Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Using Positive Reinforcements For Potty Training Your 3 Year Old

One of the best ways to potty train a child at the age of three is with positive reinforcements like a reward system. Your 3 year old potty training methods can be made fun and enjoyable, especially for your child, if you are able to incorporate it into a system where he or she will be rewarded every time he or she is able to successfully perform a particular bathroom behavior properly.

At this particular age, your little one is now beginning to enjoy completing certain tasks, especially if his or her work or behavior will earn rewards. Your child will feel more encouraged to properly perform whatever bathroom behavior you want him or her to learn if you consequence good behavior with a prize. Make your child understand that he or she needs to do a desirable action, like going potty on his or her own, in order to gain something nice, like a new toy or an extra scoop of ice cream. What you need to do is first establish the bathroom behavior that you want to encourage in your child. You may want to focus on something that you want your child to do, instead of something that you wish for him or her not to do. This is one good way of emphasizing the behavior that you want your child to focus on. Make sure that you take notice of the behavior that you want your child to become aware of the moment it happens. This will help your child remember it more easily.

Once you have established the bathroom behavior, you need to set guidelines for your reward system. It is important that your child understands why he or she is getting a prize to associate the reward with the particular behavior you wish to see. Let your child know that if he or she follows your rules, something good comes out of it. Set a standard that your child needs to meet. Try to avoid making the challenge a bit too easy so that your child will develop his or her bathroom behavior, and not just perform a task that does nothing to improve him or her. Make sure that the reward that you intend on giving your child for a successful performance is something that he or she really appreciates. It would be difficult to continue rewarding your child with the same system if your child is not interested in the rewards that you are offering. Another good way to reward your child is to constantly acknowledge good or desirable behavior. Compliment your child for being able to go potty on his or her own. Tell your child how much of a "big boy" or "big girl" he or she is for being able to do it. This will entice your child to try and learn more "grown up" skills. Positive reinforcements through rewards and compliments can greatly improve your 3 year old potty training process. However, its important that rewards don't turn into bribes.




Julie Fletcher has worked from home full time doing Data Entry for 2 years and also enjoys building niche websites like http://BabyChangingTablesShop.com and http://ToddlerCarSeatsShop.com to add to her online income streams