Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A potty whisperer.

Special ed preschool teacher here. I've helped potty train lots of difficult to train kids. I've fantasized about starting such a business, but I don't really know where to start. Is this a thing for which there is interest?

I am the person who tried a professional potty trainer and said it was useless and creepy. You would be putting yourself at so much risk. If you are looking to be a consultant that's one thing, but do not go to a person's house and take over. A stranger other than a doctor has no business telling a child to take off their pants and sit on a toilet let alone withholding food and other things until they do. We could have filed a report against this person with CPS. The only thing that held me back was they did help a few people who's kids had more severe forms of autism and I was there the whole time. I just kept wanting to believe it would work, but once hours and hours past and hundreds and hundreds of dollars were lost, the professional trainer started withholding food and that's when I told her off and asked her to leave. I did spread the word about our negative experience.

There are hospital day programs for autism which offer this as a part of the program, but you have medical staff there and witnesses to protect them liability wise and to hopefully make sure if the trainer gets desperate they don't resort to potentially abusive tactics.

Anonymous wrote:A potty whisperer.

Special ed preschool teacher here. I've helped potty train lots of difficult to train kids. I've fantasized about starting such a business, but I don't really know where to start. Is this a thing for which there is interest?

Use potty training pants, especially at home, so DC the brain is making a connection "when I pee, I get wet"
Use reinforcer, e.g. DC can only have ___, if goes potty. Don't give the reinforcer at other times to make it salient.

As someone who got desperate enough to hire someone I am telling you-DON'T DO IT!! Creepy as hell and useless. They were recommended and I contacted the person who recommended them to share my experience. Creepy bordering on abusive. At that point I showed her the door. We did ourselves. We though we had tried everything, but really we just gave up too easily. After throwing money away, we wwre more determined.

Does she have any motor skill delays? What age?

Anonymous wrote:I hate to point this out, really I do, but most of what you described is typical 2-3 year old behavior.
They are little creatures who don't like being told what to do.

PP here, I mean the potty training parts, obviously I wouldn't be able to pass judgment about the other parts.

A potty whisperer.

How old is your child? A lot of delayed kids do not train till after 4 years old.

An ABA or behavioral therapist can help you with a potty training plan.

Little Leaves in SS

Rene Hackney in VA

Potty training is an ongoing process. my nannies basically trained my older kid but they were there 7am - 9pm anyways.

I hate to point this out, really I do, but most of what you described is typical 2-3 year old behavior.
They are little creatures who don't like being told what to do.

OP here, just general developmental delays at the moment, no unifying diagnosis. Some overlap with autism, but determined not to be on the spectrum (though someone said she'd be a shoe in for PDD-NOS if it still existed, to the extent that makes any sense). But sensory issues, some language issues, a bit of rigidity/inflexibility, extra breakdown of tasks needed. Seems to respond well to ABA like interventions as long as I'm not the one doing them. Shows zero desire to be potty trained and everything it involves, sometimes resistant. Similarly shows intense dislike of dirty diapers and now insists on being changed even if only a little wet or if she *thinks* she's peed (I think she is mixing up the needs to be and has peed sensations a bit there, when she insists on a change even when dry). Had shown ability to identify need to pee and make it to the potty (like after bath - never has an accident, always heads to the potty, some naked time showed the same thing, but never seems to transfer if she has anything on from the waist down (loosest of shorts, underwear only etc). A "bootcamp" weekend got nowhere). But for the intense dislike of dirty diapers and insisting on changing when barely wet/still dry, I might let it go for a while even though *I'm* ready to get rid of diapers, but I think this will bring it to a head sooner than later.... And FWIW has a history of being resistant with different people for different things (sometimes more so at home, sometimes home is the place she isn't resistant), so I'm thinking some of the digging in is specific to me. Hence the idea of an outside person maybe being an end run around that to jump start this.

Sounds creepy to me.

How old is your child? Whats your childs diagnosis? We may be able to help

Maybe a silly thought, but has anyone ever had someone else come potty train? Who? I think I'm going to get nowhere with my daughter, but she seems close to ready, and it occurred to me that she might respond better to someone else initially, since our recent attempts have gone poorly. And that someone experienced in potty training, particularly with a not NT kid, might have better success and my daughter might be less resistant. Feels like farming out part of parenting, but I'm starting to wonder if maybe this is like teaching a kid to drive, and sometimes you get to the point or for various reasons, it's just better done by someone else at first? (we are currently taking a break, I'm just contemplating possible next steps in the meantime - may be a break is all we need or we're just not there yet, but in case not...)