Clinicians can help reinforce the positive developmental aspects of toilet training by supporting, educating, and encouraging parents and their child. To begin the process, it is important for the clinician to understand the child's developmental issues critical to his or her mastery and to understand parents' perspectives on how and when to toilet train.Clinicians also can encourage toilet training for chronically ill and developmentally delayed children, because these children should not be deprived of this developmental achievement when ready.The clinician can explain to parents that toilet training will progress at the individual child's developmental pace and that parents should consider their child's developmental stages and temperament. The child's achievement and sense of accomplishment are the underlying goals.The clinician can help parents to select the best toilet training method for their child and instruct parents on initiating and implementing a toilet training strategy. Clinicians can offer parents educational materials (eg, written guidelines and/or other resources) for additional information.The clinician can advise parents that toilet training is a multistep process and reinforce the fact that setbacks are common, should be anticipated, and need not be seen as a failure, but rather a temporary step back to a more comfortable place and, indeed, usually another natural step toward progress.For the child who is older than 4 years and not trained, the clinician can ask the following questions:
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A 1999 study studied this question.