Question
I have an almost 4yo girl and an almost 2yo boy.
I would like to seek your guidance on how to help my daughter, who has always been shy, slow-to-warm up, and anxious. She is also very strong willed and observant. Her personality and emotional blocks are pulling her back in a lot of areas.
An example of her fear of being outside of her comfort zone is having new teachers in classes. She used to love going to gymnastic classes, but when the teacher left and a new teacher (who is very sweet) came, she was so scared that she would cry and scream and wouldn’t go into the class. And so she stopped going. Similarly, she recently needed to change to another ballet class due to scheduling issues, and today she told me, “I’m afraid of the new teacher so I don’t want to go.” I have already tried to prepare her by sitting outside the class once and observed the new teacher/class. How can I help her with understanding that changes are inevitable, and we need to try new things?
This has also manifested into her potty training – we have tried a couple of times of training over the past 2 years but didn’t succeed. She recently verbalized to me that “I am scared” and didn’t want to let go of her pull-ups. I believe she is scared of “releasing” into the potty/toilet, as she would “pretend” to use the potty but will ask for a pull up after a few tries. She would say “I am going to “pretend” using the potty now”, and since I want to make it a positive experience, I would go along and say, sure “let’s pretend and try”.
What can I do to help her overcome her fears?
I am at a loss of what to do, especially with her potty training, as I feel that her “fears” are stopping her from trying and learning and enjoying life.
I know she has to urinate as she wanted her pull up during our “pull up break”. We did a potty try and after a few minutes, she said break is over and went to get her pull up. She got it and soon after, she peed in her pull up. Chatted with her and asked her why she wanted to pee in the pull up, and she just said “because I want to, I am not ready etc…” later, she said that she likes the “warm feeling” of the pee in pull up— so, with this in mind, how can Iguide her/help her with this insecurity?
Answer
Continue the course you are on. Remember to put potty time into the daily routine. Take her to the potty when she wakes up, at mealtime, before you leave the house and at bedtime. During those times you tell her to practice and try, then let it go.
The issue with many children who lean on anxious the way your daughter does is when they use the toilet they concentrate on the sensations of going potty. If you think about it, the tension we feel in our sphincter muscles when we poop and the urethral muscle when we pee is not pleasant. When children use a pull up they are usually distracted with something else so they don't feel that discomfort. This is why some of them avoid.
Talk to her about this and see what she says...does she feel the discomfort when she uses the potty rather than the pull up. If so teach her to do dragon breathes when she is sitting in the potty...this way she concentrates on the breathe and the muscle tension goes to the background
This is how you do a Dragon Breath:
Dragon Breaths - Two fast in breathes and one slow out breath