsequently had an "accident". While that has been rare these past 4 years, the phobia of the unfamiliar potty is always on my worry list! Good Luck!

At almost 42 years of age, I STILL hate public restrooms! However, I know there are times when I absolutely must attend to certain needs. Being messy and uncomfortably is a far worse althernative.

my son has regressed lately. Stressful stuff going on at home any way I put him through what he considered a major humiliation I made sleep with a diaper on again and that was the end of his regression. I think with my son the graduation to big boy undies really did the trick I bought them and kept showing them to him and told him when he got it all down poopin and peeing where he should he could wear them. Case closed it work and I made a big deal out of him helping to chose his own undies.

i wish that would work with isaac:) but he doesnt care about our world alot:) he has his own interests and hygene and underwear dont feature in them:) DARN IT! he was showing some pride in his "accomplishments" but this weekend it seems that he is no longer interested and the novelity has more than worn off. its worn off so much that i have pulled my thumb out of joint twice and have my carpal tunnel acting up and that was just taking him to the bathroom. he waits until i have a hold of his arms to guide him to the bathroom and he drops, yanking my hands down with him... twerp!

hopefully the next couple of weeks will see a bit of a change in him before i need an extended stay at that special place on the hill!!:) but i do hear the jackets they provide fit nice and snug!!

Potty training is a true torture for parents - even with a normal child. My older daughter, Josie, is 4 1/2, and essentially "normal" (although I don't know what that means - okay that's another threadd). Last year, in August of 2005, Josie started 3 year old preschool. She turned 4 in November of 2005 so she is one of the oldest in her class. Anyway, she had to be potty trained before she could go to preschool. We started working with Josie when she was about 2 1/2 or maybe a bit earlier. We tried off and on for about a year to get Josie potty trained. I was starting to think she wasn't going to get to go to preschool. Much to my great relief Josie finally potty trained about 1-2 weeks before school started. And that was just during the day. At 4 1/2 Josie still wears "Goodnites" overnight. She just gave them up for her nap within the last week. And Josie is "normal".

So when someone asks me when I am going to potty train Cara (who turns 3 in 3 days) I just about want to scream. Cara doesn't talk. She definitely does not let anyone know she needs a diaper changed. She gets mad if I take her away from playing to change a dirty diaper. After all the trouble I had with Josie, I am holding off on Cara for a long as I can. Thankfully, the special education preschool where she is going this coming fall does not require that she be potty trained. Whew! Besides, Cara is only in a size 4 diaper - I still have two sizes left to go! *chuckle*

Liz H.

the only thing i have to say about waiting to potty train (and my son is non verbal as well:)) is that the more the turkeys get fixed in their ways. i have a cousin with a step son who is 11 and they waited until the school started potty training him and now at 11 he still refuses to do a number 2 in the toilet... fun for them:) he is getting about ready to start perburty and they will have a lot more to deal with! isaac is almost 5 and i wish we had started earlier but we were waiting to see if his communication skills would pick up. they didnt:) but he is actually doing ok. he is on an hour schedule now so we toilet him every hour and he generally goes pretty quickly. he wakes up dry unless he didnt sleep during the night and he hardly wets his pants. on the other hand he hates doing the number 2 in the toilet and we have only caught him twice in the last week and a half before he messed himself. the plan is that once he gets better at the PECS system he uses that the toilet will become a picture he uses. also we have been trying to use the sign for toilet when it is time for him to go in hopes that he may use that. he has done some independant signing in the past. my neurotypical neices who are about the same age have been struggling for years with toilet training too so i am not so worried about it. my only problem really is that i want him to do as much of it as possible because i am terrified about who will be toileting him at school. as i said he is nonverbal and i am scared that some one might take advantage of the that while toileting. i have met both of the people who will be working with him this school year but i have no idea about subs. and at this age it should be ok because frankly men dont really like working with young kids:) i am most scared of men toileting him... and i know that when i went to school (the same school isaac will attend) it was preferred to have males toilet the male students... i hope he gets better at it before he starts working with men. not to be sterotyping (but i am) but TYPICALLY (and not exclusively) a sexual preditor will be male and being non verbal isaac would be an easier target.

ugh! anyhow... i wish we had started earlier, might be less stress now... maybe not:) but atleast he wouldnt have toileting to worry about along with all of his transitioning to the public school this year!

ignore this box i did a silly double post and dont know how to delete them completely:D

Maybe after some time in preschool Cara will start communicating somehow. Right now her communication is so very limited. We have been using some basic signs ("more", "eat", and "all done") with her since October of 2005 and she is stubbornly refusing to use even those to communicate. Occasionally she does "all done" with someone else's hands and even less frequently she does her own version of "more", but it is so unpredictable as to be almost useless since we can't count on it. She can say "down", but does it only when she feels like it. If we try to get her to say "down" to get out of her high chair after a meal she absolutely refuses.

With such limited communication I can't even imagine trying to potty train. It just seems so impossible. Maybe once we get into the school I can get some help or may when she starts occupational therapy in conjunction with speech therapy they may have some ideas.

Of course, we have a hard time getting food into Cara. She is worse than a picky eater. If we have a battle at that end, I don't want to see the battle for the other end!

I know I will have to face it some day, but that day is going to have wait a little bit. My "normal" daughter didn't train until three months before she turned 4. I realize that Cara will be completely different, but I feel like I just got done with Josie even though that was a year ago!

We have only had Cara's "official" diagnosis since January of 2006. I am still trying so hard to adjust to this dramatic upheaval in our family. I love Cara so very dearly and it some of her "autistic traits" that are so very endearing. I think finding this discussion group has been a big help. Thanks to everyone who posts. I am not feeling quite so alone.

Liz H.

according to statistics you are very not alone:D

but were there is a will there is a way with potty training:) isaac has pratically zero communication skills but he has gotten so he will take me by the hand to go to the bathroom when he has a number one:)... number two, that's another story:D isaac recognizes a few signs but refuses to use them too, there is no time in his busy schedule that we interfer with to bother with communicating... we are suppose to intuite what he wants and have it ready before he even knows he wants it! what a life, i wish i could switch him sometimes... on the other hand then i would have to deal with people telling me when i go to the bathroom and when i am finished in there:)

if cara's not ready then she is not and probably more likely you are not:) but it is tough and you have to be ready for it because if not everyone working with her (parents included) is not on board with the toilet training she will say to herself aha! i have found the weak link and now i know who to exploit and it will all go down the drain... except ofcourse what should be!!

the only thing i caution and it is a delicate balance between what is too much and what is just right but over protection can lead to learned dependancy. this can happen with neurotypical children as well. when i worked in adult services for people with mental handicapps i was often amused by and sometimes the butt of inside jokes played by the clients there. for a little while i was tying the shoes of a gentleman who knew perfectly well how to until it was pointed out to me that he could do it himself:) the only problem is that if that happened too often there is the possibility with time that they could unlearn a skill.

so yes potty training should be started earlier than almost 5 (the age my son is) but dont start it until you are READY for it! chances are that you are the one that will have a harder time keeping up with the schedules and what not than cara will!!

by the way... if you get back to this thread... if you dont then i typed alot to myself:D but have you an offline support group? ours has been tremedously helpful. its nice to have people who have been through all of the loops in your area to talk to and to give you some good advice on what services are good and how to get around the red tape. its also nice to have a face to talk to once in a while!

Is there anyway you can go out for walk while all of this is going on??? My son was and is the same way as far as manipulating me and my need to comfort him. I found out very early in the EI game that he is much more responsive to his therapies when I'm not there. It's super tough to have to listen to your child struggle through this stuff and scream while their at it.

Try stepping out into the back yard if you have one and just take deep breaths and remember your doing this to help him have the skills to get by in this world. What your doing is for the best. If it helps any I'm having a tough one too I'm trying desparately to quit smoking and today is day one AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!