It comes up on nearly every tour with a family of a toddler, usually in a slightly apologetic voice. Does my child need to be potty trained first? For a great many programs in Calgary the answer is yes, which leaves families stuck between a work start date and a milestone that nobody can actually schedule.
Our answer is no
Our Junior Program serves children from 12 months to 3 years, and it welcomes children who are not yet toilet trained. We work alongside families to support the milestone at whatever point is right for that particular child. We do it this way because attaching a deadline to a bodily process almost always backfires. A child who senses that something important depends on their performance is a child under pressure, and pressure is the one reliable way to slow the whole thing down.
Why training is the wrong word
Montessori educators tend to say toilet learning rather than toilet training, and the distinction is more than fussiness about vocabulary. Training implies an adult conditioning a child through rewards and repetition. Learning describes what is really happening, which is a child gradually gaining conscious control of their own body. Nobody can hand that over on a schedule. Changing the word changes how the adult behaves, which turns out to be most of the work.
What readiness actually looks like
Readiness here is physical and developmental rather than a question of willingness or good behaviour. The signs are quiet and easy to miss:
- Staying dry for longer stretches, and waking dry from a nap.
- Showing awareness during or just after, by pausing, looking down, or going quiet.
- Taking an interest in the bathroom and in what adults and older children do there.
- Being able to pull clothing up and down without help.
- Walking to the bathroom and sitting down independently.
- Telling you afterwards, which almost always comes well before telling you in advance.
A child showing most of these is close. A child showing none of them is not being difficult, they simply are not there yet, and no amount of adult determination moves that timeline forward.
What genuinely helps
- Dress for independence. Elastic waists, nothing with buttons or snaps, and no tight jeans. A child who cannot get their own clothes down will not make it in time, and the failure will not be theirs.
- Make the bathroom workable. A step stool and a seat that feels stable matter more than anything you can buy with a character printed on it.
- Build sitting into the routine at natural points, such as after waking, before going outside, and before a meal, rather than asking throughout the day.
- Let them do their own clothing even though it is slower. Every bit of that is the actual skill being learned.
- Keep a cloth somewhere they can reach it, so cleaning up an accident is simply part of the process rather than something that happens to them.
- Keep your language flat and factual. Wet, dry, toilet, finished. No drama in either direction.
What to leave out
- Sticker charts and reward systems, which move a child's attention from their own body to your approval. The reward is meant to be the control itself.
- Asking whether they need to go every ten minutes, which teaches them to wait for the prompt rather than notice the feeling.
- Any flavour of disappointment, teasing or shame, which reliably produces holding and hiding.
- Starting during another large transition, such as a new sibling, a move, or the first few weeks at a new program.
- Comparisons with siblings, cousins or the child down the hall. The spread of normal here is enormous.
The child's development follows a path of successive stages of independence, and our knowledge of this must guide us in our behaviour towards him.
Accidents are the process, not a setback
Expect them for months, and expect regression whenever something else in life gets big. A new baby, a holiday, an illness or a change of room will often undo several weeks of apparent progress, and it comes back. The most useful thing an adult can do with an accident is make it boring. Hand over a cloth, help without taking over, change the clothes, carry on. Children read our faces far more accurately than our words, and a calm face teaches that this is ordinary and manageable.
Working on it together
Consistency between home and school matters considerably more than which approach you pick. Tell us what you are doing at home and we will match it, including the words your family uses, because a toddler meeting one set of expectations in the morning and a different set in the afternoon has to work twice as hard. Our educators will tell you what they are noticing during the day, and between us the picture is usually clear enough to know whether to press ahead or wait a few weeks.
If you have been holding off on looking at child care because of diapers, you do not need to. Conifers Montessori Academy is a licensed Alberta program in Saddle Ridge, NE Calgary, led by certified Montessori educators and serving children from 12 months to 6 years. We welcome families from Skyview Ranch, Cityscape, Redstone, Cornerstone, Savanna, Martindale, Taradale and across the northeast, and we are glad to talk through where your child is before you commit to anything.