CHILDCARE: THE CHILD WHO RESISTS BEING TOILET TRAINED
In some children, toilet training seems extremely difficult. In a very small proportion of children, this may be due to an underlying developmental or medical cause. For example, children who have significant developmental delay will be trained at a later age than the average child because they will take longer to reach the neurological and mental capacity necessary for successful training. In rare cases, a child has an anatomical or neurological problem, or a urinary tract infection. A small number of children have difficulty in being trained because of constipation or chronic diarrhoea.
By far the main reason for difficulty in training is the interaction between the child and his parents. Whatever the characteristics of the child and parents that contribute to it, there is a power struggle going on and the more the parents try, the more the child resists. The only way out of this relatively common impasse is for the parents to opt out completely and transfer all the responsibility to the child. This is not easy to do, and often the parents may benefit from guidance provided by their family doctor or a paediatrician.
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