I Helped My Daughter to Stop Having Accidents

The fault was with me, not with her.

'Pippa Baking’ by Ashley Sole

My four-year-old daughter Pippa started having multiple toilet accidents a day, every day. She’s been toilet trained for about a year, it’s not always been perfect, but for the most part, she’s been successful. Then, all of a sudden, she started having accidents. Not just one or two, but every day, multiples times a day, both at home and at nursery. It was causing conflict between myself and my wife. Pippa felt ashamed and disappointed in herself and tensions in the family were riding high.

What’s going on? What happened? Has anything changed at home?

I think to myself, not really… I mean, we’re in the midst of a global pandemic, but her life is not majorly affected, is it? I quit my job to be a stay at home Dad and my wife went back to work after five years out. This wouldn’t have an impact, would it? Perhaps I was underestimating the impact of these changes on my daughter.

After a few weeks of accidents every single day, I decided to do something radical and change my approach completely. I spend significant time thinking about my own feelings on the matter, about my own reactions to accidents and I felt certain ways. I spent time writing, reading and eventually decided on a plan of action to address the issue. Here are the key principles I came up with;

1. Don’t shame her

It’s clear to me she feels an immense amount of shame around these accidents and it’s having a detrimental effect on her progress. She gets upset when she has an accident and tries to clean herself up in secret. I’m sure various mistakes in the past by myself have caused this, including shouting, blaming, shaming. I cannot change the past but I can change the future. I decided there is to no longer be any shame around having an accident, only love, comfort and support.

2. Shared Responsibility

This is not her problem, this is the whole family’s problem to deal with. Her actions affect all of us mentally and physically, so we need to be in this together. One shared team working towards a better outcome.

In my career, when I would work with teams to resolve issues, team problems were solved by the whole team in collaboration, not just by one person. I decided if an accident occurs, the whole family needs to come together as a team and discuss how we can all contribute to a solution.

3. Positive reinforcement, not punishment

From my psychology background, I knew that BF Skinner in his theory of Operant Conditioning had shown us that reinforcement of the desired behaviour is more effective than punishment for undesired behaviour.

I thought I was reinforcing the right behaviour, but upon reflection, I realised, in reality, I was punishing accidents. I was not positively reinforcing my daughter when she successfully used the toilet. I’d say a token ‘well done Pippa’, without even making eye contact when she used the toilet successfully, but when she had an accident I scold and punish her.

In order to get this right, I decided to lavish her with praise when she exhibits the right behaviour. Genuine love and affection. Phrases like ‘you’re such a big girl’, ‘you’re awesome’, ‘I love you’, and so on. If she has an accident, I address it decisively, compassionately, but move on. Forgive and forget.

4. Listen to her

I made a conscious effort to really listen to her attentively when she’s talking to me. What I realised was that she’s talking all the time, but I wasn’t listening. It wasn’t always verbal communication, instead, it could be body language such as tugging on my trousers for attention, or simply scooching up to me on the sofa for a cuddle. I’d make some excuses like;

“I’m doing chores…”
“I have work to do…”
“Daddy is busy at the minute…”

I realised that for a child, this comes across as ‘I don’t care about what you have to say’.

If helping my daughter with her accidents and improving her relationship with the toilet was the most important thing in my life right now, then I needed to take time to listen to her, attentively, compassionately and with priority.

5. Challenge her faulty assumptions

Through actively listening to her, she had some interesting things to say. She had built up some faulty assumptions around the toilet that needed addressing. In her head she thought a number of things that were simply not true, things like;

“I can’t go to the toilet until my sister has finished her breakfast”
“If I hold it in, then I won’t need to go to the toilet”
“I’m only allowed to go to the toilet two times per day”

I found that by listening to her I was able to tease these out, then address why they were wrong and correct them. One morning this meant sitting on the kitchen floor for 15 minutes, trying to get her to talk to me, sacrificing being late for nursery. This requires significant patience for me, that doesn’t come easy, but it’s an investment. If I can show my daughter that she can open up to me and talk to me without fear of repercussion about any topic, then it will set us up for a great relationship later in life.

6. Comfort her

It’s clear to me she has a negative association with the toilet. She associates the toilet with punishment, with discipline, with anger, with upset and with shame.

I take full responsibility for this, she associates the toilet with these negative feelings because of my mistakes in the past. I needed to start to unpick all of that and try to re-associate the toilet with positive emotions, such as love, care, success, happiness and pride. To do this, she needs to be comforted when she makes mistakes and shown love regardless of whether she’s successful or not.

In my adult life, I promote operating fearlessly, willing to fail 9 times out of 10, to be bold and not fear mistakes. Yet with my daughter and the toilet, I wasn’t being understanding for even a single mistake. I decided I needed to embrace the failures, comfort and love her when she has accidents and start to teach her that failing is not the end of the world. Instead, it’s how we learn. I need to teach her that the best way to learn is to try and fail with the safety and support of those around us.

The Result

It’s been a while since she’s had any accidents and I’m confident my new approach is starting to have a positive effect. Ironically, as soon as I started treating accidents as not a big deal, they stopped happening.

Further to that though, my change in attitude is having a side effect that I didn’t expect, both in myself and my children…

One morning, I was sitting with the girls eating their breakfast and Pippa knocks over her cereal bowl, knocking the milk all over her trousers. She’s upset, but I tell her not to worry, it was just an accident. I go and get her some new trousers, clean up the floor, wipe her down, give her a big cuddle and let her know it’s ok. No shouting, no arguing, and Pippa albeit upset to start with calmed down quickly and went to play with her toys. It was no big deal, I showed patience, understanding and I comforted her when she was upset. I’m proud of myself for not reacting, there were many occasions in the past this would have enraged me.

After I was done mopping up I sat back down to my coffee which has now gone cold and my other daughter Daisy is still finishing her cereal. I say to her “how are you doing Daisy?” She gets up from her seat, walks over to me, cuddles me and says “I love you Daddy”.

My patience is repaid.

The kids know how hard it was for me to stay calm in that situation. They can see me trying to change my ways for the better, to be more patient, more comforting, more positive, more tolerant. They appreciate it and want to show me that appreciation through their love. They have positively reinforced the behaviour they want to see in me.

Patience, understanding, compassion. These are the pillars through which I can become a better Father.

I’m trying to become the Dad they deserve and as a result, I’m getting the kids I deserve. There is more love between us all, resulting in happier children and a happier Dad.

On to the next challenge!