PARENTS' FEAR OF CONFLICT IN TOILET TRAINING
Benjamin Spock M.D.1 and
Mary Bergen M.S.W.1
1 Division of Psychiatry and the Department of Pediatrics, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio
Many mothers today have come to see training too exclusively as a conflict between mother and child, which only one can win; if the mother wins it will be only by arousing and then overriding the child's hostility. Dreading the conflict, they ignore signs of readiness. Thus training is postponed for months during which the mother is frustrated and the child develops feelings of inadequacy and guilt. Though a young child's possessive impulses may work against training at times, there are several other emotional drives ready to support training: the healthy child wants to master new skills, prefers to be clean, wants to wear grown-up clothes, likes to please and co-operate with his mother most of the time. If mothers can see that the balance is in favor of training, when conducted tactfully, they can go at it in a more assured and effective manner. By 18 months they should be encouraged to take advantage of whatever readiness the child shows and keep tactfully asking for his co-operation until training is achieved.
Submitted on December 23, 1963
Accepted on February 14, 1964
