Tradeoffs

Our son has had some breakthroughs as of late - in the area of reading. It's an interesting thing to watch since we don't really work with him in any way. He will be 4 in December and he's reading. Not alot, but groups of small words here and there. People are quite astonished when they see him read something. I'm mostly intrigued since he does it all on his own. And while I do think it's wonderful and I'm really happy for him, I see it as a developmental piece and there are some, well, tradeoffs.

He's not potty trained - at all. Again, the age of 4 is approaching and it's kind of freaking me out.

He has absolutely no interest in using the potty and is perfectly content to use his pull-ups and not change a thing (except when he needs to be changed, of course.). We've tried the potty thing - a few times. We even bribed him with candy, which seemed to work for a while, and then he just decided getting candy wasn't worth using the potty anymore. As Dr. Phil would say, I guess it's not his 'currency'. Man, I'd really like to know what his 'currency' is. We had even hoped when he attended preschool 2 mornings a week last year, that he would watch the other kids 'go' and be inspired to learn. No such luck.

Wise folks who have been through the parenting mill tell me that he will just be ready some day, and everything will click - the desire, the mechanics of it all, and the willingness to be in a different place developmentally. I even tried to combine his love of reading/being read to with sitting on the potty, but again, it was fun at first, and then he just lost intrest/desire. Now when we try to talk with him about it or encourage him to use his potty, he just starts to melt down. He's not ready. (Big sigh from mom)

My mom stiffles her laughs about it all because . . . . . she remembers. Apparently I was the exact same way. It goes against all the conventional potty-training wisdom - I am a girl after all, and girls are supposed to be 'easy' to train. I was not. In fact, my mom says I was 4 when it all finally came together for me. Because I had two younger sisters, one who was 3 when I was 4, and the other who was almost 2 (my poor mother!), we all ended up being potty trained at about the same time.

If I had the time, training and lots of money, I'd love to do research on the brain and specifically learn how we learn. Are certain things already hard-wired, or do some folks find certain tasks, like reading, very natural, but other things, like new motor skills and developmental items to be more challenging? (We have faced some similar hurdles with teaching him to dress himself). Hmmmm . . this could be, as he was a 'late' walker as well. When he did walk, it just all clicked one day and he went from being an expert crawler to a walker. I don't think he fell even once. That is an interesting piece of it as well, because it's not like he doesn't do the physically developmental tasks well, he just waits until he's ready, and then does it fine. It's almost as if he wants to have a mastery over the new skill from the get-go.

So, I guess we're in a bit of a waiting game with him. Let me tell you, you'll know when that day comes for me. I"ll just write a post, "Hallelujah, HE DID IT!", and you'll know what it's all about. If he follows in his 'way' with learning new skills, he'll be an expert potty-user. In the meantime, I'll appreciate his intrest in reading and just love him for where he's at today.