You’ve heard countless potential ways to quickly and easily potty train your kid. Between incentives, structure, routine, even psychology, it can be tough to know which hot new potty training method actually works.
While many might sound good to the ear, whether or not it’ll actually help your kid is another story! As any parent will tell you, every child is different, and many children respond differently to different things. But when it comes to potty training, there’s one thing that’s almost universal in helping kids learn how to potty — and that thing making is potty training fun!
Fun is a surefire way to help your toddler remember things. Make something fun, and they’ll be much more likely to go out and do that thing! This is especially true of potty training, and in this article, we’ll go through some of the key reasons why making potty training fun is one of the best potty training methods!
Potty Training is Scary — Fun Makes It Less So!
When you think about it, toddlers have, up to the time potty training starts, spent their whole lives in diapers. It’s what they know, what they’re most familiar and comfortable with, and that simple fact makes transitioning away from diapers uncomfortable and/or frightening for children.
Diapers are a part of any toddler’s routine, and given how children crave structure and routine in their early lives, potty training is a break in that routine. They’re perfectly capable of doing so, though — as a parent, you know that! — they just need a small push in the right direction to get the ball rolling.
When you present potty training is something that’s fun for your toddler, and not something that’s just scary but necessary, they’ll be much more open to this new change.
Turn Negative Anticipation Into Positive Anticipation
What do we mean by that? To put it simply, fun can help make potty training something your toddler looks forward to, instead of something your toddler dreads!
Negative anticipation is what children experience when they know something unpleasant or not fun is coming up. Doctor’s visits, bedtime, and other things your toddler doesn’t like generate a sense of negative anticipation, and potty time during potty training ranks right up there with them. It’s the opposite of looking forward to something, and you may find your toddler actively resisting potty time if they come to dread potty training.
Fun is a powerful tool that can counteract that sense of negative anticipation. It’ll help turn this negative event into a positive one for them, flipping that negative anticipation into positive anticipation. In other words, they’ll start looking forward to potty time once they know there’ll be fun involved! Naturally, toddlers are by and large much more cooperative and open to learning when they’re engaging and in a good mood, and nothing lifts the spirits like a bit of fun.
Engage Them With Play & Interactivity
One of your main goals in potty training your kid is to get their mind off the aforementioned discomfort of the whole process. You as a parent know that they’re perfectly capable of using the potty, they just need to set their mind to it — and when it comes to toddlers setting their mind to something, few things work quite as well as interactivity!
Play and interactivity engage a potty trainee’s mind, it gives them something to focus on and directs their mind away from the stress and/or discomfort of the situation. When they’re engaging their brain, they’ll also be more primed to remember the steps and best habits of potty training, which will in turn make their potty training process easier and quicker. And this may go without saying, but play and interactivity are simply fun! Once again, if your child is having fun while they’re learning to go potty like a big kid, they’ll be much more motivated to learn.
How Do I Making Potty Training Fun?
A fun time potty training begins with a fun, non-stressful environment. Make sure you, as the parent, are in a visibly supportive and happy mood, and make sure you’ve got the means to fun-ify potty time on hand.
And there’s nothing better to fun-ify your toddler’s potty time than the Potty Training Tablet! We designed it in a way that engages young kids and that’s supported by science — it incentivizes proper potty time behavior with a fun song and tasty milk chocolate coin which, together with parental support, may dramatically shorten the time it takes for your kid to potty train!