Hi Folks!!!
My kids are still little and my son is still having a hard time feeling like going to the bathroom in the toilet is worth it to him. **Sigh** But like any other persevering mom, I am determined to not have potty accidents a thing in my house any more!!!
So in the spirit of creating my own, because I love to create things, and I needed to find something that would actually work since the last 3 training styles I had purchased materials on didn’t work for my son, I struck out to find a solution of my own making.
I searched and searched and searched on Google, Bing, Pinterest, Amazon, Target, Walmart, Do2Learn.com, Teacherspayteachers.com among other places as well. This is what finally made the most sense for our situation. I made a DIY game board essentially (Google images of blank game boards and tons come up) and called it Batman’s Mission. I decorated it around the board itself with batman stickers already on hand.
He has a set of expectations he has to meet in order to get a sticker on the game board. Once he reaches 6 stickers, he picks a prize from the prize box. He started at 4 stickers for a prize. As time has gone on, he has to work a little harder to get the stickers and the number of stickers has also gone up.
The expectations to get a sticker each time are:
- Have a calm body (no screaming or throwing a fit when asked to try)
- Doesn’t have a mess in his pants
- Genuinely has to TRY to go
- Cleans any pee that didn’t go where it should (This helped sooooo much with the aiming issue we did have)
- Flushes/Gets dressed (in clean clothes if necessary)
- Washes and dries his hands
- Turns out the light when everything is done
It’s still a work in progress, but it IS progress. There was a time that I thought I would never see forward momentum in potty training with him again. I just had to find what worked as motivation for him. For my son, specifically that came in the form of Batman, his favorite superhero, and Lego rewards. I found a whole bunch of small Lego sets at the Dollar Store and even our local Fry’s Grocery store had some marked down for a dollar and even under. I specifically remember buying 2 things for $0.39. Some were just extra door and window pieces, some were all different sizes of 1 color, some were just the square base parts that are blue or green for land or water…. the point is… that’s the stuff he wanted. Just little things, nothing to break the bank.
And after awhile if he forgot about a sticker, so would I. I still remind him every once in awhile but it’s not as big of a THING now, if that makes sense. It doesn’t turn into a full scale meltdown at the mention of the potty now. Every time we miss meeting the expectations however, I specifically bring it up, and even though we don’t get a sticker that time now, we remind him that he can try again in a short while. Also sometimes when he does an exceptionally good job of doing it all nicely, I’ll throw in an extra sticker. It keeps him motivated to really get it.
When we moved the number of stickers up to 6 from 4, we sat down and had the expectation change talk when he wasn’t about to or had just gone potty though. I wanted it in his mind, but not associated with a specific time of going. That was the hardest though in finding the right time between potty breaks to bring it up. As a mom I’m just soo focused on my to do list sometimes I loose track of timing.
Ok, so now as far as actually putting the chart together, as I mentioned, I googled the image of a blank game board and simply added the title Batman’s Mission. After my daughter saw this, she wanted a Barbie’s Spy Mission chart, so I obliged.
That’s my story of the DIY Potty Chart and the system we are using in our house right now. It’s been about a month total from start to now and like I had already said, its progress finally after a standstill that was gonna eat me alive in this stay-at-home order time frame.
I’ve been contemplating how to use a similar gameboard for chores once the potty training is cemented. If I end up doing it, I’ll be sure to post about it, and if it worked or not.
Feel free to create your own charts and share! We’d love to see your creations!
Whatever you’re creating, keep creating until next time!!
Little Katy Bugs 