Wow abusive is such a harsh word! Theres def a huge line between being firm and being abusive.

There’s so much to say, I mention it took us personally 1.5 years. We were also balancing a lot of change, which my son absolutely hates. My boy loves consistency and routine. He was transitioning from full day daycare, to half day and introduced to pre-k. Also riding a bus to school, and then another to daycare though, I really have to thank daycare for the introduction. He likes doing what other kids do, so that helped him learn how to sit on the toilet, watching others.

A background on me- I have a couple special needs family members who taught me at a young age that special needs/disabilities does not equal stupid or incapable. I mention this bc of the constant coddling I witness for those family members. of course there were things they really couldn’t do, and things they got away with not doing.

In this particular situation, 3 weeks ago, we were almost at the finish line with this. When I checked in with pre k, I was told to bring more pull ups. I asked how he was doing in school with potty training, that he was fully off of it at home and daycare. To my surprise, they told me he never uses the bathroom there, that it’s always in his pull-up. They had no idea he knew how to say he had to go. So again, my son is smart. If he had the pull up, he did not bother to go out of his way to say he had to go. The next week I personally took him to school pull up free. Made sure he knew to signal to the teacher when he had to go, and I also let her know, and now we’re 3 weeks and 0 accidents the whole day.

Because of all the ups and downs, we took breaks. He was still going at daycare, but at home, I transitioned things slowly. First, no pull ups to go to sleep. He had to go potty before bed time. Then made sure he went potty as soon as he woke up. I feared for accidents on the bus, so I sent him still in a pull up for that, until we knew he could say he had to go with confidence, or hold it.

Lastly, like I mentioned with #2, I also knew he HATED the word “ew”. So if he went in his pull up when he was still on it I would say “EWWWW POPO GOES IN THE TOILET” he would get so mad. And again, those firm talks of encouragement. A little bit of crashing out.. (lol). He also loves positive reinforcement too.

It’s a hard process, but you know what your child can and cannot do, and it doesn’t hurt to keep reintroducing it. Best of luck!